Tony Blair, the former UK premier, has begun contacting European Union leaders in his campaign to become the bloc's first full-time president, EU government sources said yesterday.
As Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, became the final EU leader yesterday to sign the Lisbon treaty, which creates the role of president, it emerged that Mr Blair pressed his candidacy in telephone calls last weekend to Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, and Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, a senior London official said.
Mr Blair's decision to raise the tempo of his unofficial campaign was made in the face of mounting evidence that a majority of EU governments would prefer the job to go to a relatively low-profile figure from a smaller country than the UK.
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