June 22 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc Chairman Peter Sutherland, 58, said he is one of several candidates to take over from Romano Prodi as president of the European Commission.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern got in touch with fellow Irishman Sutherland earlier this year to ask him if he would consider the job, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today. Sutherland, who is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International in London, was a former European commissioner and head of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

``I know my name was mentioned at the European Council,'' Sutherland told reporters at a conference in Rome. He ranked 11th in a Times of London list of Britain's most powerful men in 2003. ``There are many names and I know mine is one of them.''

European Union leaders failed to agree at last week's summit in Brussels on Prodi's successor to run the EU's regulatory and executive arm. Britain and Italy championed the U.K.'s Chris Patten and resisted French and German efforts to secure the post for Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

The standoff opens the way for a compromise candidate such as Sutherland, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, European Parliament President Pat Cox, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean- Claude Juncker or Ahern himself, newspapers ranging from Britain's Financial Times to Germany's Focus have reported.

Portuguese Candidate

Durao Barroso, 48, has emerged as a front-runner, the daily Portuguese newspaper Publico reported today, without saying where it got the information. The premier is not interested in the post, his spokeswoman Leonor Ribeiro da Silva said.

The Portuguese leader would have the backing of the European conservatives and would meet French requirements that Prodi's successor should come from a country that uses the euro and belongs to the Schengen treaty allowing free cross-border circulation of people, Publico said.

Ireland, which took over the rotating presidency of the European Union in January, wants to sort out the appointment by the time it hands the EU chairmanship to the Netherlands on July 1. The five-year presidential term starts Nov. 1.

Ahearn is still looking for consensus on a new commission president, said an Irish government spokeswoman who declined to be named.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Scherer in Rome at scherer@bloomberg.net. Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 22, 2004 10:32 EDT