Christian Democrats choose Manfred Weber as future successor to Juncker

Manfred Weber, a German Christian Democrat, was elected Thursday afternoon in Helsinki as a center-right European candidate to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission.

Weber, 46, will participate in the elections to the European Parliament. in May, he will be the first European candidate of the European People's Party, the largest political family in Europe. Today he is the leader of the EPP Group in the 219-member European Parliament

By appointing such candidates for each party, the European Parliament tries, as in 2014, to impose its will on the choice of President of the Commission. Then, with the Luxembourg Prime Minister Juncker as a candidate for the EPP, we can not exclude the path of Weber Juncker

. Also, next year after the elections, the fight for the top European positions will be unpredictable, but the heads of government will have to take into account the wishes of the European Parliament anyway.

Also read this article on musical chairs . started in Brussels

The Most Powerful Party

The EPP is now the most powerful party in Europe, which also chairs the European Council (Pool Donald Tusk) and the European Parliament (Antonio Tajani of Italy ). According to the polls, the center-right force majeure will decrease, but the EPP remains the most important. According to President Joseph Daul

the President of the European Parliament, the main competitor of Weber, is provisionally the European Social Democrat leader Frans Timmermans. The "best candidates" of parties are usually called "Spitzenkandidat" in Europe

Only German voters can vote for Weber directly in May. He will lead the Angela Merkel CDU, the Bavarian sister party of the CDU, in the European legislative elections in May.

In Helsinki, Weber, of about fifty European Christian Democrats and other right-wing parties, got a preference over the former Finnish Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb. The vast majority for Weber was 79.2%. The result was also announced by Esther de Lange, who was re-elected in Finland as Vice-President of the European PEP Group. Next year she will be the head of the CDA in Europe

Strict Migration Policy

Unlike Fin Stubb, a relatively liberal, Weber has come out as a more conservative candidate. Moreover, he is strongly pro-European. In his campaign, he focuses on a strict migration policy. "We have to control our limits again," he told Helsinki at Europe's external borders. Europeans must feel "protected" and "at home" in the Union, particularly by focusing on a European security policy and better living conditions.

The CDA also supports Weber, like the German, French and most Central European countries. In addition, Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Fidesz is controversial within the EPP for undermining the rule of law.

Weber wants to keep Orbán in the EPP. He called, without having called Orbán, to respect European values, including democracy and the rule of law, "on the part of all EPP members".

No experience

has no experience as head of government or minister at the national or even federal level in Bavaria. In a discreet way, he has been playing for years at the top of the CSU. But he does not set the tone in this regard, aside from stronger politicians such as CSU President Horst Seehofer and his successor as Prime Minister of Bavaria, Markus Söder. already back in the European Parliament. He did not neglect his ties with Bavaria and his party. He was president of the Bavarian department of the Junge Union, the youth organization of the CDU and the CSU from 2003 to 2007.

From 2008 to 2014, he headed the CSU department of the region of Lower Bavaria, from where he comes. Since 2015, he is vice-president of the CSU party. He has led the EPP Group in Brussels and Strasbourg since 2014.