Kandidaat voor voorzitterschap nieuwe Commissie pas na de Europese Verkiezingen, vindt EP (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European People's Party is set to pass a resolution calling on the Irish EU Presidency not to suggest a candidate for Commission President prematurely.

Speaking on Wednesday, President of the EPP Wilfried Martens said that during a two-day Congress today and tomorrow, a "topical resolution" asking Dublin "not to put forward a candidate before the [European] elections", will be adopted.

He said that, politically speaking, of the 27 resolutions to be put forward "that may well be the most important".

The EPP is strongly pushing for the spirit of the draft EU Constitution - over which talks between member states have broken down - to be applied to this year's election of the Commission President.

The draft Constitution states that a candidate for the job should be chosen by EU leaders "taking into account the elections of the European Parliament".

Then "the candidate shall be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its members".

Currently, the EPP-ED group is the biggest in the European Parliament and they are hoping to repeat their success of 1999 in this year's elections on 10-13 June.

Favourites for the top job in the EPP camp are Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker and Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel.

Frontrunners on the socialists' side include former Finnish prime minister Paavo Lipponen and Greek prime minister Costas Simitis while Danish premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his Belgian counterpart Guy Verhofstadt are possible liberal candidates.

The European Parliament will vote to approve the proposed candidate during its first plenary session after the European elections - to be held 19-23 July 2004 in Strasbourg.

Provided the candidate proposed by the heads of state is accepted by the majority of MEPs, the new Commission president can take up his post.

The new Commission - with 25 members - will start in November 2004 for a five-year term.