Factbox: Names in the frame for top EU jobs

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders meet on Wednesday to discuss candidates for several top jobs in the 28-member union after the election of former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the executive European Commission. Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, 41, a socialist who has been in the job only since February, is seen as front-runner to be the EU's new foreign policy chief, succeeding Catherine Ashton of Britain for a five-year term. Following are pen pictures of other possible contenders for that post and for other EU leadership positions: FOREIGN AFFAIRS RADOSLAW SIKORSKI - Sikorski, 51, Poland's foreign minister since 2007, a widely respected strategic thinker, has been an outspoken critic of what he calls Russian expansionism before and during the current crisis in Ukraine. When Moscow intervened militarily in Georgia in 2008, he said the world had to take decisive action or the Kremlin would go further. When Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula this year, Sikorski said events had proved his warning correct. However, his outspoken criticism of Poland's eastern neighbor has made west European powers such as Germany, France and Italy wary of making him EU foreign policy chief, despite his strong credentials. KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA - Georgieva, 60, a Bulgarian former World Bank official, has been European commissioner for International Cooperation since 2010. In that role, the trained economist has overseen the EU's big humanitarian aid budget, earning a reputation as a safe pair of hands. Before joining the Commission, she spent much of her career at the World Bank, serving as country representative in Russia, and vice-president of the bank. She won praise for managing Europe's response in a number of crises and disasters that struck the world since 2010, including earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, floods in Pakistan and a refugee crisis in and around Syria. Georgieva was criticised at home for not supported Bulgaria in its attempts to cope with a soaring number of asylum seekers, mainly Syrian refugees, and with recent floods. EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT HELLE THORNING-SCHMIDT - The centre-left Danish prime minister is front-runner to succeed Herman Van Rompuy as president of the European Council, chairing EU summits. A resilient consensus-builder with an international outlook, she steered through unpopular welfare reforms after she became the Scandinavian nation's first female leader in 2011. She catapulted to global media fame with a "selfie" she took with U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, drawing some criticism for frivolity on a day of mourning. Daughter-in-law of Neil Kinnock, a former long-serving British Labour Party leader and former EU commissioner, she has been a member of the European Parliament. Thorning-Schmidt, 47, has been unpopular at home where her reforms opened her to charges of "broken promises" on the left. She has also had to shake off the nickname "Gucci-Helle" in the Danish press for her love of designer clothes. ANDRUS ANSIP - The former Estonian prime minister, a centre-right liberal and a skilled political operator, is seen as a possible candidate for president of the European Council if Thorning-Schmidt fails. Ansip, 57, was the Baltic state's longest serving premier, holding the post for nine years, and led his country into the euro zone in 2011 before resigning this year to keep a promise not to lead his party into the next election due in 2015. He was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the centre-right Estonian Reform Party in May. Before becoming prime minister in 2005, he served as mayor of Estonia’s second largest city and as economy minister. He is seen a technocrat with a good head for figures and details who sticks to a fiscally conservative economic policy with tenacity. VALDIS DOMBROVSKIS - The former prime minister of Latvia led the Baltic state through the global financial crisis with tough public spending cuts and ushering it into the euro zone as one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. The 41-year-old centre-right politician is an advocate of austerity and is close to northern European states like Germany in calling for tough economic and welfare reforms. Despite his government's radical spending cuts after a financial bubble burst in 2008, Dombrovskis was re-elected twice. He resigned in November 2013, taking political responsibility after a supermarket roof collapsed in Riga killing more than 50 people. EUROGROUP CHAIRMAN LUIS DE GUINDOS - As Spain’s economy minister since December 2011, the conservative De Guindos has overseen the rescue and restructuring of its battered banking system. He is now the leading contender to become the first full-time chairman of the euro zone's finance ministers for a term of five years. He took charge of shaking up Spanish banks following a 42 billion euro bailout with European funds in June 2012 and of reshaping the economy after a decade-long boom fueled by a real estate bubble ended abruptly in 2008. While he has passed key reforms to make the public pension system more sustainable and boost Spanish firm’s international competitiveness, the public deficit has remained high at more than 6 percent of national output and unemployment jumped to 25 percent as a record number of companies went bankrupt. De Guindos previously held senior economic positions in the right-wing governments of Jose Maria Aznar between 1996 and 2004. He was Lehman Brothers’ executive chairman for Spain and Portugal from 2006 until the bank collapsed in 2008, head of the financial unit of auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers in Spain between 2008 and 2010 and sat on the boards of Endesa, Logista and Banco Mare Nostrum. ECONOMICS COMMISSIONER PIERRE MOSCOVICI - The centre-left former French finance minister, who lost his job in a cabinet reshuffle in March, is his country's top pick for a big economic portfolio in the European Commission. A Europhile and promoter of pro-growth policies, Moscovici, 56, favours deeper integration of the euro zone and was one of the first to call for a common unemployment benefit to be funded by a separate euro zone budget. He favours further efforts to stimulate growth - including through a weaker exchange rate for the euro. A former European affairs minister and member of the European Parliament, he is an expert in the workings of the EU. But critics, notably in Germany, question whether he has the depth of financial understanding and mental toughness for the Commission's top economic job, and note that France remains off course to bring its deficit under the EU limit of 3 percent of economic output. (The story is corrected to drop erroneous reference to Georgieva as former Bulgarian foreign minister.) (Reporting by Alistair Scrutton in Stockholm, Christian Lowe in Warsaw, Sabina Zawadzki in Copenhagen, David Mardiste in Tallinn, Julien Toyer in Madrid and Nicholas Vinocur in Paris; Writing by Paul Taylor)