East Europe Leaders Vow to Vote Jointly on Top EU Jobs

(Bloomberg) -- The leaders of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia agreed to vote together on the candidates for the European Union’s top jobs.

“The Visegrad-4 leaders agreed that they will make joint decisions on personnel issues,” Piotr Muller, the spokesman for Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, told reporters in Warsaw. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hosted his three fellow premiers in Budapest on Thursday.

The leaders of the so-called V-4 countries will support candidates that have “adequate” experience and that “respect” central Europe, Hungary’s MTI state news service reported, citing Orban’s press chief Bertalan Havasi.

The EU’s 28 members are in the process of deciding who will take the bloc’s most coveted jobs, including president of the European Commission and head of the European Central Bank. Leaders will hold a summit next week. The Visegrad leaders didn’t name a candidate of their own.

“Given the new balance of power in the European parliament, it’s possible that personnel decisions on top EU jobs won’t be made at next week’s meeting,” Poland’s Muller said.

--With assistance from Marton Eder.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net;Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw at mstrzelecki1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.