Foreign secretary William Hague has dismissed Tony Blair's vision for an elected head of the European Union by insisting that member states have more pressing priorities than further "constitutional tinkering".
Hague made clear his view after Blair argued that a directly elected president of Europe, representing almost 400m people from 27 countries, would give the EU clear leadership and enormous authority.
In an interview with the Times, Blair set out the agenda that he thought a directly elected EU president should pursue, although he conceded there was "no chance" of such a post being created "at the present time".
Asked about the former prime minister's call for further European integration and the creation of an elected president, Hague suggested that Blair may have been thinking of the role for himself.
"I can't think who he had in mind," Hague joked.
Speaking at a Lancaster House press conference following talks with his South African counterpart, Hague added: "Elected presidents are for countries. The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.
"So the appropriate solution is not an elected president for a group of countries, it's for those countries each to promote economic growth in their countries, to bring their deficits under control. They are the immediate priorities for Europe, rather than further constitutional tinkering or change."
Blair, speaking to the Times to mark the publication of the his autobiography, A Journey, in paperback, warned that Europe should be ready to unify to avoid losing out to the economic and military power of China and other booming economies, such as Brazil and India.
"We won't have the weight and influence a country like Britain needs unless we're part of that European power as well," Blair said. "Europe has got a fantastic opportunity, but only if it's prepared to reform and change radically in the way it works."
He said the process of holding an election would give Europeans a greater affinity with the EU and would also change citizens' beliefs that unity was only about sustaining peace in Europe.
Blair said: "For Europe, the crucial thing is to understand that the only way you will get support today is not on the basis of a sort of postwar view that the EU is necessary for peace. For my children's generation, that is just a bizarre argument.
"They don't see that as a real threat, that European nations will go to war with each other. But they can understand that in a world in which China is going to become the dominant power of the 21st century, it is sensible for Europe to combine together, to use its collective weight in order to achieve influence. And the rationale for Europe today, therefore, is about power, not peace."
He set out five areas in which the EU should become closer: tax policy and "the social model"; completion of the single market; and in forging a common energy policy; a common defence policy; and a common immigration and organised crime policy.
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