Antonio TAJANI, EP President, speaks to the press about the European Council - Informal dinner of heads of state or government in Brussels.

Brussels

TAJANI, Antonio (EPP, IT)

press conference

European Council (T2)

2019 European elections (T)

European Council - Informal dinner of heads of state or government: extracts from the press conference by Antonio TAJANI, EP President

Cutaway of Antonio TAJANI, EP President before the press conference takes place

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, Today I was given a mandate by the Conference of Presidents of the the political groups tin the European Parliament. There was a broad majority for a mandate and that is to stress again to the Member States that the European Parliament supports the Spitzenkandidat procedure. A democratic procedure that gives citizens an opportunity to express their position on how the EU executive should be led.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, We are convinced that those who run as candidates had the consent of citizens to be the President of the EU executive, which is in sync with the spirit of the Treaty that says that Member States based on the election results.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, The decisions of the Parliament are taken on the basis of a majority, there was a significant majority today for this position. The Liberals who did not support the position, they support the principles but they felt that principle applies only if you have a transnational list, so there were not against the principle as such. They did not support the document itself but supported the specific Spitzenkandidat procedure itself when you have transnational lists. The EP, as in all democracies,as we heard in the UK press, takes decision on the basis of a majority, and it is a very wide majority.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, The decisions of the European Commission are made jointly between the EP and the EU Council. We are in favour of the Spitzenkandidat procedure. A number of head of State and Government have said that they do not particularly like this approach, but we are in favour. We are not defending any particular candidate but a principle, a process that is democratic, the citizens are demanding democracy and that is what the Spitzenkandidat process is, helping through a democratic process to decide who will become head of the Commission.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, It is problem regarding fake news, we have adopted the necesary counter measures to make sure that nobody could influence the vote of European citizens. We have been very clear on that and I thank you Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. There were fake news coming from 15 countries, at least from outside the European Union and we adopted a whole range of systems to ensure that our citizens were not wrongly influenced. We also said this during a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg who committed to respect that there should not be an extra European influence to interfere with the free vote of citizens. 

Cutaway of Antonio TAJANI closing the presser 