There are “no conditions” under which Manfred Weber should become president of the European Commission, according to Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa.
There is “almost absolute rejection” of Weber — the European People’s Party candidate for Commission chief — in the European Council, and in the European Parliament the German “generates … hostility,” the Portuguese leader said in an interview with Sic Notícias.
The interview took place late Monday, just after Costa had a conference call with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte and Belgium’s Charles Michel.
EU leaders will have a working dinner on Tuesday evening at which they will begin to discuss the EU top jobs that need filling this year, including the Commission presidency for which Weber is the official conservative candidate.
Costa — who has been pushing for a broad “progressive coalition” stretching from Syriza in Greece to Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche — also spoke about the Socialist candidate for Commission president, Frans Timmermans. The Dutchman “has several qualities that help him to be a candidate of consensus. Being a socialist, he has a good relationship with other political families,” Costa said.
Asked about the success of Greens across Europe in the weekend’s election, Costa said: “In the Parliament framework, the Greens will have a very important role, but not in the Council since they are not there.”
Costa’s Socialist Party won the European election with 33.4 percent of the vote — the first time in two decades that a sitting government in Lisbon has won a European election.