Will we see yet another twist in the EU political tale?
- Says "I was the first and the last spitzenkandidat"
If you're not familiar with the term, 'spitzenkandidat' basically translates to leading candidate in German. It is the more accepted practice in which EU members are supposed to try and adhere to in selecting future appointments for top jobs in the bloc.
However, that has all been abandoned as we instead saw a frenetic and surprising (also behind closed doors) process in which Ursula von der Leyen was appointed as European Commission president, Charles Michel appointed as European Council president, and Christine Lagarde appointed as ECB president.
Since the announcement, parliament members have voiced their displeasure as to how the spitzenkandidat process has been ignored after the failure to get either Manfred Weber or Frans Timmermans on any of the top jobs they were slated to fill.
All this of course will be put to a vote in the European Parliament on the week of 15 July and the big risk is that we may see von der Leyen not get enough votes to officially take over the mantle from Juncker.
David Sassoli's appointment as European Parliament president wasn't as straightforward as he failed in the first round of voting (325 votes, majority needed was 332 votes) before getting 345 votes in the second round to be officially appointed in his role.
It'll be tougher for von der Leyen as she needs ~376 votes at least to be confirmed as European Commission president. So, this isn't a shoe-in voting process just yet and we could see some more twists and turns along the way in a couple of weeks' time.
