British Premier Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the current president of the fifteen-member EU, have agreed that the Union will seek to name a successor at a summit in Berlin next week.

Blair, after meeting with Schroeder in London, said the Commission should go out as ``reasonably and practically as possible''.

Meanwhile, countries like Greece and Spain preferred President Jacques Santer to remain in office as head of a caretaker mission, reflecting a north-south divide within the EU. The five-year term of the Commission is due to end in December this year.

The prospect of a quick resolution to the crisis sparked by a critical report on mismanagement, cronyism and lack of financial control in theall-powerful European bureaucracy has grown as it is becoming increasingly evident that the discredited Commission will be immediately replaced.

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, former Italian premier Romano Prodi, former Spanish premier Federio Gonzalez, NATO Secretary General Javier Solanas and the trade commissioner in the outgoing Commission Sir Leon Brittain of Britain are being mentioned as possible candidates for the post of caretaker president of the Commission.

President of the European parliament Jose Maria Gil Robles said a new leader for the Commission should be sought immediately and that to allow Santer to continue in office would be the ``worst solution''.

He said heads of the parliament's political groups supported the conclusions of the report of the five-member independent committee of auditors.

While the commissioners remained in their posts as caretakers with the issue of replacements being discussed by the EU governments, Santer himself at a press conference in Brusselsyesterday said he wanted to be reinstated and stay on till the completion of the Commission's term.

A defiant Santer said he was ``shocked'' over the tone of the report and that neither he nor any of the commissioners had personally benefited from any fraud.

The EU crisis has added to an already tortuous agenda at the EU special summit in Berlin next week where Schroeder hopes for an agreement on reforming the contentious EU budget to allow EU's enlargement to go forward.

In what is billed as a make or break summit, Schroeder said he was anxious to show that Europe was ``up and running'' and that the crisis would not delay attempts to reform the EU budget.