Portugal’s prime minister António Costa has delivered a broadside to the man Angela Merkel is said to be supporting to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission.
Almost before the dust settles on results of last week’s European elections, national leaders were in Brussels for a key summit – described as ‘part post mortem’ on the elections’ results and ‘part preliminary discussion’ on who is going to step into Juncker’s shoes.
Before he left, Costa told SIC television news that the ‘favourite’ – backed by German chancellor Angela Merkel – is the wrong man.
“Under no conditions” should Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party since 2014, step into Juncker’s shoes, said the PM – giving very personal reasons.
“We cannot forgive” , he said. “We will never forgive someone who, after putting us under the yoke of austerity, still wanted to punish us. We do not forgive”.
The background to this broadside stems from a potentially dark moment early in Costa’s tenure when Weber sent a letter to Juncker asking the European Commission to “tighten its position on countries failing to abide by EU budgetary rules.
At the time, Portugal fell into this category.
Weber was calling for rules to be “strictly implemented” and non-compliant countries to be punished “if they did not respect them”.
As it was, Portugal side-stepped punishment, and has gone on to recover something of a ‘poster-child’ reputation for economic recovery.
But Costa clearly hasn’t forgotten Weber’s intentions. Add to this the fact that the soft-spoken Baviarian is in favour of strengthening the influence of the European parliament (ie not leaving elected national leaders to be in charge of their most pressing political imperatives) and you have the root of Costa’s opposition.
Says Politico (EU website), Costa (so far) has been “the only EU leader to publicly declare his opposition to Weber”, but he has the support of quite a few others – not least France’s president Macron who has said that Juncker’s successor should have “experience at the highest governmental level, or European Commission level” – neither of which Weber has.
Costa is also backed by Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, the Netherlands Mark Rutte and Belgium’s Charles Michel, all of whom are understood to think Dutch Socialist Frans Timmermans would be a far better choice to take up the reins.
Elsewhere, the wrangle is being seen as one that is likely to ‘rumble on’. Some papers muse that Juncker may have to stay longer at his post, while others suggest Angela Merkel will have to take over, ‘even though she doesn’t want to’…
