EU leaders fail to agree on new leadership slate during summit

EU leaders failed to agree on a new leadership on Thursday night, after a fractious summit that all but eliminated the top candidates of Europe’s three main political alliances.

After four hours of talks on selecting a new European Commission president, EU leaders agreed to hold a new summit in 10 days because of insufficient support for any of the frontline campaigners.

“There was no majority on any candidate,” said Donald Tusk, the European Council president. 

The outcome is a serious but not terminal setback for the centre-right European People’s Party, which had claimed the commission for its lead election candidate Manfred Weber after becoming the biggest group in the European Parliament after elections in May. 

In a response that cast a shadow over the entire so-called Spitzenkandidat, or lead candidate, concept, the EPP insisted any move to eliminate Mr Weber would in turn justify knocking out the socialists’ Frans Timmermans and the liberal Margrethe Vestager. 

The threat of tit-for-tat measures underlined the growing importance of party affiliations around the summit table, and led to some pointed exchanges between Mark Rutte, the liberal Dutch prime minister, and German chancellor Angela Merkel, according to diplomats. 

After the dinner, Mrs Merkel struck a conciliatory note, saying all sides needed to recognise the political difficulty of securing sufficient support for any candidate in the European Parliament and European Council. 

Asked whether the political deadlock had destroyed the Spitzenkandidat process, Mrs Merkel said: “I cannot give you a definitive answer until the end of the process. However it is naturally a challenge. That is completely clear.” 

It capped a bleak day for Mr Weber, who on Thursday morning was bluntly told by socialists and liberal leaders in the parliament that he would never command their support for Brussels’ top job.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the impasse in the European Council and parliament made clear that it was time to move on from lead candidates such as Mr Weber. 

“I think that now, in the weeks to come, what we have to do is come up with names of people who have the qualifications required to carry out this mission, and so have the experience in their professional and political life,” he said. 

Negotiations are expected to resume next week in Osaka, Japan when France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands will attend the summit of G20 leaders.

The need for the additional summit reflected the EPP’s unwillingness to give up on Mr Weber before he is able to make a second attempt at building a coalition. 

Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, joked that it was often quicker “to elect a pope”.

Other EU vacancies — including for the European Council president and European Central Bank president — were primarily discussed on the sidelines of the summit. Names mentioned for Mr Tusk’s role include prime ministers Charles Michel of Belgium, Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark and António Costa of Portugal. 

Reporting by Jim Brunsden, Alex Barker, Claire Jones and Mehreen Khan in Brussels