Euro Group

By Angelos Stangos

The history of the European Union is one of constant change and the emergence of new dynamics. It is all about compromises and procedures that lead to the final product, which is the decisions that are made and then implemented.

James G. Neuger & Jonathan Stearns

Europe’s leaders resisted calls to quickly baptize Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker as the next European Commission president, tying the appointment to a broader package of high-profile posts.

By Paul Taylor & Luke Baker

European Union leaders, stunned by a big Eurosceptic protest vote in European Parliament elections, agreed on Tuesday to seek a package deal of appointments to top EU jobs with an economic agenda to win back public confidence.

By Jonathan Stearns

Jean-Claude Juncker staked a claim to the European Commission presidency after his Europe-wide party won parliamentary elections, setting up a potential clash with national government leaders over the high-profile post.

A civil engineer (l) guides conservative top candidate for the upcoming European elections Jean-Claude Juncker (2nd r) at a metro construction site in Athens, on Monday.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the center-right candidate for European Commission president and former Eurogroup chairman declared on Friday that SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, his leftist rival for the top EC post, would not make a good Greek Prime Minister as he would not cooperate effectively with the commission.

The five EU Commission President candidates clashed Thursday evening in a televised debate in the European Parliament chamber in Brussels.

It was their last meeting ahead of the upcoming European elections next week and also the first in which Greek leftist coalition SYRIZA's leader Alexis Tsipras, the European Left Party nominee, took part.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke to Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos in private in November 2011 and encouraged them to block George Papandreou’s proposal for a referendum on Greece’s euro membership, a Financial Times report claimed on Monday.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras conveyed Greece’s request for a lightening of the country’s debt burden to his eurozone counterparts at a summit in Brussels on Monday but, as expected, foreign officials indicated that a decision on this issue would not be considered until the fall.

 Stournaras to put forward suggestions on how to reduce annual repayments at Monday’s Eurogroup

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras is due to ask his eurozone counterparts Monday to begin considering further debt relief for Greece, with the government already having drafted a number of options to reduce the repayments the country faces in the years to come.