EU leaders choose France's Lagarde for ECB after marathon summit

[webfact]

EU leaders choose France's Lagarde for ECB after marathon summit

By Gabriela Baczynska, Robin Emmott and Francesco Guarascio

 

FILE PHOTO: International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde arrives for the Women's Forum Americas, at Claustro de Sor Juana University in Mexico City, Mexico, May 30, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo

 

BRUSSELS/STRASBOURG (Reuters) - European Union leaders agreed on Tuesday to name France's Christine Lagarde as the new head of the European Central Bank and sealed a deal on filling the EU's other top four jobs after marathon talks that have exposed deep divisions in the bloc.

 

Three days of summit negotiations that at times looked close to collapse ended with a deal that now must be approved by the European Parliament and was immediately rejected by the socialist and green bloc in the assembly in Strasbourg.

 

"Done!" said Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who was first to break the news on Twitter that leaders had finally clinched a deal.

 

Leaders hope the decision to nominate two women, Lagarde and German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, to the top of EU decision-making for the first time will send a positive message and repair damage wrought by such a fractious summit, diplomats said.

 

The discord echoed a wider fracturing of the EU's political centre that was evident in May's European Parliament elections that delivered a more fragmented assembly in which no bloc won a majority and far-right and far-left groups performed strongly.

 

Under the deal, von der Leyen, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

 

"After all, Europe is a woman," Donald Tusk, the outgoing chair of EU summits, told reporters, referring to the ancient Greek mythical figure of Europa who gave her name to the continent.

 

Lagarde, once France's first woman finance minister and since 2011 head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a strong advocate of female empowerment, although she has no direct, active monetary policy experience.

 

The biggest task for Lagarde, who had previously denied any interest in an EU job, will be to revive the euro zone economy.

 

"Christine Lagarde will ... be a perfect president of the European Central Bank," Tusk said. "I am absolutely sure that she will be a very independent president ..."

 

Von der Leyen, if approved, would run the powerful Commission, which supervises EU states' budgets, acts as the bloc's competition watchdog and conducts trade negotiations with outside countries. Her presidency would shape policy for the world's biggest trade bloc and its 500 million people.

 

She once had a reputation as a flawless politician, but Brussels-born Von der Leyen has had a scandal-prone run as German defence minister, mainly over right-wing extremism in the armed forces, gaps in military readiness, and the awarding of arms contracts.

 

DIVISIONS

The deal followed a tortuous summit that had leaders nodding off and their police escorts slumped on chairs as groups of leaders huddled in search of an accord.

 

With a weakened Merkel facing a rebellion by her centre-right European People's Party (EPP) early on in the summit, efforts to push through a deal pre-agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron met stiff resistance from Italy, Poland and others.

 

They scuppered a plan to install former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans as Commission president.

 

It was a clear reminder of the risks the EU faces from populists who officials accuse of trying to weaken the bloc's democratic foundations as it struggles with Brexit and challenges posed by Russia, China, Iran and Donald Trump's United States.

 

Timmermans, who led the Socialists' European Parliament election campaign in May and whose name Macron and Merkel had agreed on at a G20 summit in Japan last week, was the biggest casualty of some 30 hours of negotiations.

 

In other decisions on Tuesday, Spain's acting foreign minister, Josep Borrell, a socialist, was nominated as the EU's new top diplomat in Brussels.

 

Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who had pushed hard for Timmermans, also secured the election of Belgium's liberal caretaker prime minister, Charles Michel, to replace Tusk as chair of EU summits. In that role as European Council president, Michel will be have the job of building compromises between the 28 member states.

 

Timmermans and Margrethe Vestager, the lead candidate for the liberals in May's parliament election, were put forward as deputies under von der Leyen in the next Commission, which takes office on November 1.

 

ITALIAN LIKELY TO LEAD PARLIAMENT

Von der Leyen, Timmermans and Vestager will all help lead the EU's policies over the next five years on everything from climate to migration to trade.

 

The fifth prominent EU role up for grabs is the president of the European Parliament. Lawmakers are due to choose that person in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

 

The socialists chose as their candidate Italian lawmaker David Sassoli, making him the strongest contender for the presidency of the parliament, as he also has the support of the centre-right grouping, the largest in the chamber, and the liberals.

 

But the ballot will be secret and some groups' members could vote along national lines. A Bulgarian candidate for parliament president, Sergei Stanishev, was supported by EU leaders but eventually was rejected by most conservative and socialist lawmakers, against the will of deputies from eastern European countries.

 

A smooth election of the EU parliament president is seen as useful to paving the way for the endorsement by the chamber of the new commission's president in a vote expected in the second half of July.

 

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Peter Maushagen, Alexandra Regida, Jean-Baptiste Vey, Richard Lough, Gabriela Baczynska, Alissa de Carbonnel, Belen Carreno in Brussels, Jan Lopatka in Prague, Alan Charlish and Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw, Francesco Guarascio in Strasbourg; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Gareth Jones, Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-03

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[malagateddy]

Yip..the gravy train is up and running again [emoji48][emoji48][emoji48]

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[JAG]

Un pour vous et un pour moi.            

Eins für dich und eins für mich.         

One for me and one for you - in case anyone is interested in bleating about it being an English language forum.

Nice to see that all the European nations are included - both of them.

 

Thank goodness we're on our way out!

Edited July 3, 2019 by JAG

[evadgib]

Will this receive anything like the attention & criticism aimed at the Tories who are essentially doing the same thing at the moment in what is still a member state...?

Edited July 3, 2019 by evadgib

[RickBradford]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Lagarde, once France's first woman finance minister and since 2011 head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a strong advocate of female empowerment, although she has no direct, active monetary policy experience.

Perfect qualifications for the job, once you add in the fraud conviction.

 

This is the secretive, undemocratic, self-serving EU that the UK is trying to get out of.

[malagateddy]

Mere patsies for the multi-national globalist organisations.!!!!![emoji48][emoji48][emoji48]

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[soalbundy]

6 hours ago, JAG said:

Un pour vous et un pour moi.            

Eins für dich und eins für mich.         

One for me and one for you - in case anyone is interested in bleating about it being an English language forum.

Nice to see that all the European nations are included - both of them.

 

Thank goodness we're on our way out!

No gravy train in Westminster and the house of lords is squeaky clean, thank the lord for good honest British politics.

[JAG]

18 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

No gravy train in Westminster and the house of lords is squeaky clean, thank the lord for good honest British politics.

Sorry - you missed my point - I was commenting on the way that the two most important jobs in the governance of the EU were decided by a deal between (and the jobs shared between) the Federal Republic of Germany and The French Republic, a deal negotiated effectively between their respective leaders.

 

As for gravy trains and corruption at both Westminster and Brussels, well there is plenty of scope, but not here!

Edited July 3, 2019 by JAG

[soalbundy]

Just now, firefox999uk said:

 

 

im just waiting to here what Nigel has to say about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a Nice Day.

I doubt he will say much as he is part of the gravy train and is being investigated by the EU for misappropriation of funds 

[JAG]

1 hour ago, soalbundy said:

I doubt he will say much as he is part of the gravy train and is being investigated by the EU for misappropriation of funds 

Yes. I am sure that both Madam Lagarde (fraud convictions aside) and Frau Von Der Leyen are absolute paragons of virtue, and have never misappropriated so much as one Euro throughout their long and glittering political and fiscal careers.

 

So unlike our own Mr Farage, whose recent meteoric rise to political significance, (achieved ironically through the ballot box)  has been accompanied by inconvenient/convenient (select whichever you wish depending on your political views and degree of cynicism) sudden revelations and allegations about his financial affairs.

Edited July 3, 2019 by JAG

[malagateddy]

No gravy train in Westminster and the house of lords is squeaky clean, thank the lord for good honest British politics.

A drop in the ocean compared to the eu!!!
At least they get found out and humiliated by the UK press.
Have a good think re the inglorious eu the last 25 years!!!

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[aright]

14 hours ago, malagateddy said:

Yip..the gravy train is up and running again

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

Some of the biggest budget deficits ever recorded. The deepest recession since anyone started gathering statistics. A conviction for negligence. It is hard to imagine what exactly it might be that would disqualify somebody from being made President of the European Central Bank anymore.

 

https://flipboard.com/@TheTelegraph/putting-lagarde-in-charge-will-lead-the-eurozone-into-catastrophe/a-YnZZ1V4-TMG6L2iZiVZ8Xg%3Aa%3A3199678-8410206cf4/co.uk

[arithai12]

1 hour ago, aright said:

 

Some of the biggest budget deficits ever recorded. The deepest recession since anyone started gathering statistics. A conviction for negligence. It is hard to imagine what exactly it might be that would disqualify somebody from being made President of the European Central Bank anymore.

 

Being male and not French?

[arithai12]

15 hours ago, webfact said:

"Christine Lagarde will ... be a perfect president of the European Central Bank," Tusk said.

The markets are already thrilled at this prospect, with a new low of EUR against USD and THB (now 34.4).

[aright]

3 hours ago, arithai12 said:

Being male and not French?

It's amazing isn't it. The EU Parliament will vote shortly on the appointment of the new EU Commissioner. They were given a choice of one and they will rubber stamp her in...…...by Remainer standards …...very democratic. 

[observer90210]

EU was a basically good idea for economic strenght (?)....but it has become a politically correct, dictatorship. Sorry no offence.

[luckyluke]

Those nominations doesn't usually affect the daily life of an E.U. citizen. 

 

He consider this as "politics",

something which is there, something he can criticise/condemn, but at the end, not really  able to interfere with. 

 

Brexit being, for the moment, "The" illustration :

E.U. citizens, despite it concern them also (it may personally affect them) have no input at all in the matter. 

 

Apparently the U.K. citizens, not that much, even none, as well,

 things being decided out of their reach. 

 

 

[aright]

10 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

Those nominations doesn't usually affect the daily life of an E.U. citizen. 

 

He consider this as "politics",

something which is there, something he can criticise/condemn, but at the end, not really  able to interfere with. 

 

Brexit being, for the moment, "The" illustration :

E.U. citizens, despite it concern them also (it may personally affect them) have no input at all in the matter. 

 

Apparently the U.K. citizens, not that much, even none, as well,

 things being decided out of their reach. 

 

 

 

The EU Commissioner is the most powerful person in the EU (with the possible exception of Merkel)…..to suggest he or she doesn't affect the daily life of EU citizens is naïve. 

 

I voted in the last UK General Election, comprising many choices, knowing that if my Party won their leader would be the next Prime Minister...…….I was happy with that.

What vote did I or the MEP's get in the appointment of the EU Commissioner comprising one choice. Of what value is that to the EU Parliament or EU citizens or democracy?

 

Oh! I have just had a thought as to who might benefit...………………. 

[luckyluke]

3 minutes ago, aright said:

The EU Commissioner is the most powerful person in the EU (with the possible exception of Merkel)…..to suggest he or she doesn't affect the daily life of EU citizens is naïve. 

Well, maybe you can let me know a few tangible examples please.

 

6 minutes ago, aright said:

I voted in the last UK General Election

I suppose I was not clear enough, I was writing about the Brexit Referendum. 

My personal opinion about Brexit is not relevant here. 

But apparently, despite a majority voted for a leave, they don't seem to obtain easely what they voted for, their choice don't seem to be a high priority for the "politics". 

[aright]

7 hours ago, luckyluke said:

Well, maybe you can let me know a few tangible examples please.

 

I suppose I was not clear enough, I was writing about the Brexit Referendum. 

My personal opinion about Brexit is not relevant here. 

But apparently, despite a majority voted for a leave, they don't seem to obtain easely what they voted for, their choice don't seem to be a high priority for the "politics". 

Firstly this post is not about Brexit it's about the coronation of EU leaders.

If you want examples of the power of the head of the EU Commission look at his job description...……..

The European Commission is the EU’s executive arm and defines itself as the heart of Europe, from which the other institutions derive their energy and purpose. 

The Commission has two main roles – to devise policies and to run the day-to-day business of the EU,  education, employment, tax and trade. If the Head of that Commission is not the most powerful person in the EU who is?

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by aright

[RickBradford]

This is what EU 'democracy' looks like

 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/03/this-is-what-eu-democracy-looks-like/

[luckyluke]

14 minutes ago, aright said:

If the Head of that Commission is not the most powerful person in the EU who is?

Never contested this. 

 

Being 70+, I honestly don't know what E.U. decision ever affected me personally.

 

For instance, I paid a lot of taxes in Belgium and subject to all kind of deductions, however I have actually a monthly gross pension of 2500 Euro (subject to indexation).

 

When I will die, my widow will get 85% of my income.

 

This is a decision made by the Belgian government.

 

Other countries in the E.U. have different rules.

 

There is no any kind of obligation imposed by the E.U. in that specific matter, which is very important for me and many others. 

 

The E.U. is there since several decades, I still have no personal problem with it, nor does it affect me personally. 

 

I dare to say that the other Belgians I know have the same experience. 

 

Now of course this a very small amount of people. 

 

Others may have a different idea about the matter. 

 

 

[aright]

15 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

This is what EU 'democracy' looks like

 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/03/this-is-what-eu-democracy-looks-like/

That pretty much spells it out.

I'm surprised more Remainers aren't posting, defending or explaining, their preferred brand of democracy. Perhaps they haven't worked out yet, they are a pawn in the game.

[luckyluke]

 To be clear, I am not a really a fan of all this appointees in the E.U., but it is there and I, and others, have to live with it, even we don't know what is actually their purpose. 

 

There must be Brits who are not that happy with the House of Lords either. 

 

Maybe the comparison is not accurate, I don't know nothing about it, only that they are not elected. 

[Baerboxer]

On 7/3/2019 at 10:03 AM, JAG said:

Un pour vous et un pour moi.            

Eins für dich und eins für mich.         

One for me and one for you - in case anyone is interested in bleating about it being an English language forum.

Nice to see that all the European nations are included - both of them.

 

Thank goodness we're on our way out!

 

You should remember the German lady - as Defense Minister of Germany, just after the Brexit referendum result, she announced how pleased she was Britain was leaving the EU as they were blocking her vision of a EU army! (One she seemed to suggest should be HQ'd in Germany!).

 

And the nice French lady, Madame Lagarde. Convicted of a serious fraud which cost tax payers millions. But the judge decided she didn't deserve punishment, which is permitted under French law. Nice to see that fraud conviction hasn't impaired her career.

 

Two wonderful choices! Of course Germany and France don't run the EU! Jobs have been given to dodgy Belgian, unknown Italian and obscure Spaniard to keep the neighbors quiet. Bet the Scandinavians and East Europeans are over the moon with these choices!

 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by Baerboxer

[aright]

2 hours ago, luckyluke said:

 To be clear, I am not a really a fan of all this appointees in the E.U., but it is there and I, and others, have to live with it, even we don't know what is actually their purpose. 

 

There must be Brits who are not that happy with the House of Lords either. 

 

Maybe the comparison is not accurate, I don't know nothing about it, only that they are not elected. 

You are right there are many people in the UK not happy with the House of Lords.

\ think you have hit the nail on the head "but it is there and I, and others, have to live with it,"

It is there because without a democratic mandate nothing will change, hence it was part of the movement in the UK to leave the Union.

[Scott]

Post from an unapproved source has been removed.  

 

[luckyluke]

14 hours ago, aright said:

It is there because without a democratic mandate

So, the citizens of the E.U. will continue to live with those E.U. appointees. 

 

The citizens of the U.K. with the House of Lords. 

 

Pretty sure, even if we not completely agree with it, we will continue to be able to live our lives, the way we want. 

[welovesundaysatspace]

On 7/4/2019 at 6:08 AM, aright said:

 

The EU Commissioner is the most powerful person in the EU (with the possible exception of Merkel)…..to suggest he or she doesn't affect the daily life of EU citizens is naïve. 

 

I voted in the last UK General Election, comprising many choices, knowing that if my Party won their leader would be the next Prime Minister...…….I was happy with that.

What vote did I or the MEP's get in the appointment of the EU Commissioner comprising one choice. Of what value is that to the EU Parliament or EU citizens or democracy?

 

Oh! I have just had a thought as to who might benefit...………………. 

And when did you vote for the most powerful person in the UK? A choice of 1, who is never elected by anyone. 

[evadgib]

The EU appointments to the top jobs were discussed on BBCTW last night. The full debate was quite long but AN was on fire & TBH would have been a much better choice to host Question Time when Dimbleby retired:

 

Here's a short clip: