Expand / Collapse search
Watch TV
Menu

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

Europe

The Latest: Lawmakers want to choose EU Commission head

Associated Press
Published | Updated
4a6e5359-

Germany's Manfred Weber speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of the European People's Party prior to an EU summit in Brussels, Tuesday, May 28, 2019. European Union leaders are meeting in Brussels to haggle over who should lead the 28-nation bloc's key institutions for the next five years after weekend elections shook up Europe's political landscape. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

BRUSSELS – The Latest on the European Union summit (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani says the legislature believes the new head of the EU executive Commission should be chosen from the candidates put forward by the political groupings in the parliament.

That could put the legislature at odds with some EU leaders who want a wider choice in the search for a successor to Jean-Claude Juncker.

According to the rules, the EU leaders have to take the election results into account to select a new EU Commission president, but they do not have to choose any of the blocs' candidates.

The European parliament however, will have to approve the new president, and this could lead to a long session of horse trading between the legislators and the EU leaders.

Over the next months, the EU also has to pick new leaders for the EU Council, the parliament, the European Central Bank and a foreign policy chief. Traditionally the choices for those spots are always interrelated and subject to hot debate among the political groups.

___

9:45 a.m.

European Union leaders are converging on Brussels to haggle over who should lead the 28-nation bloc's key institutions for the next five years after weekend elections shook up Europe's political landscape.

Presidents and prime ministers will meet over dinner Tuesday evening to choose who should take over as head of the EU's powerful executive branch, the European Commission, currently led by Jean-Claude Juncker.

They are also likely to weigh candidates for European Council president to replace Donald Tusk, EU high representative — essentially the foreign minister — and head of the European Central Bank.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose coalition suffered in Sunday's EU-wide elections, says she wants to see a quick agreement on who should run the commission, which proposes and enforces the bloc's laws.