Liberal Prime Ministers Summit – 2 EU top jobs left: “We want a Liberal”

The traditional European Liberal Summit took place today in Brussels in order to discuss a range of strategic issues before the EU summit. “We considered what role we want the head of the European Council to have – commented Annemie Neyts, ELDR Party President - and that is a chairing and coordinating function with the ability to convene additional meetings of the European Council in exceptional circumstances. One of the four top positions should go to the European liberals.”

 Matti Vanhanen, Finnish Prime Minister, announced that the discussions over the candidates for the 2 EU top jobs that are set to be created after the ratification of the Lisbon treaty (President of the European Council and High representative for Foreign Affairs) have already taken place amongst the Liberal prime ministers, but “before the Lisbon treaty has been ratified, we prefer not to make it public” he added. Neyts reaffirmed, “we are not like the EPP. They have this kind of press imperialism and they always try to persuade public opinion with this constant naming of candidates deprived of a remarkable European profile. We supported Barroso’s re-nomination and now the EPP has to live up to the deal” added Neyts.

Irish Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, backed the liberal calls for having one of the remaining top jobs and stated that the Lisbon treaty ratification process must be concluded as soon as possible.

The European Council will also discuss the upcoming UN climate change conference in Copenhagen that seeks to agree a new international deal after 2012. On the Copenhagen summit, Cecilia Malmström, Swedish Minister of European Affairs and Liberal representative for the Swedish EU Presidency, said: “the financing that is available to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change is one of the main subjects on the agenda of this European Council. “The EU must make it clear that there is money on the table to help developing countries tackle climate change, but we cannot be the only ones to do so, stressed Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Danish Prime Minister. “We have to reach an agreement and move faster. Copenhagen is the deadline for an agreement…and a strong position from the EU will be essential to help achieve this” concluded Rasmussen.

Commenting on the official EU summit that is going to take place today and tomorrow, Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader in the European Parliament, said: “There are two things to make this summit a success – first, a breakthrough on the Lisbon treaty ratification is essential and secondly finding an agreement concerning financial support to developing countries in view of the global climate change talks”.