BRUSSELS, June 30 — European Union leaders meet today to decide who wins the bloc’s top posts, with Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans in pole position to be named the EU’s next chief executive, diplomats and officials said.
Following are comments by EU leaders as they arrived for the summit in Brussels.
French President Emmanuel Macron
“It’s important for me that we are able to emerge from this Council with answers and the new team.”
“This is the new team that we are going to decide on, for three of the names today, for the ECB probably a little later.”
“There should be two men and two women (referring to the council of EU leaders who is responsible for nominating four key positions – including the president of the European Commission and the president of the ECB).”
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
“I hope that we make a decision tonight. And that we don’t just get to a choice about the chief of the European Commission but if possible to a whole package.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to talk about names, I also hear all kinds of rumours. We’re going to try to get a decision tonight.”
“That you think that one candidate or another may have a chance and then that appears to change again. So we’re going to calmly wait tonight.”
“It’s still really unclear who will become the President of the Commission. The fact is in Osaka there were a number of European countries, who of course also talked about the situation, but there are no concrete compromises on the table.”
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis
“The V4 (Visegrad group of central European countries) said at the beginning that we are against the Spitzencandidaten.”
“(Timmermans for Commission president?) I’m afraid that this person is not really the right one to unite Europe, not divide it more. In the past we have a feeling that it was not very positive on our region and I am asking: where are the women?” — Reuters
