Dublin, 06/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European People's Party (EPP) is holding a two-day conference in Dublin, and on Friday 6 March it will be announcing its candidate to head the list of candidates for the European elections and be the EPP candidate to take over as the new president of the European Commission. As many sources had hinted, the former prime minister of Latvia, Valdis Dombrovskis, withdrew from the race on Wednesday, leaving only the EU Internal Market Commissioner, Michel Barnier (of France), and former head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker (of Luxembourg).
Dombrovskis is guaranteed to be one of the new European commissioners and is openly calling for his supporters to back Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg. His withdrawal has been greeted in a number of ways. Some say that it is a personal decision and there was not any scheming behind it, but others say he was not a serious candidate and everyone understood that what he was really after was the job of European commissioner.
The French commissioner is not bitter about it, having a strong belief in his own chances and his supporters were hard at work on Thursday, gleaning votes (he needs a simple majority of the 828 voters). A source explained on Thursday afternoon that it was above all the Spanish and Polish delegations that could be won round and tip the scales in Barnier's favour.
Jean-Claude Juncker arrived in Dublin the great favourite, backed by the CDU/CSU of Germany, New Democracy of Greece and Benelux parties like CD&V and the CDH of Belgium. The two candidates were striving on Thursday afternoon to garner votes. Barnier handed out election pamphlets about his five-point programme for a stable, better integrated eurozone with a stronger single market and greater democracy and democratic legitimacy in decision-making. Jean-Claude Juncker says that the job he is after is the president of the European Commission, rather than president of the Council. He said it was very simple - he wanted to become the Commission president and was not hiding any other ambitions.
The two men are of very similar standing politically, one as a key player in solving the eurozone crisis and the other as the man behind Banking Union and regulation of the financial services. A source says that personal relations will be very important in the vote, meaning the friends and enemies the two men have made over their political carriers. The suspense will end at 1.00pm on Friday. (SP)