Blair to bounce back after EU snub

Former British premier Tony Blair may have been rejected as EU president, but the snub leaves him free him to pursue his dizzying array of activities _ not least making money, experts said Friday.

Blair, Middle East envoy since leaving office two years ago, will almost certainly "bounce back'' and take another major international role, they said.

The 56-year-old was at one stage frontrunner for the new European Union job, but was dropped in favour of low-profile Belgian premier Herman van Rompuy, chosen for the new EU job in Brussels on Thursday night.

"I think it will be something of a relief,'' Professor Richard Whitman of the respected London thinktank Chatham House told AFP, citing two reasons.

"The first being the consequences which it would have had for him financially, in terms of loss of earnings... but the second reason would be that he wouldn't have had anything like the freedom to speak his own mind.''

Hours after leaving Downing Street in June 2007, Blair was named envoy of the so-called Middle East Quartet, representing the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations.

But while spending a reported 10 days a month in the region he has developed a vast number of other projects, among the most high-profile of which have been promoting inter-faith dialogue and backing economic development in Africa.

While those activities make little cash, he earns handsome sums from clients including JP Morgan Chase and Zurich Financial, and commands huge fees on the global lecture circuit.

Not to mention his consultancy Tony Blair Associates (TBA), or his memoirs, which could be published as early as next year, if as expected his successor as British premier Gordon Brown is ousted in elections due by June.

All of which helps pay for the huge outgoings he and wife Cherie have taken on since leaving office _ including a vast mortgage on their main London home, bought for four million pounds (4.4 million euros, 6.6 million dollars) at the height of the global property boom.

All of this would have been called into question if he had been handed the EU job.

Critics said the EU rejection was a payback for Blair's divisive role over the 2003 Iraq war, in which he backed US president George W. Bush's invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, splitting Europe down the middle.

Others opposed him because of his sheer political star power, which might have stopped the traffic in Washington or Beijing, but which would have overshadowed many of the 27-country bloc's national leaders.

The Times' political editor Philip Webster said Blair was the "big loser'' of the horse-trading for the EU top jobs, which saw little-known figures named EU president and foreign policy chief.

"Yesterday was the day that his past caught up with him. His alliance with George Bush in the prosecution of the Iraq war was deeply unpopular with most EU countries,'' he wrote.

Neither Blair nor his spokesman has made any comment since Brown announced Thursday night that Britain had dropped Blair's candidacy, after failing to secure enough EU support.

But friends have stressed that he was "enjoying his new life'' and "proud of the projects he has developed since leaving office,'' adding that he had "never been standing by the phone waiting for it to ring'' for the EU job.

"Blair's embarrassment at being so publicly rebuffed by the EU 27 will not last long and he will bounce back as usual,'' wrote Michael White of the Guardian in a blog on Thursday's events in Brussels.

"Personally, I didn't think he would ever want such a frustrating role, pinned down by cautious _ and jealous _ national leaders at every turn; it would have been like watching paint dry very slowly,'' he added.

For the Wall Street Journal, Iain Martin blogged that Blair might be out of the race, but "Now he'll aim higher.''

"If the EU didn't want TB, I suspect he will shrug and say that is their fault for not thinking big enough. Their loss; their fault for being too parochial. Now he'll want a big global role of some sort.

"Tony Blair is not going to retire quietly. The world hasn't heard the last of him yet,'' he wrote.