EPP and Weber craving for more power over EU
Date
08 Nov 2018
Following the election of Manfred Weber as the European Peoples Party (EPP) Common Candidate, the Party of European Socialists (PES) welcomes him as the second contender entering the battle to become the next President of the European Commission. Frans Timmermans was already endorsed as PES Common Candidate on Tuesday. All other European political families are yet to select their frontrunners for the 2019 European election.
PES President Sergei Stanishev said:
“Manfred Weber claims that Brussels needs to reconnect with citizens. True, but it is not the EU that has failed to connect with the people, it is the EPP who is currently controlling the Union. Mr Weber is the leader of the EPP Group, the presidents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission are also EPP. The EPP have all the leverage and yet they have consistently failed to keep the EU strong, united and focused on addressing social challenges. Europeans are demanding change, yet Manfred Weber represents austerity and the EPP’s failure to address the concerns of citizens over many years.
“Their agenda is simply not authentic and they cannot be trusted to deliver it. Juncker promised a social triple-A standard in the EU at the beginning of his term, but 5 years later we are not even close.
“I am even more concerned about the EPP’s current partnership with nationalists like in Austria and in Bulgaria, and with illiberal populists like Orbán. I am worried about Mr Weber ‘building bridges’ to Salvini in Italy and Kaczyński in Poland.
“Nobody should expect softball questions and kid-glove treatment from us in this campaign. We are going to hold the EPP to account and we are going to fight to take Europe in a new direction. We represent the only credible, genuine alternative for a more united, fair and prosperous EU.”
About the PES
- All 28 EU member states are represented by their progressive parties at the PES, which brings together 34 socialist, social democratic, labour and democratic parties as full members. Together with 12 associate parties and 12 observer parties from outside the EU, we fight for a better and more progressive Europe.
- The current president of the PES is Sergei Stanishev.
- The Socialists & Democrats Group is the parliamentary group of the PES