Timmermans becomes the leading figure of the Social Democrats in the European elections

Frans Timmermans will be the figurehead of the Social Democrat S & D group in the European Parliament elections of May 2019. The only counter-candidate for this post has withdrawn, the S & D said on Monday.

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As leader of the European Social Democrats, Timmermans does not play a formal role. in elections. The position is not the same as that of party leader in national elections. As there are no European lists, there are no European party leaders. The appointment of Timmermans as S & D Foreman clearly shows that the collective considers him the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission

Timmermans, now Commissioner and Vice-President of the European Commission in Brussels . Commission, announced last month its candidacy for elections to the European Parliament. The 57-year-old politician wants to join the footsteps of Juncker, an unelected job for which Prime Minister Mark Rutte will likely appoint him next year on behalf of the Netherlands. Timmermans himself prefers to take the electoral route, he declared to NRC . He will most likely become the leader of the PvdA party, the only Dutch party affiliated with the S & D.

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] S & D President Sergei Stanishev, former Bulgarian Prime Minister, congratulates Timmermans as "strong leader" of the Social Democratic group. "I am sure that Frans […] will leave nothing indifferent to join the progressive European forces towards a social, honest, just and democratic European Union."

If Timmermans were to be elected to the European Parliament, he S lost his position on the Commission, he says that he will just occupy his seat as a parliamentarian. "It was a complicated discussion at home, but if you do that, that chance is there, so we accepted, and now I'm making a conscious choice to go back to politics," he told NRC ].