Brussels, May 29: The European Union (EU) leaders are engaged in a skirmish on Tuesday about who should be elected to hold the post of the next European Commission leader, providing themselves a deadline to agree over the bloc’s jobs, including a target to assign half of them to women.
According to Reuters news reports, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was unhappy with the public dismissal of preferred Berlin’s candidate by French President Emmanuel Macron. Berlin has nominated Manfred Weber, a center-right German lawmaker, as the European Commission leader has bargained behind closed doors over the new bloc’s leader for the next five years.
As the summit ends in Brussels, Macron told reporters, “The key for me is for the people at the most sensitive positions to share our project and be the most charismatic, creative and competent possible.”
Macron added, “It is important for me to have gender balance, that we name two men and two women.”
Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, has described the leadership race as searching for the next “Mr. or Ms. Europe”.
“We agreed that it is essential for us to show we are capable of action and so we want by the June summit … to have … our proposal for the position of Commission president,” Merkel told a news conference.
She said the French president require to be more realistic and take into account the EU, who nominated Weber for the EC leaders, would remain the largest group in the new council.
Present EC leaderJean-Claude Juncker will step down on October 31, which monitors 28-members states’ budgets, acts as the bloc’s competition watchdog, and policies from climate change to tech regulation.