,
17 tweets,
11 min read
Read on Twitter
1.Setting the record straight on #EUTopJobs & why #Spitzenkandidaten @ManfredWeber @TimmermansEU and @vestager were blocked for @EU_Commission President. Lots of spin out there that needs to be countered, so here is a THREAD. 👇
2. Today some @florianeder & @zoyashef wrote of Weber & Timmermans being blocked by an "alliance consisting of the Visegrád 4, Italy and the French Republic." Similarly @ManfredWeber tried to claim he was the victim of a "Macron-Orban axis" This is wrong.
3. @ManfredWeber was blocked already 2 weeks ago by Socialists & Liberals in European Parliament- including by Macron's people: politico.eu/article/libera… One key reason Orbán was deemed unacceptable (incl by Macron) was his long-record of enabling the authoritarian Orbán regime.
4. Yes, lately Orban & his longtime protector Weber have seemed to be at odds, but @ManfredWeber failed to become President not because Orban opposed him but because he coud not wash away the stain of having helped enable Orban's destruction of Hungarian democracy for years.
5. There is lots to lament about #EUTopJobs stitchup but one salutory lesson is that the Faustian bargain @ManfredWeber made with Orbán didn't pay off. He sold his political soul to the autocrat and in the end it destroyed him. (more on this here: politico.eu/article/manfre… )
6. Also, Orban's recent claims about opposing Weber are dubious: Orbán's Fidesz MEPs (who remain in @EPPGroup & take orders from him) all supported @ManfredWeber. Recall that Weber worked to prevent the expulsion of Fidesz from the @EPP back in March w/ bogus non-suspension
7. On to @TimmermansEU ... most media are saying he was blocked by V4 +Italy. Well, they did of course play an important role, but in the end all @EPP leaders in EUCO other than Merkel opposed him.
8. If @EPP had rallied behind @TimmermansEU joining with most @PES_PSE & @ALDEParty governments, they could have likely outvoted opponents to install him. Instead, the @EPP killed the Spitzenkandidaten process. Why?
9. As I wrote a few weeks ago politico.eu/article/manfre… w/Weber unacceptable @EPP faced a dilemma: save the Spitzenkandit system by backing candidate of another party or pick an EPP person who wasn't a Spitz. As we can see, they preferred the latter (von der Leyen)
10. So yes, autocrats & aspiring autocrats of the V4 helped shoot down @TimmermansEU because he has been a defender of democracy in Hungary & Poland. That is tragic for EU. But they could only succeed because many in @EPP were happy to see him fail.
11. BTW, Merkel may have been sincere in her backing of @TimmermansEU /Osaka deal. She certainly seemed to be. But it is curious that the outcome of the failure of that deal is that one of her protégés gets the job. I'll let others speculate on that....
12. And what of @vestager arguably best qualified candidate for the job. I had thought she might emerge as a compromise, but in the end she wasn't even given serious consideration. (I see now that I was very wrong!) Why?
13. First of all the group that might have backed her @ALDEParty / @RenewEurope had resisted the #Spitzenkandidaten process as a whole, and the most powerful figure in that group @EmmanuelMacron was keen to kill it. So her own party family wasn't strongly enough behind her
14. Also, since @ALDEParty had only half-way participated in #Spitzenkandidaten process (Team Europe etc) and since she was only a pseudo/ after the fact Spitzenkandidat, there was no pressure on backers of the process from @EPP or @PES_PSE to back her on principle
15. We still have to see if @Europarl_EN approves @vonderleyen, but it seems likely. But let's be clear on main reasons why the three leading Spitzenkandidaten failed....
16. Weber failed because he was a tainted autocrat enabler. Timmermans failed because EPP decided that it wanted an EPP President more than a Spitzenkandidat, & because all aspiring autocrats opposed him. Vestager failed because Liberals never really supported Spitz process. Fin
typo! should say "One key reason Weber was deemed unacceptable"..
