EU leaders fail to agree on candidates for top posts due to wide division

BRUSSELS -- European Union (EU) leaders on Friday failed to reach a deal on candidates for the bloc's top jobs and announced that they will meet again on June 30 to try again.

The successor to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as the head of the EU executive is the key leadership role in Brussels.

Five years ago, a marathon negotiation lasted through the summer with a final decision reached in late August. Juncker finally claimed the EU throne with the help of the so-called "spitzenkandidaten system".

The process is a procedure whereby European political parties, ahead of European Elections, appoint lead candidates for the role of the Commission president, with the presidency of the Commission then going to the candidate of the political party capable of marshalling sufficient parliamentary support.

However, the European Elections in May had greatly shifted Europe's political landscape, with the traditional duopoly -- the centre-right European People's Party (Juncker is a member) and the centre-left Social and Democratic Group -- lost their jointly enjoyed comfortable majority, and consequently lowered the competitiveness of their lead candidates Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans.

Shortly after Thursday's working dinner, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the "lead candidates" of the three biggest pro-EU political families, namely Weber, Timmermans and Renew Europe's Margrethe Vestager, had been eliminated from the race for Commission presidency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tusk had reported there was no majority for any of the three candidates, but left open the possibility that the situation could change.