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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to