Merkel's Furious Allies Vow to Stop Macron's EU Power Grab

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union’s center-right alliance is determined to defy French President Emmanuel Macron in the race to nominate the next EU Commission chief, according to senior party officials.

European conservatives were enraged that Macron blocked their candidate for commission president, Manfred Weber, at last week’s summit in Brussels, and suspect he is seeking to undermine their role, even though they won the most seats in the next EU Parliament, the officials said.

The EU’s 28 national leaders are responsible for nominating the next head of the EU executive but need to find a candidate who can win the backing of the parliament in order to take office.

The result of last month’s EU election -- which saw both the center-right EPP and the Socialists lose seats -- means that at least three parties will be required to install a commission president. Deteriorating relations between France and Germany are raising the stakes for an appointment that will shape the bloc’s agenda for the next five years.

The upshot is that the two sides are becoming increasingly entrenched ahead of an extra summit meeting set for this Sunday. That could lead to further delays in naming other EU officials, including a successor to European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi.

"So far we’ve only seen destructive proposals," Weber said in an interview with European newspapers including Spain’s El Pais. "We run the risk of entering a period of crisis management. I hope that no one wants to take that risk."

French officials say they have no intention of putting forward their own candidate at this point because they are aware that it would only serve to give the EPP a target.

The EPP officials said that they see Macron’s hardball tactics as part of a broader strategy to undermine their preeminence in European politics. His sarcastic comments of Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann were seen as further proof of their distrust.

The French leader swept to power in 2017 without the backing of a mainstream party and decimated the country’s establishment parties in the process. But since taking power Macron has seen his ambitions for tighter integration of the EU frustrated by opposition from mainly conservative governments in the north.

High-Handed

The EPP and its allies are wary of taking on responsibility for the financial liabilities racked up by member states in the south with weaker public finances. They’ve also been riled up by Macron’s personal style, which at times is considered high-handed.

Germany’s Christian Democrats, the biggest group within the EPP, insisted Monday that they are sticking to Weber as their candidate.

However, Chancellor Angela Merkel, the other key figure in this negotiation, signaled last week that his bid may not have much of a future. None of the three lead candidates for the job, known as Spitzenkandidaten, have a majority and Merkel said at the summit in Brussels that "at the moment I don’t see anything changing in this.”

A French official said that Macron’s stance is simply a reflection of the diminished power of the EPP following its election result.

"The process was blocked because political families considered that the initial agreements gave them certain entitlements," Macron told reporters at last week’s summit. "Those commitments are lifted tonight and that allows the process to be restarted.”

--With assistance from Gregory Viscusi.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Nikos Chrysoloras in Brussels at nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Raymond Colitt

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