The new European Union constitution is set for implementation on 1 December and the announcement of its first president could take place as soon as 19 November.

The dramatic speeding up of the political process occurred after Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer handed over his country’s Lisbon Treaty’s ratification document on Friday.

At the moment, the presidency of the EU council is held on a rotating basis. The current Swedish presidency has called an EU summit on 19 November to decide on the bloc’s new top appointments, with a Polish proposal to hold candidate hearings gaining limited acceptance.

“It is hoped that at the summit, agreement can be reached on the appointment of the three new top EU posts regulated in the Treaty of Lisbon,” the presidency said in a statement.

The three positions in question are the new president of the European Council and EU foreign relations chief, as well as the largely bureaucratic appointment of a new secretary general of the Council, the Brussels-based institution which prepares member states’ day-to-day meetings.

* Tony Blair faced a fresh flurry of opposition to his already flagging EU presidency bid after it was announced that he has been called to give evidence to a formal commission of inquiry on the huge number of lies he told to justify the Iraq War.

The inquiry, to be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, will start its work on 24 November, but Mr Blair is only expected to be called early in the new year. Relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq have already warned that they plan to confront the ex-PM “face to face” at the hearings.

Meanwhile, Mr Blair, who in a staggering display of hypocrisy currently works as a Middle East “peace envoy,” is desperately trying to shore up his efforts to become EU president.

According to media reports, Mr Blair spent the better part of the past week making telephone calls to various EU leaders as they gathered in Germany to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It seems, however, that Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy has now overtaken Mr Blair as frontrunner for the EU presidency.

France and Germany were expected to join forces to choose a new-look European Union head and did not reportedly favour Mr Blair, despite Gordon Brown campaigning personally on behalf of his predecessor.

Mr Blair appears to be tainted by his support for the illegal Iraq war and Britain’s failure to adopt the euro or join Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband stands as the favourite to secure the other post created under the bloc’s Lisbon Treaty, that of EU foreign policy supremo — despite his insistence he is not a candidate.

The Benelux countries oppose Mr Blair’s candidacy, saying that the first EU Council president should not come from a country that stays away from the euro zone.