If it was up to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Denmark’s next EU Commissioner would be Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard (Cons), according to Berlingske Tidende.

Commission sources say that Barroso has told Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmiussen (Lib) that he sees Hedegaard as a prime candidate for the post of Climate Commissioner. Hedegaard is currently a primus motor in arranging December’s UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

Quick decision
According to the report the Danish government is under pressure to find a new commissioner following the decision by EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel not to seek re-appointment. The Swedish government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, has said that it wants member countries to suggest commissioner candidates prior to next week’s EU summit.

Berlingske Tidende writes that the prime minister’s office will be deciding who to put forward, and that until now the view has been that the next commissioner should be a member of the governing Liberal Party. Although Education Minister Bertel Haarder seems an obvious choice, Barroso is known to want a reasonable gender distribution in the Commission.

This in turn would put Minister for Food Eva Kjer Hansen (Lib) and Development Minister Ulla Tørnæs (Lib) in the running. But according to the newspaper’s sources, the two posts most likely for these two are unlikely to go to Denmark, which has already held them in recent years.

Hedegaard is reported to be interested in the post of Climate Commissioner, but internal party politics between the Liberal and Conservative parties make her road to Brussels something of a minefield of domestic political manoeuvring.