Leaders meet as EU haggles over top jobs

Half a dozen European leaders met behind closed doors Friday to haggle over Brussels’ top jobs as rival camps in the new EU parliament cobble together a centrist majority.

Last month’s continent-wide election saw pro-EU parties of the centre-right and centre-left hold the line against a populist surge, but it left their own ranks more divided than before.

The conservative EPP group remains the biggest single voting bloc in Strasbourg, but it will need the backing of the socialist S&D, the liberal ALDE and perhaps the Greens if it is to form a working majority.

At stake is the most powerful post in Brussels -- the successor to Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.

The EPP candidate is Bavarian MEP Manfred Weber, who has the backing of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel but has no executive experience and is opposed by the liberals and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

To win the office, a candidate must first be nominated by a qualified majority of the European Council -- that is 21 national leaders from states representing between them 65 percent of the EU’s some 500 million people.

Then he or she must be approved by a majority of the European Parliament, or 376 of the 751 MEPs.

European Council president Donald Tusk is coordinating the leaders’ search for a nominee before their next summit on June 20 and 21, but early signs suggest the negotiations will be long and arduous.

The EPP stands behind Weber, insisting the Commission presidency is theirs by right, while the left clings to that hope that Holland’s Frans Timmermans might squeak through.