Brussels, 28/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - Viviane Reding, EU Justice Commissioner and Commission Vice-President, has officially pulled out of the race to the presidency of the European Commission and has given her full backing to the Grand Duchy candidate and former head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg media reported on Monday 27 January.
“There is a Luxembourg candidate and all the others are backing him”, Reding said on the sidelines of a press briefing. “It would be ridiculous to run against Juncker”, she added. According to some sources, the Commission vice-president is said to be interested in posts available within the European Parliament. On 8 February, she should be certain of her European election status at the top of the list for her CSV party which is to meet in congress.
Now that this has been cleared up, Juncker is free to stand for the presidency of the European Commission within his party. Opposing him is Michel Barnier of France, European Internal Market Commissioner, who is the only one to have officially presented his candidacy.
The “old backpacker” from Luxembourg nonetheless incurred the wrath of ALDE Group President Guy Verhofstadt, who is also running for the post of Commission president. In an article on 26 January, Verhofstadt deplored the fact that the former Eurogroup leader had not planned to stand for the European elections. He asks: “If the EPP wants to count, then it will have to pull together - first of all by appointing a standard bearer for its European campaign. (…) Surely the EPP cannot be thinking of imposing a candidate on us after the elections that no-one will have seen or heard defend its ideas on the TV or radio? That standard bearer, like myself and my counterparts, should stand for the European elections. Surely the EPP cannot be thinking of building a parliamentary majority around a non-elected pretender?” (our translation throughout), asked Verhofstadt. Barnier for his part explained that, depending on the choice of the EPP in Dublin early March, he would run for the elections in a non-eligible position. (SP/transl.jl)