Less than a week after the announced resignation of Martin Schulz, Italy's Gianni Pittella, currently head of the S&D group at the European Parliament, announced on Wednesday 30 November that he plans to enter the race for the Presidency of the Parliament.
This makes the Italian Social Democrat the fourth officially declared candidate, along with EPP members Alain Lamassoure of France, Ireland's Mairead McGuinness, and Belgian ECR group member, Helga Stevens. The candidacy of French Liberal Sylvie Goulard, on the other hand, has met a sudden end (see EUROPE 11676).
At a press conference, the Italian MEP, who had already announced his intention of standing for re-election to the head of the S&D group, explained his intention to encourage the European Union to take a more progressive turn and banish past policies. Among his priorities, fighting tax evasion comes very high on the list, Pittella said. The Italian plans to work closely with the other political groups in Parliament (with the exception of the Eurosceptic groups), and will try to find common ground with them.
Pittella feels that the 'grand coalition" led by the EPP and S&D groups is a myth and has never existed. The Italian, who has been in touch with the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, the French President, François Hollande, and Commissioners Frans Timmermans and Federica Mogherini to discuss his candidacy, acknowledged that the initial agreement between the S&D and EPP groups provided for the Presidency to go to the EPP group in the second half of the legislative period. However, it also provided for the Presidency of the European Council to go to the S&D group, Pittella pointed out.
In any case, the candidacy of the Italian is "not necessarily serious and will occupy the land" after Schulz has gone. It will help the two groups to try to agree on a strategy, according to an ALDE group source, who went on to say that Guy Verhofstadt may still decide to throw his hat into the ring if no agreement is reached. If the two families exhaust all options and still fail to agree, the Belgian Liberal may look like a good compromise candidate.
Other observers consider Pittella to have fallen into a trap laid by his own group, a Parliament source said. There are elections to the chairmanship of his group next week. This means that he will not be able to stand and there will be no Socialist at the head of Parliament, the observer went on to comment, describing Pittella as the first victim of Schulz's scorched earth policy. As far as the outgoing President was concerned, it was him or chaos. "Now, it's chaos", the same source added.
For the Liberals, the fate of the top job in Parliament will in any case depend to a considerable extent on what Manfred Weber decides to do. He is reported to be under pressure from the German Christian Democrats and certain German Social Democrats to stand.
Sylvie Goulard left out in the cold
In the Liberal camp, there is a first victim worthy of note. Sylvie Goulard failed to find support for her candidacy, at the meeting of the bureau of the ALDE group on the evening of Tuesday 29 November.
"I did not want my own candidacy to be put to the vote of the group, because this early procedure does not allow for an in-depth debate between the various declared candidates, as several members of the bureau had expressly called for. I would like to thank them for their support and stress, to them in particular, that I take note of the group's decision but disapprove of the procedure", she said in a press release (our translation).
Goulard found herself completely isolated within the group at a session aiming to seal the fate of her candidacy. 22 of the 25 heads of delegation said that if there was to be a candidate, it should be Verhofstadt, said a Liberal group source, who does not understand why the French MEP unilaterally decided to enter the race when she could have succeeded the Belgian as head of the group. "She wanted to commit patricide", the observer said, but she may also have "lost everything" in the process. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)