Manfred Weber aims to be next president of European Commission

The chairman of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, is aiming to become the next president of the European Commission.

Weber expressed his intentions yesterday in the first meeting of the EPP group after the summer recess. The post is currently held by Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Today’s group meeting was also the beginning of our preparation for the European elections,” he said. “Europe is at a turning point - next May, the European elections will decide the future of the European Union, the people will decide.”

Apart from being challenged from the outside, he said, the EU is also being attacked from the inside by radicals, nationalists and anti-Europeans.

“The whole world is in deep transition; digitalisation, globalisation, migration, demographic development! Europe needs a new plan.

“I am firmly convinced that today it is about the self-assertion of Europe and the defence of our values - it is about the survival of our European way of life.

“One important step to tackle these challenges is the nomination of a top candidate from my party in November in Helsinki. “I am ready for it,” he said. “I believe that I can help to kick start a new beginning and a new chapter for Europe - this is so urgently needed because we cannot go on like we are now.

“We cannot allow Europe to get split between East and West, rich and poor, small and large countries - this would be the end of the European Union.

“I want to bring together the interests, build bridges - only together can we be strong otherwise Europe has no chance in today’s world.

“I see myself first of all as a representative of the people, I am elected as an MEP, as a parliamentarian - I want to re-establish the bond between citizens and the European Union.

“This is why it was important for me to announce my decision today first of all in the EPP Group, at the heart of European democracy, in the European Parliament.

“Yesterday my party in Bavaria, the CSU, officially nominated me - today I declared my readiness to my group.

“I want to be the EPP’s lead candidate for the 2019 European elections and the next President of the European Commission.”