EU leaders failed to reach agreement as their summit ended early on Thursday over who should get the top jobs to steer the 28-nation bloc over the next five years.
The outcome was “unfortunate but not dramatic,” said European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who stands down later this year.
“My conclusion was that we were not yet at the point where we could get a consensual solution on a whole package,” Van Rompuy said after the talks dragged on into the early hours on Thursday.
There will be another summit on Aug. 30, he said, adding he was “certain that ... we will reach a decision” then.
Early hopes for a decision on who would replace Britain’s Catherine Ashton as foreign affairs head, a coveted high-profile job, faded from the start, putting the summit in immediate difficulty.
Without agreement on this key position, finding a new president of the European Council, which represents the 28 national leaders and sets overall policy direction, became even more difficult.
Rejecting suggestions of a setback, Van Rompuy said such decisions took time.
“I knew quite well that we might not reach a decision,” he said, adding that once Ashton’s replacement is named, “this will all fall into place quite quickly.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had played down expectations that any appointment decisions be made even before leaders sat down at the summit table.
At the close of the meeting, Merkel said she was “fully confident we will get there, step by step, stage by stage.”
However, French President Francois Hollande said at a press conference that the next EU top diplomat “will be a woman, taking into consideration what we must present as the image of Europe.”
He also said European socialists want a left-wing foreign affairs chief.
“It is better to not have a deal, because it’s not yet possible to agree on a whole package of nominations,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said as she left the meeting.
Grybauskaite had made clear from the start that Lithuania, along with the other Baltic states and Poland, would not accept the early favorite, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, as Ashton’s replacement.
Diplomats had said an alternative to Mogherini could be current EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva of Bulgaria, who is close to the center-right European People’s Party, the biggest single group in the European Parliament.
As Mogherini’s chances faded, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tweeted: “What does Italy ask for? Not one post or another; it asks for respect.”
For the European Council, Social Democrat Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt enjoyed wide support, including from Britain, to replace Van Rompuy.
Once the top jobs are settled, then the EU embarks on the next round, deciding who gets which portfolio in the new 28-seat European Commission to be headed by Jean-Claude Juncker.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but