Balkan Politicians Sidelined Over Top EU Posts

Politicians from Balkan EU member states failed to obtain any top posts in the new Commission after hopes rose that Sergey Stanishev of Bulgaria, for example, might become the new president of the European Parliament.

Members of the European Parliament on Wednesday instead elected Italian MEP David-Maria Sassoli as their new speaker. Sassoli will serve for half of the new parliamentary term. A member of the centre-right European People's Party, EPP, will serve for the rest of the mandate.

Although some politicians from the Balkans and Central Europe were among the suggested names for the European Union's leading positions, none was elected in the end.

Stanishev, leader of the Party of European Socialists, PES, had been considered a possible candidate for President of the European Parliament - but in the end did not submit his candidacy.

"It would be an honour for me and a high prestige for my country. But … yesterday, I told the Socialist Group chairman, Irace Garcia, not to consider my nomination as President of the European Parliament," Stanishev said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, after three days of tough negotiations between the bloc's main political groups, European leaders named German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen as the new President of the Commission.

They also decided that Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, aligned with the pan-European liberal ALDE party, would replace former prime minister of Poland Donald Tusk as head of the European Council.

The current head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, is the new head of the European Central Bank while the EU foreign policy brief goes to Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell. The nominations must be formally confirmed by the European...