BERLIN — She’s an under-60 polyglot, a political centrist who enjoys power, but isn’t intoxicated by it. Behind closed doors, her demeanor is polite and calm, yet forceful. Most important, she’s discreet.

Meet France and Germany’s dream candidate for the next president of the European Commission. Like most fantasies, she’s unlikely to ever materialize.

The next election for the European Parliament may be more than a year away, but Europe’s capitals have already given up hope of installing a dream team to run the Commission. Instead, there’s growing resignation that selecting the EU’s new leadership will be (like most important European decisions) a slog.

“There’s not much we can do but wait and see what happens,” said a senior French diplomat involved in the deliberations.

The difficulty is that the path to next year’s election, scheduled for the end of May, is strewn with political hurdles — from the Franco-German discussion on EU reform, to Brexit, to the budget.

“There is no overall vision for Europe at the moment. No one has one" — Jan Techau, from the German Marshall Fund of the United States

The top job at the Commission will also inevitably be part of the horse-trading for other big posts that become open next year — the presidency of the European Council (the club of the then-to-be 27 EU countries), the bloc’s foreign policy chief and, arguably the biggest of them all, who’ll lead the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

More fundamentally, there are still competing visions within the EU27 over the role of the Commission. While French President Emmanuel Macron favors a more activist executive (at least publicly), others, including several Eastern European countries and Germany, are wary of vesting the Commission with more political clout.

In their view, allowing Brussels more influence means losing it at the national level. They long for a return to the pre-Juncker era, when the president saw himself as more of a bridge-builder than an enforcer and agitator who oversees (in incumbent Jean-Claude Juncker’s words) a “political Commission.” That’s especially true in countries such as Poland and Hungary, which have borne the brunt of the Commission’s activism in recent years.

“There is no overall vision for Europe at the moment,” said Jan Techau, director of the Europe program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank. “No one has one.”

That’s unlikely to change. France and Germany are nowhere close to agreeing to the kind of sweeping European reforms Macron has put on the table, and it looks increasingly unlikely the Juncker Commission will even manage to usher the new multi-year budget through by the end of its term.

Winding road

Against that backdrop, selecting a new person to run the Commission will be particularly fraught. All the more so, given that the question of the so-called Spitzenkandidat has yet to be settled.

To review: The Lisbon Treaty granted Parliament a larger role in approving the Commission president, but it’s still up to the Council to nominate a candidate.

Even if that sounds straightforward, it’s far from it.

The key parties in Parliament insist they won’t approve a nominee who wasn’t a Spitzenkandidat — a candidate selected by his or her party to lead the ticket in the upcoming election. According to the Parliament, the next Commission president must be a Spitzenkandidat.

Parliament argues that electing the Commission president in this way provides the office with more democratic legitimacy, which is exactly why many member countries oppose the process.

Those forces also played out in 2014, when the European People’s Party selected Juncker as its lead candidate, and the Party of European Socialists Martin Schulz. Though many conservatives, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, were uncomfortable with Juncker, he ended up getting the job anyway, in part because the EPP, which received the most votes, couldn’t settle on another candidate.

A number of parameters will be different this time around. The biggest change is the absence of the U.K., which will trigger a complete recalibration of the Parliament.

The body has been dominated by an effective grand coalition between the center right and center left for decades. But with the British Labour Party exiting and the center right under increasing pressure from populist parties, it’s unclear what kind of result will emerge next year.

Even if the EPP remains the leading force, as is widely expected, it’s unlikely to enjoy the same sway it does now.

That’s one reason why whomever the EPP selects as its Spitzenkandidat won’t be a shoo-in for the presidency.

Brexit man in front

So far, most attention has focused on Michel Barnier, the chief Brexit negotiator. A former French foreign minister, Barnier tried to edge out Juncker in 2014 for the EPP nomination but fell short.

This time, if he manages to negotiate a Brexit deal that both limits the damage to Europe and puts the future EU-U.K. relationship on solid footing, he could be hard to stop. His position as chief negotiator has helped him build relationships with leaders across the EU27, an advantage no other candidate is likely to have.

But being an early favorite can be dangerous and there are still big questions about what support, if any, Barnier would get from his party and government. Not having the backing of his party and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris could sink his chances before he gets started.

Also, at 67, Barnier is older than Juncker. For those who want Europe to project an image of modernity and vitality, a white man in his late sixties might not be the best answer.

And then there’s the age-old question of Franco-German balance. If a Frenchman gets the Commission presidency, will Paris give Germany the presidency of the European Central Bank next year? Berlin has long coveted this job.

Focus on Macron

Other viable candidates include Macron-favorite Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner.

Vestager, a Danish liberal, checks many boxes for the ideal candidate in both Paris and Berlin. But Merkel is unlikely to support a candidate from outside the center-right family. Some in Germany also perceive Vestager as too strong-willed and as someone who would pursue a more activist agenda.

Much will depend on what course Macron steers with his En Marche party. En Marche, which didn’t exist at the last European election, has been flirting with the liberal ALDE group and other centrist forces in Parliament.

If Macron succeeds in galvanizing support for his European ideas beyond France, En Marche could become a force to be reckoned with in Parliament. But that’s still a big if.

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is often named as a potential lead candidate for the social democrats. But given the party’s desolate state, it’s doubtful her star would lift it from the doldrums.

The more contentious the process of settling on a nominee via the Spitzenkandidat process becomes, the more likely it is a dark horse candidate could emerge.

“In the end it will be a big European mishmash. But that’s normal" — Jan Techau

Topping that list is Christine Lagarde, who currently heads the International Monetary Fund.

A former conservative French finance minister, Lagarde is widely respected in Germany and has a strong personal relationship with Merkel.

She also knows how Europe works, is multilingual and credited with diplomatic skills that even charmed Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s curmudgeonly former finance minister.

At just over 60, Lagarde might be older than the ideal candidate. But then in European politics, no one is perfect.

“In the end it will be a big European mishmash,” Techau said of the process. “But that’s normal.”

Given the challenges Europe faces in the coming months, “normal” may be little more than another fantasy.