The president of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, Romanian Dacian Cioloș, advocated for loyalty, on Tuesday 14 September, through respecting the informal agreement between the three largest political groups on the European Parliament presidency.
“In principle, we plan to remain loyal to the agreements we have made”, Mr Cioloș said. He added: “We expect the same from our partners. Unfortunately, this has not always been the case. In 2019, we had agreed to support the coordination of the Future of Europe Conference by someone proposed by Renew Europe and this did not happen. We have a co-presidency”.
The former European Commissioner spoke of the need to have internal discussions first to see how his group will perform for the second half of the Parliament’s mandate. And he spoke out in favour of gender diversity in the candidacies.
While Italian Social Democrat David Sassoli’s two-and-a-half year term at the helm of the European Parliament will expire at the end of 2021, an informal agreement reached between the Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and centre-right political families in July 2019 at the time of the allocation of top European offices, promised the EPP group the presidency of the Parliament from 2022 until the European elections in 2024 (see EUROPE 12288/1).
Initially tipped to succeed Mr Sassoli, the EPP group Chair, Manfred Weber of Germany, recently announced that he was running to succeed Donald Tusk of Poland as leader of the European People’s Party. The Christian Democrat MEPs immediately launched their internal race to nominate their candidate for the European Parliament presidency (see EUROPE 12786/15).
On the social-democratic side, the tone remains very evasive. The President of the S&D group, Iratxe García Pérez from Spain, said that it was “essential” for the political groups to form “alliances” for the Parliament to function. “Depending on the situation, we will do what is best for the institution and for European citizens," she said, pointing out that the candidates for the top job are not known at the moment.
Some believe that the social democrats want to keep Mr Sassoli at the head of the European Parliament, particularly because the election of the Irish Christian Democrat Paschal Donohoe as Eurogroup president has upset the political balance achieved in 2019.
Asked about the need to rotate the European Parliament presidency, the co-president of the Greens/EFA group, Ska Keller of Germany, said she was in favour of a mid-term election. “What is in our point of view totally unacceptable is that some groups think that they own this position”, she said, advocating for a healthy democratic process that enhances the diversity of the Parliament. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)