EU Leaders Stake Out Positions Ahead of Fight to Run Commission

(Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders sketched out the dividing lines over the appointment of key officials in the coming months, signaling a tussle for control of the EU Commission.

Austria’s Sebastian Kurz defended the so-called “Spitzenkandidat” convention where the party with the most seats in this month’s European parliament elections gets to name the commission chief. That would mean either Manfred Weber, a German conservative, or Frans Timmermans, a social democrat from the Netherlands. France’s Emmanuel Macron and Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel rejected that approach, potentially bringing a wider field of candidates into play.

“It will be hard to tell voters first that there will be elections and then a few of the elite leaders will later say: oh well, let the people vote, but we will decide that in a small circle among ourselves,” Kurz said. “I would not view this as being democratic.”

Macron said the Spitzenkandidat approach -- a convention rather than a written rule -- would only make sense if there were trans-national lists in the elections. That idea was rejected by the EU parliament.

‘Stupid Idea’

Kurz’s Austrian party is part of the center-right European People’s Party group at the EU Parliament which is backing Weber. The EPP is on track to have the most deputies, polls show.

"The Spitzenkandidat was quite a stupid idea in the first place,” Bettel said.

Macron hasn’t said whom he backs for the commission, just one of the big jobs to be filled this year, with the EU is also seeking a new head of the European Central Bank, a president for the Council of EU leaders, and a foreign policy chief.

Italy’s Giuseppe Conte said that his country still had allies going into the negotiations, despite the friction caused by his euroskeptic deputy, Matteo Salvini.

"We have a complex about being isolated, but you’ll see we are not," he told reporters.

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