The European Parliament elects a new president on Monday Jan 16,2017 in a vote that promises to be stormy after a coalition aimed at keeping eurosceptics out of power broke down.
The winner will replace Germany’s Martin Schulz, who during five years in office made the role far more powerful and prominent than it had ever been before.
The new president will lead the EU’s only elected body, which will have the final say on a Brexit deal expected in two years time.
The 751 members of the parliament will cast secret ballots in Strasbourg, France. The vote can go to a maximum of four rounds.
The main candidates are both Italian: centre-right politician Antonio Tajani, and socialist Gianni Pittella. Another five candidates have little chance.
“I am almost sure the winner will have a link with Italy,” joked Liberal candidate Guy Verhofstadt — a former Belgian premier who owns a vineyard in Italy.
Schulz is meanwhile going back to politics in Germany.
But the contest has been a bitter one as a long-standing agreement between the two political groups broke down.
Tajani, a former spokesman for Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and ex-European commissioner, is the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the assembly.
The EPP, which counts German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a member, says there was an agreement under a “grand coalition” that it should get the position, as a socialist, Schulz, held it last time.
The two groups have rotated the leadership of parliament between them for almost every year since the 1970s.
But Pittella says he will not accept an EPP “monopoly” of the EU’s top jobs, held by EPP members Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, and Donald Tusk, the head of the European Council.
A Tajani win could therefore prompt calls for a reshuffle of the top jobs, adding unwelcome instability to an already crisis-hit union.
Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator, meanwhile saw his chances dip after a failed merger last week with Italy’s populist 5-Star Movement.
The grand coalition has been seen as limiting the influence of Eurosceptic groups led by Britain’s UKIP and France’s National Front, after they made stunning gains in the last European Parliament elections in May 2014.
The anti-EU movement has since gained strength, with Britons voting to leave the bloc in a shock referendum result last June, while across the Atlantic a similar wave of populism took Donald Trump to the US presidency
Note
The EU Parliament is composed of 751 (previously 766) members, who represent the second largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009)
It has been directly elected every five years by universal suffrage since 1979. However, voter turnout at European Parliament elections has fallen consecutively at each election since that date, and has been under 50% since 1999. Voter turnout in 2014 stood at 42.54% of all European voter
The President of the European Parliament (Parliament's speaker) is Martin Schulz (S&D), elected in January 2012. He presides over a multi-party chamber, the two largest groups being the Group of the European People's Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D)
The European Parliament has three places of work – Brussels (Belgium), the city of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and Strasbourg (France). Luxembourg is home to the administrative offices (the 'General Secretariat'). Meetings of the whole Parliament ('plenary sessions') take place in Strasbourg and in Brussels. Committee meetings are held in Brussels
Antonio Tajani of EPP Christian Democrat group elected President
Antonio Tajani of EPP Christian Democrat group elected President
Antonio Tajani, of the European People's Party (EPP) Christian Democrat group, was elected president of the European Parliament on Tuesday Jan 17,2017
Tajani won the vote after a day-long polling series during which he defeated his socialist opponent, Gianni Pittella.
Before the first round of voting, the EPP, the largest group in the European Union's legislature, and the ALDE liberals, the fourth-largest, announced a coalition that gave Tajani a big early lead over S&D socialist Pittella.
He maintained the lead through four rounds of voting at the legislature in Strasbourg, France.
The battle among the two Italians was won by Tajani on a vote of 351-282 in the decisive final round, which only the top two candidates could enter.
His victory gives the Christian Democrat group all the biggest jobs in the EU, with Donald Tusk as Council President and Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission chief.
Tajani devoted his victory to the victims of August's earthquake in Italy and to all victims of terror.
He said in his acceptance speech: 'We must devote our attention to all those who are in tough living conditions.'
To make the coalition with the EPP work, ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt withdrew from the election among the European Parliament's 751 legislators.
No comments:
Post a Comment