Strasbourg, 01/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - European Parliament President Martin Schulz - who has just been re-elected to his post - believes that the Spitzenkandidaten system (whereby each European party chooses a lead candidate for the Commission presidency) “will be maintained. I don't think we'll go backwards”. The fact that the EU heads of state and government decided, on 27 May, to reassess the process of appointing the Commission president once the college is in place logically means “that next time, we should draw the conclusions more quickly and not wait for several weeks” before appointing him. “The basic idea is that the people who are due to be heads of the institutions are spoken about before the elections”, said Manfred Weber, the leader of the European Parliament's EPP Group. In Weber's view, the objective is not to go into institutional battle but to “bring Europe closer to the citizens”. Gabi Zimmer (GUE/NGL, Germany) criticised “the attempt not to listen to the electors' verdict”. And this is “something that harms the next presidency of the Commission”, she said. (EL)