Summit suspended amid ‘enormous frustration’ over EU jobs stalemate
DRAINED EU leaders adjourned a marathon summit until Tuesday as they struggled to fill the bloc’s top jobs in the wake of May elections that have upset the EU’s balance of power.
The 28 EU leaders have been meeting in Brussels since Sunday in a bid to end an impasse over who will steer the bloc over the coming years through the looming challenges of Brex it and t he rise of populist parties in Europe.
Despite more than 18 hours of ta lks, t hey still need to find a way to overcome opposition to a Franco-German compromise on who will become the new chief of t he European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.
“We are giv ing an image of Europe t hat is not serious,” French President Emmanuel Macron told journa lists on Tuesday.
With challenges f rom climate change to i l libera l democracy, the EU must reform t he way it ta kes decisions and avoid becoming “hostage” to small groups, Macron said.
Following Monday’s suspension, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters she still “hoped that with good will a compromise will be feasible”.
The compromise Merkel and Macron forged on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan on Saturday called for Dutch Social Democrat Frans Timmermans to head the commission, rather than his conservative rival German Manfred Weber.
Weber would
instead be put for ward for election as speaker of t he European Parliament, where he leads t he la rgest polit ica l bloc.
A libera l candidate would succeed Donald Tusk as president of the European Council of nationa l leaders.
But when Merkel put this to fellow centre-right leaders in the European People’s Part y (EPP), severa l rebelled and the summit was thrown into crisis as heads of government shuttled bet ween side meetings on Sunday evening and Monday.
Timmermans still candidate
The EPP is still the biggest bloc in the European Parliament, but it is no longer the dominant force it was before the May elections.
The liberals, which include Macron supporters, are increasingly assertive over the choice of top jobs after they and the Greens made huge gains in those polls.
Even though t he Socia l Democrat bloc a lso lost ground, Timmermans, the commission’s first and current v ice president, emerged as a compromise candidate to head the powerf ul executive.
Under a new plan, Timmermans would run t he commission and t he EPP’s Krista lina Georgieva, a Bulgarian who is currently the CEO of t he World Bank, would become European Council president, severa l European sources said.
But Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov later told his countr y’s news media in Brussels t hat t he libera ls were block ing Georgieva for council chief.
Meanwhile, sources said, a libera l could replace outgoing diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini of Ita ly. That could either be Belgian prime minister Charles Michel or Danish politician Margrethe Vestager, t he current antitrust commissioner.
‘Enormous frustration’
As for speaker of the European Parliament, the sources added, Weber could serve the first term of two and a half years, then Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who leads the liberal group in the assembly, serve the next term.
The sta lemate has a lready lasted for weeks. An EU summit on June 20-21 failed to resolve dif ferences over candidates.
Timmermans, as vice-president of the commission for the past five years, has made enemies in the east of the EU, but it is not clear whether they have enough support to block his nomination.
He spearheaded EU efforts to impose its vision of the rule of law on authoritarianleaning eastern members and is firmly opposed by Hungary and Poland.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a Socialist, accused a majority of the EPP of reneging on a deal to give Timmermans the commission job and Weber the top parliamentary position.
Sanchez spoke of “enormous frustration” after a “very intense night and day, very long”.
For a nominee to go forward, he or she must secure the backing of 21 of the 28 EU leaders, representing 65 per cent of the bloc’s population.
The European Parliament, which is also involved in the decision-making,is due to debate the candidates in its inaugural post-election session starting Tuesday.