German conservative emerges as early front-runner for EU's top job

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Manfred Weber, a Bavarian who has modeled himself on Germany's pragmatic chancellor, won the backing of Europe's center-right parties on Thursday to stand in the race to become European Commission president in 2019.

Weber, a German EU lawmaker, beat train Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb to become the European People's Party's (EPP) top candidate in the European Parliament elections next May. That makes him an early front-runner for the EU's most influential job, the head of the executive bloc, which offers legislation and negotiates free-trade deals.

Weber, who is little known outside Germany or has never held a ministerial position, won 79 percent of the support of delegates from Europe's largest political grouping.

"The campaign starts here in Helsinki," said Weber, a 46-year-old, guitar-playing Catholic who leads the EPP group in the European Parliament.

"We are bridge-builders, let's use this momentum. Then we will win in May 2019, "he told cheering delegates to the Queen's music of 1980s hit" One Vision ".

Weber's words emulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel's language and style of compromise, a tone he used throughout the EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, also of the EPP, an umbrella group of pro-market conservatives.

Popular with the Christian Democrat core of the group, We will seek to challenge the anti-immigrant populists who hope to score well in May and whom the center-right will see the threat of openness and tolerance in Europe.

Merkel has gone back Weber and did so again in Helsinki, saying it was a good day for the German Christian Democrats "because we have not had a candidate for the head of the European Commission for a long time."

Regarding Europe in the Middle East, Berlin, Germany, Germany, Germany The executive director was Walter Hallstein in the late 1950s, but it was far from the present day.

In theory, Weber is well-placed to win the job under a European Parliament agreement.

Under the auspices of the European Union to the European Union, the European Union will be the first to be elected.

ORBAN'S SHADOW

Such a contest has been set up in the United States, which has had its members set up in 1979.

The EPP, including Merkel's Christian Democrats, is set to win the most seats in the polls, with 177 seats out of a total of 705, according to Reuters.

But Weber's lack of experience is likely to count against EU heads of state, who ultimately has the final say in dealing with out top jobs.

But with the EPP losing influence in France and Spain, the rise of far-right parties across Europe, and with populists in its ranks in Hungary, Europe's biggest political force faces accusations that it represents an out-of-date politics.

Centrist French President Emmanuel Macron, who swept aside France's traditional political parties with his 2017 victory, rejects the link between European Parliament elections and the Commission president's post.

Macron's Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau took the lead for the EPP member Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban.

"The EPP chooses a candidate who has been campaigning for V. Orban a few months ago. Despite the risks of violating the founding values ​​of the Union by Hungary, "Loiseau said, citing Budapest's attacks on the press freedom and the judiciary.

But Donald Tusk, the Pole who chairs summits of EU leaders, also sought to show that the EPP may not tolerate Orban much longer.

"If you support (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and attack Ukraine, if you are in favor of the aggressor and against the victim, you are not a Christian Democrat," he said of Orban's friendly ties with Moscow and tensions with Kiev.