Agence Europe - Why is it so important for the EPP family to meet in Bucharest for this electoral congress?
Siegfried Mureșan - There were three reasons why the EPP and our Romanian member party, the National Liberal Party, have decided to come to Romania firstly to promote the achievements of the European Union to the Romanian public, because we are seeing a very strong anti European, populistic, extremist party in Romania [Alliance for the Union of Romanians, NDLR], which is trying to disinform the people. And Romania will be one key battleground in the fight against extremists this year in the European elections. And informing people about Europe here is the best way to fight extremism on the ground.
The second reason is that Romania is the largest EU member state that has parliamentary elections scheduled this year. And the only Member State with parliamentary, local, regional, presidential and European elections. So through the EPP visit here, we believe that we can significantly support the Romanian EPP member party.
And the third reason is a sign of solidarity with all Central and Eastern European Member States, which had to face difficulties since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. It is also a clear sign of solidarity with Moldova and Ukraine. It shows that the Eastern neighbourhood of the union is important to the EPP and that we stand by the countries' frontline states, which received many Ukrainian refugees, which have to deal with the influx of Ukrainian grains, which had to reduce their dependency on Russian energy.
Will all EPP parties unite behind Ursula von der leyen ?
I expect the EPP to be united and strong. We are now having twelve out of the 27 EU heads of state or government. The rotation of prime ministers in Bulgaria will give us the 13th prime minister later this week. So the mood is positive.
We believe that the topics on which we are strong resonate well with the people of Europe right now. President von der Leyen has announced her intention to run for a second term. We immediately saw very positive reactions, including from many EU prime ministers, particularly from the EPP. And then she came to the meeting of the EPP parliamentary group on the 21 February, where there was also overwhelming support. We have seen our french colleagues, which had reservations and some reservations on the side of one of the slovenian member parties. But other than that, I expect everyone to support her.
And I think it's well deserved. We saw that, particularly with the unexpected crisis that hit us. She showed leadership, she kept Europe united, she offered solutions. On the pandemic, support to Ukraine.
How can we be sure that the 'Spitzenkandidaten' process will be respected this time by the European Council?
The perception of the people is that the 'Spitzenkandidaten' process started in 2014 and that it was applied once and not the next time, in 2019, with the failed candidature of Manfred Weber. But there were already steps made since 2004, when German Chancellor Gerald Schröder and French president Jacques Chirac had agreed that the Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, should be the next president of the European Commission.
The EPP won the election and we said: 'We are the election winners. We want to have the Commission presidency, not a prime minister, which had a bad result'. And we managed to unite behind one candidate, José Emmanuel Barroso who became president of the Commission.
In 2009, we went one step further at the congress in Warsaw (see EUROPE 9893/5). Before the elections, we told the people that we were nominating M. Barroso as our candidate for a second term. There was no campaign in 2009 as there was one in 2014, because the Socialists failed to unite behind a name.
In 2014, there were two candidates, Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz [for the Socialists, NDLR]. We won the elections, Juncker became Commission president and that was the clearest example of when the 'Spitzenkandidaten' system was applied. In 2019, we applied it as well. We had the candidate, the Socialists had the candidate, but unfortunately our candidate did not make it.
So what I want to say is that I believe 2019 will remain an exception. It shows the procedure has survived the difficult year of 2019. It shows that the political parties are committed to it. So I think Ms von der Leyen will be successful. I believe that the system will become the rule and 2019 will remain as an unfortunate exception.
What will be the main themes that your family want to put forward to the citizens?
We are a party with local roots, with many mayors, local, regional councils and we are listening to the concerns of the people. We believe that people now expect security and a strong economy. And these two are linked.
This is why we will invest a lot in the security agenda: protecting our borders and strengthening our national armies by giving a role to the European Union. We are supporting the idea of a Defence commissioner who will have the responsibility of making sure that we create a single market for defence, for arms purchases in Europe, so that we make sure that all armies of EU member states get the best equipment at the best possible price in the shortest period of time.
We're going to support the neighbouring member states of the Union because we know that we can only live in safety and stability within the borders of the Union if we are surrounded in our immediate neighbourhood by countries that are safe and stable.
We are also going to work on competitiveness, on further trade deals, on supporting the SMEs, research, innovation and of course, we are committed to continuing the European 'Green Deal'. We want a 'Green deal' which is based on research, innovation with the industry, not against it, with the farmers, not against them. Defending farmers will be also a main topic of the EPP campaign.
On the 'Green Deal', has the European Union been too far?
We all want to pollute less. To consume less energy while we reach our objectives, because the less we consume energy, the smaller the cost. We want to tackle climate change.
But this is a difficult process. Many people, many enterprises have to adapt. And we want to support those who need to adapt, including financially. We want to make sure that when we make a decision and we demand something from an enterprise or a citizen, that citizen and that enterprise can do those adjustments. And if they cannot do them, they should be supported.
This is the difference with the Greens who say the European industry should adapt or die. For us, the death of the European industry will never be an option. The European industry has sufficiently understood that it has to invest in renewable energies. Every factory I visit now proudly presents their achievements in reducing CO2 emissions.
If we believe the polls, your family is on the right track to win these elections. In Rome last week, the Socialists said that if the EPP wins, it can be tempted to look more right and to leave the traditional coalition in the center (see other news). Is this fear justified?
This fear is not justified. The Socialists know it. They just try to exploit it to harm ourselves. As vice-president of the EPP, I'm telling you this very clearly: the role of EPP is to unite and to lead the pro-European forces. We will do a stable and solid majority in the European Parliament with the other pro-European forces. We will never work with anti-European forces against pro-Europeans.
Anti-Europeans, extremists, which want to destroy the Europe that we have built, cannot be our partners.
Except from the presidency of the Commission, what are the other European posts that the EPP will try to win?
We expect the EPP to remain the largest group in Parliament. Then, automatically, we should hold the presidency of the European Commission.
For the other posts, obviously, one can only have clarity and decide after the elections. It will very much depend how big the other groups are. Because if the EPP group is more than double the size of Renew Europe, then I believe that Renew Europe will unfortunately not be entitled to any of the top jobs this time. That also means that we can choose two posts before Renew Europe can choose one.
So I think there would not be any top job for Renew Europe.
The fact that the mandate of the president of ECB, Christine Lagarde, lasts eight years and that she'll still be in office has also to be taken into account both for the French public and also for President Macron, who supported her. Now, I think he has less chances of succeeding if he has a specific request.
And, of course, the regional balance has to be taken into account. It's clear that 'new' Member States have to be included. when Donald Tusk became president of the European Council in 2014 it was the last time [a top EU position] went to the Eastern member states. And I expect the gender balance to play a role as well.
In the European Parliament, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that political leaders from the Central and Eastern Europe were not enough represented at European level (see EUROPE 13345/4). Do you share his view?
It's a correct assessment, yes. It's important for people in Central and Eastern Europe to be represented in the top leadership in Brussels, also not to allow anti-Europeans in these countries to misuse this situation. This is what they are trying to say: 'Brussels makes decisions against Eastern Europe!'.
This is what the government of Poland said. This is what Viktor Orbán is saying [in Hungary]. And they can be more successful with such a narrative if there's no one from Eastern Europe in a top job in Brussels. If there is someone from Eastern Europe, it will be difficult for them to convince people that there is a two-class EU membership between the East and the West.