EU leaders toil to decide on top jobs

European Union leaders have struggled to narrow down a list of candidates for key posts amid deep divisions over how to best balance political, geographic and gender considerations.

Some five hours after leaders began arriving at EU headquarters in Brussels, the full summit had yet to start.

Leaders met in pairs or huddled in groups, looking for ways to break an impasse in the selection process.

The summit was the third in just over a month aimed at nailing down the appointments to the EU’s top jobs.

They include picking a replacement for Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the EU’s powerful executive arm, the European Commission, and for Donald Tusk as head of the agenda-setting European Council.

Some leaders also discussed the list of upcoming vacancies – which will include the EU’s top diplomat, the president of the European Parliament and the chief of the European Central Bank (ECB) – on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan that concluded on Saturday.

Mr Tusk and Mr Juncker’s mandates expire at the end of October.

Asked about likely candidates for Mr Juncker’s job at the European Commission, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Sunday: “That’s a moving picture.”

“You think that one candidate or another possibly has the best chance and it keeps shifting,” he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for a “spirit of compromise and above all ambition” as the leaders look to name what he described as “the new Team Europe”.

“There should be two men and two women” candidates for four of the five posts up for grabs in coming weeks, he said.

Mr Macron, like Mr Rutte, declined to say who he was backing.

The discussions about who should take over at the EU’s helm for the next five years and beyond could go well into the night, if not through it, warned Mr Tusk, who was chairing the meeting.

He wants nominations to be wrapped up soon, seeking to prevent further erosion of public confidence in the EU amid Brexit uncertainty and divisions over managing migration.

The task will not be easy. The appointments must take into account political affiliation, geography – balancing east and west, north and south – population size and gender.

The leaders of EU institutions are supposed to impartially represent the interests of all member nations on the global stage and in Brussels.

There was hope at the previous summit on June 20-21 that more time would bring clarity on who should replace Mr Juncker as commission president.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel backs conservative compatriot Manfred Weber, whose centre-right European People’s Party is the largest political group in the European Parliament but lost seats in the EU elections in May.

Mr Macron has suggested Mr Weber lacks the political and Government experience for such a high-profile role.

But Mr Weber could still be considered for the head of the European Parliament, which is the EU’s only elected institution.

Ms Merkel said there was still a good possibility for Mr Weber and the centre-left top candidate, Dutch politician Frans Timmermans, of the European Socialist and Democrats group, to be among the winners of the top positions, but other leaders from the same political family disagreed.

The European People’s Party, which is made up of Christian Democrats, and the S&D are the two biggest political groups in the EU but both lost seats in May’s polls, where far-right and populist parties, pro-business liberals and the Greens made gains.

EU leaders want to fill the positions soon because the European Parliament is set to pick a new president next Wednesday.

Under EU rules, member countries choose who will run the commission, replacing Mr Juncker.

The Parliament must endorse that choice but the assembly has insisted that only the lead candidates from parties that ran in last month’s elections should be eligible for the post.

The commission proposes and enforces EU laws on policies ranging from ranging from the massive single market to agriculture spending, from competition issues to immigration.

The outgoing group of EU officials was lopsidedly Italian, with Antonio Tajani holding the Parliament top post, Mario Draghi head of the ECB and Federica Mogherini the EU foreign policy chief.

Top candidates include current prime ministers Stefan Lofven of Sweden and Andrej Plenkovic of Croatia.

Others mentioned include Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, of France, Greens leader Ska Keller, of Germany, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief since 2014.