Well, about six months ago, when I still had hopes of the European Commission job coming through, I applied for a vacancy in the European Parliament’s administrative staff. Rather to my surprise they got back to me last week, offering me interviews on 24 and 25 November.

This was mildly inconvenient. I had already planned to go to the Hague on the evening of the 24th, for the dance performance postpomed from the royal wedding earlier this year, and also had a big meeting with the foreign ministry of Luxembourg planned for the 25th. Still, these are ephemeral commitments that one would blow off if a more attractive job was in prospect.

I had a long heart-to-heart last night with Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament. He pointed out to me that although the money might be better at the European Parliament, he had to (reluctantly) admit that my general level of influence, and indeed career prospets, are much better where I am.

So I think I’ll write a brief email withdrawing my application. No point in applying for something I don’t really want.

1) You can’t rely on everyone. I’m pretty sure that Finnish ex-president Martti Ahtisaari never said a word to Rehn about me, for instance. And Paddy Ashdown was constrained by his institutional position from saying anything.

2) You can rely on some people. Roll of honour: Finnish ambassador Alpo Rusi, who had only met me once; Finnish ex-foreign minister Pär Stenbäck; Irish ex-MEP Pat Cox; British MEP Sarah Ludford; Dutch princess Mabel van Oranje. Probably also Andrew Duff and Graham Watson, with an honourable mention from Bronislaw Geremek who actually broke the news that I didn’t get the job. I’ll happily return the favour some day, not that any of hem will ever need it.

3) I should probably have unleashed the MEPs on Rehn a few weeks earlier in the game.

More thoughts later.

…well, it looks like the story has come to an end. Just got an email from the former foreign minister of Poland saying:

I am ready to support your candidacy for a position in Olli Rehn’s cabinet. Knowing your excellent work for the ICG I think you would make for a great candidate. However, I was recently told by [a mutual friend], as well as by Olli Rehn himself, that he has already completed his cabinet. But I do wish you good luck in your further endeavours.

Well, it’s a pretty good source for not very welcome news.

Oh well, there we go. I’m not feeling a great urgency about moving on from here, but news like this, after the pretty immense efforts I put in, is pretty depressing.

I have a bunch of things to do still here but I think I’ll just clear the desk and go home, and kid myself that I’ll get up early tomorrow and do them then.

Managed a quick chat with the Finnish ex-foreign minister about my job prospects. He said he’d heard back from Commissioner Rehn that I am a good candidate and will certainly be interviewed, but that “it remains to be seen how national balance and gender balance can be achieved.” It’s not much, but it takes me forward from a week ago, when I feared I might not get the job due to being male; now there seems at least a chance that the gender balance of the rest of the team might be shaped around me if I get the job.

Of the people I emailed yesterday, two of the British MEPs have promised to speak to Rehn tomorrow when he appears in Strasbourg, which is probably enough for now.

Well, I just spoke to the Foreign Office who told me that their info was that there are two positions of the six unfilled, not one. Interesting – the chef de cabinet and deputy positions have been announced, which leaves four. I had assumed that two would go to Finns and one to my Swedish friend. Butif there are two vacancies left then either

a) one of the the positions I thought would be taken by a Finn is actually open to other nationalities (and knowing Rehn’s reputation as an internationalist – only one of his current cabinet is a Finn – that seems possible), or else

b) my Swedish friend herself may be off the team if a better candidate comes along.

I think the first is more likely but I don’t think it’s appropriate to inquire of my friend.

Interestingly the Foreign Office told me that they themselves were neutral between me and the guy currently doing the job for Chris Patten, though obviously (they said) Patten himself will be pushing hard on his man’s behalf. But if I were Rehn I would be inclined to start with a team I had chosen myself. Also I suspect my network is deeper rooted than Patrick’s.

What I have done is try to mobilise support from within my own network. The Finnish ambassador I tried last week did actually contact Rehn on my behalf, and got the same reply as the British – “no decision has been made yet”. The former Finnish foreign minister who also promised to contact Rehn hasn’t yet confirmed to me that he did. The leader of the Liberals in the European Parliament promises to mention me when he sees Rehn on Wednesday.

This afternoon I’ve emailed a number of contacts either to ask if they know Rehn or (if I felt it appropriate) to ask them to write a reference. I’ll follow up by phone with them tomorrow.

a) “Do you know Rehn?” – 4 British Liberal MEPs; one Hungarian MP Matyas Eorsi; one Dutch elder statesman type.

b) “Please write me a reference!” – Irish board member and former MEP; Polich board member and MEP; Finnish MP and ex-MEP; Belgian MEP; two Dutch MEPs.

I’m beginning to realise that a strike rate of 1 in 4 from all of this is probably better than I can expect. So I’m trying hard to think of other useful political contacts: Finns, Liberals, or anyone really, I’m not fussy.

I bet the Finnish ex-president never made that phone call. Paddy Ashdown’s people had the decency to confirm that their boss did not in fact mention me over his lunch with Rehn last week. They had warned me in advance that the situation wasn’t really appropriate for it. I also emailed the Irish foreign ministry but I don’t honestly expect anything to come of that – they’re pretty useless at this kind of thing.

So I feel a bit better than I did at the weekend. What bothers me now is that I’m travelling a lot over the next few weeks – Moldova this coming Thursday to Sunday, the Hague today week, then a not-quite-48-hour trip to Belfast from Tuesday night to Thursday morning next week, then Portugal from the following Wednesday through to Sunday. And we have visitors on the weekend in between for Ursula’s christening. So if it comes to a job interview, it could be tricky to track me down.

Well, on Wednesday morning I heard from the British that there is anothe UK candidate for the job I want to get with Commissioner Olli Rehn – specifically, the guy who is currently doing the same job for Chris Patten. It seems that the Foreign Office is backing him, not me.

I was pissed off but not devastated by this. As someone else had already said to me, having the FCO on your side in these cases can sometimes be a hindrance rather than an advantage. But I was annoyed that they had given me to understand that I had their support, when in reality they had another candidate in mind. My revenge will be that, if I get the job, I shall have my nationality listed as Irish. Perfidious Albion, hah.

So I started working the Finnish angle again. A few months ago I had had a very friendly meeting with their ambassador-at-large for the Balkans. Googling his name for connections with Commissioner Rehn, I discovered that not only do the two know each other, but when the ambassador got embroiled in a spy scandal a couple of years ago, Rehn wrote a book to clear his name. I contacted the ambassador, who replied literally within seconds, promising to flag me up as a good candidate when he met Rehn yesterday.

I also emailed a former Finnish foreign minister, who replied in similarly positive terms. The fact that I haven’t yet heard back from either the ambassador or the ex-minister suggests to me that Commissioner Rehn is still making up his mind; if he had made the decision I guess the news would have reached me one way or another. And if he’s still making up his mind, that suggests that my last-minute lobbying via Helsinki may well have improved my chances.

So that leaves me hanging on somewhat. Then yesterday evening my boss called me in for a heart-to-heart. He had picked up my potential plans on the grapevine (I haven’t made a particular secret of it) and was actually disquietingly keen on the idea of my moving on; not out of dissatisfaction with me or my work, but because of his usual annual angst about budget cuts. On the one hand, I went through the process last year and the year before of him panicking that there was no money and bracing for huge cuts to my budget which turned out not to be necessary; on the other, it’s very unnerving when my own position, not just my program, becomes part of the equation.

So, an unsettled weekend looms, with unsettled weather to boot. At least we have a couple of things to look forward to – a wedding reception this evening, and a neighbour’s birthday party tomorrow evening.

Incidentally I shook hands with Peter Mandelson at a reception on Wednesday night; he seems to be settling in (and as someone pointed out the last-but-one commissioner to have his portfolio, competition, was also British). But I have no intention of seeking work with him.

So, the process is in its last stages.

I was at a rather dull meeting this morning (with one or two bright points which I’ll write up in a public post this evening). In attendance also was my good friend M. who told me that she had discovered that five of the six places in Commissioner Rehn’s cabinet are already filled. Unfortunately for me, four of the five are male, and only one female, and the Finns are particularly concerned to have a reasonable representation of women, so I may well lose out.

But apparently their ex-President put in a word for me over lunch, and Paddy Ashdown will do the same tomorrow. And my friend M., who is a woman, argued strongly to the Commissioner that gender shouldn’t really matter so much. So at least the wait is likely to be over soon.

I hope it’s not necessary to say that I myself don’t particularly resent the gender dimension to this situation. I’m a little pissed off that I may lose out because they couldn’t find a Finnish woman to fill one of the three slots for Finns, but I’m well aware that all these positions are created and filled by political criteria; I suspect that my native language will also tell against me (supposedly there should be some balance between French speakers and English speakers). And in any case I support the idea of hiring more women for senior political positions in general, which means by extension that I have to take the lumps if this turns out to work against me in particular.

But it’s not over yet anyway…

My old friends at Euractiv have published a guide to the new cabinets. I see Rehn’s deputy chef de cabinet is Fabrizio Barbaso, who I think I’ve met and been friendly with before, though several years ago. I’ve also heard that Mia Åsenius, a Swedish friend of mine who is currently in his cabinet, will stay on to deal with the European Parliament where she used to work. Interesting that Pesonen, the chef de cabinet, and Barbaso, the deputy, are both already Commission officials; must improve the chances of outsiders like me getting the other posts.

I had a good meeting this morning with Graham Watson, leader of the liberal MEPs, who is going off to Serbia and Montenegro this weekend (and I was able to tip him off about imminent intersting developments in EU policy towards the two republics). He is the first person I’ve approached who actually knows incoming Commissioner Rehn particularly well, as they were MEPs together in the mid 1990s. I’ve always got on with him well too – see Midleton whiskey entry from January and he offered with alacrity to Put In A Good Word For Me.

I thought Graham was looking rather well. New haircut, and he’s switched to contact lenses. Also no longer looking over his shoulder at his predecessor – I thought he spent the last two and a half years very much in Pat Cox’s shadow (odd because Graham is much taller, but of course his office is on the fifth floor of the parliament and Pat’s was on the twelfth). And he’s pulled off the triumph of attracting into his group both the centre-right French faction led by Francois Bayrou, and the lefty Italians led by the fantastic Emma Bonino. Well, we’ll see what happens.

I was out for a drink on Monday with Paddy Ashdown’s representative in Brussels, discussing our mutual career prospects. (Her boyfriend’s an American film-maker, lives in Paris, “He’s won a couple of – what are they called, Emmys? Is that right?”) Turns out she is also a lapsed scientist like me, and got the best results in physics in her school leaving exam in her entire country before studying politics at university. (Granted, it’s a relatively small country, but still an impressive achievement.)

She suggested that I ask her boss to write me a reference. Of course, a great idea that I should have thought of myself. I had occasional dealings with him in the early 1990s when I was chair of the Northern Ireland branch of the Liberal Democrats, at the same time also running election campaigns for the Alliance Party, and since we both developed interests in the Balkans we’ve developed quite close links. Ashdown is now of course in charge of running the international community’s presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

So I checked out with one of his advisers in Sarajevo who is an old friend of mine and who in fact used to have effectively the job that I am currently applying for, as a member of Chris Patten’s cabinet, before he went to Bosnia to work for Paddy. He talked to Paddy this morning and they will Put In A Word for me with Commissioner Rehn when they see him next week. So that is another box ticked.

In the meantime, my Monday conversation had left me a little nostalgic for the science I did so long ago. So I’ve fired off a very speculative application to Commissioner Potočnik, who I met in June, and who’s been given the Research portfolio currently held by the rather anonymous Belgian Commissioner, Philippe Busquin. I don’t know much about it, but the idea of tinkering with the European Union’s space program tickles my fannish interests… Very little chance, I suspect.