Leaders deadlocked over EU top jobs

Special meeting planned for June 30 to reach an agreement to replace Juncker

European Union leaders failed to reach any agreement by early Friday morning on who should lead the European Commission and other top EU jobs.

Their summit in Brussels on Thursday ended with a dinner that went into the early hours of Friday.

"There was no majority on any candidate," said Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.

The leaders will assemble in Brussels again for a crisis summit on June 30 after some of them return from the G20 summit on June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, in a bid to reach an agreement on the EU jobs before the new European Parliament meets on July 2 in Strasbourg, France.

Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and British Minister Theresa May are all expected to attend the meeting of world leaders and continue informal talks about the EU's top jobs.

"We want to agree before the new (EU) parliament meets," Merkel told reporters after the meeting.

"I noted with pleasure, amusement and happiness that I am not that easy to replace," Juncker said at the end of the lengthy meeting, held almost a month after the European Parliament election in late May.

The election was the first time in the last 40 years that the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists& Democrats (S&D) failed the secure a joint majority in the parliament, making it more difficult for future decision in the EU's legislative body.

The EPP, the largest bloc in the parliament, supports Manfred Weber, a German politician, while the S&D, the second largest bloc, backs Frans Timmermans, the current first vice-president of the European Commission and a former Dutch foreign minister.

Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition and a former Danish deputy prime minister, is the lead candidate for the ALDE, the third largest bloc. ALDE, or the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, announced a week ago that it was changing its name to Renew Europe.

No majority

Merkel indicated that Tusk had reported that after extensive consultations, there was no majority for any of the three lead candidates.

Macron said the lead candidates, known by its German word Spitenkandidanten, of the three major political parties had been eliminated from contention.

"They have been taken out tonight, which allows us to relaunch the process," he said.

Despite the failure to reach an agreement on Thursday, Macron said he did not think leaders had failed. "I don't have the feeling that I have gone through failure," he said.

Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, did not directly answer a question about whether the candidacy of Weber, the candidate for the biggest bloc, had been rejected by the leaders during their consultations.

"We need more time to discuss the whole landscape," he said at a news conference.

"This is why we go back to the issue at the end of June and today is too early to prejudge names,"

To win the presidency of the European Commission, a candidate must first be nominated from a qualified majority of the European Council and then win approval from a majority of the European Parliament's 751 members.

Besides the president of the European Commission, other most coveted jobs at the EU include the top jobs at the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Central Bank and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs.

On Friday, the EU27 leaders (EU28 minus Britain) will meet for a Euro summit where they are expected to discuss everything from a new budget to "the deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union".

Politico.com contributed to the story.