President Iohannis attends informal meeting of European Council; talks on leading positions of European institutions to continue

AGERPRES special correspondent Florentina Peia reports: The European leaders who participated in the informal meeting of the European Council, including President Klaus Iohannis, started on Tuesday the discussions aimed to reach an agreement on the takeover of the leadership positions of the European Union institutions. "Within the Summit, the European leaders exchanged views regarding the results of the latest elections to the European Parliament. Based on this, the heads of state or government started the discussions in order to reach an agreement on the takeover of the leading positions of the European Union institutions. This process will continue, ahead of the meeting of the European Council, to be held between 20 and 21 June," a Presidential Administration release mentioned on Tuesday. The head of state attended on Tuesday the European People's Party (EPP) Summit and, afterwards, he participated in the informal meeting of the European Council. Prior to attending the meeting of the European Council, President Iohannis stated that the European People's Party will go ahead with Manfred Weber as the candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, underscoring that nobody can form a majority in the European Parliament without the European People's Party and negotiations should be carried out firmly. Before the informal meeting of the European Council, which takes place in Brussels, Iohannis was asked how he sees the fact that some leaders opposed to Manfred Weber. "Taking into account that there are extremely important positions, all the stakeholders try to position themselves better and, then, we should see these statements like a game of proving themselves. As of 2014, the EPP goes on the so-called spitzenkandidat solution, the top candidate, who is the spearhead in the campaign. For the People's Party, in this campaign, it was Manfred Weber and the candidate will be further promoted for the office of European Commission President and at the EPP, the decision of going this way was made a long time ago and today, discussions were carried out, but very briefly, because nobody had other opinion and the EPP will go further with Manfred Weber," Iohannis mentioned. He said that "calmness and a great wisdom" should be used when tackling the appointment procedure of the President of the European Commission. "The EPP alone cannot do it, it is not sufficient together either, in the EPP with the Socialists coalition, as it happened in the past mandate. At least one political group is needed. The negotiations still remain open. It is clear that for a sufficient majority in the European Parliament, at least three political groups are needed. This complicates the entire equation, but (...) nobody can form a majority without the EPP and this is why we are determined to enter firmly, calmly and openly in these negotiations regarding the proposals to come," the head of state said. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Karina Olteanu; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)