Talks on EU’s next leaders shelved until Tuesday after marathon session

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p>Weary European Union leaders broke off their talks amid deep divisions over who should run the European project for at least the next five years after a fruitless negotiating session that lasted all night&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After a full night of one-on-one meetings&comma; trilateral talks&comma; and group discussions&comma; including sitting down over breakfast&comma; EU Council President Donald Tusk called a halt&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He said the summit should reconvene on Tuesday&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>French President Emmanuel Macron lamented the meeting as a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;failure&comma;” and said the summit &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;gives an image of Europe that is not serious” due to the stalemate&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This failure&comma; he said&comma; should lead to &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;deep changes” to how the EU operates&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Already beset by crises over Brexit and damaging infighting over how best to manage migrant arrivals&comma; the EU’s 28 leaders had been keen to show there is still life in the European project with quick decisions on a series of top-notch nominations for what are key portfolios&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But their failure&comma; yet again&comma; to agree on any names highlights Europe’s changed political landscape following May’s elections to the European Parliament&comma; which saw the two historically dominant centre-right and -left groups lose seats to the far-right and populists&comma; as well as to pro-business and pro-environment parties&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rather than make Europe more efficient&comma; the results seem to have complicated matters further&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It will continue&comma;”<&sol;em> Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte told reporters after the summit broke off&comma; and leaders left&comma; many without saying much to reporters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s a bit complicated&comma;”<&sol;em> he said&comma; after more than 17 hours of official deliberations&comma; plus hours of sideline meetings&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>No news conference are planned to explain exactly how the summit had broken down&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The aim had been to pick at least three of five top jobs up for renewal&comma; most of them by November&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Prime among them is the post of president of the EU’s powerful executive arm&comma; the European Commission president&comma; currently held by Jean-Claude Juncker&comma; and the president of the European Council&comma; where incumbent Donald Tusk chairs summits and helps set the EU’s political agenda&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Other jobs include the president of the European Parliament and the EU’s foreign policy chief&comma; essentially its top diplomat&comma; responsible for among other things the Iran nuclear deal&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The European Central Bank chairman’s job was to be decided later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After a night of talks that started Sunday afternoon&comma; it had all appeared on track by mid-morning Monday&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As some reporters slumped asleep over their desks&comma; a high-ranking diplomat involved in the deliberations said that former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans was favourite to become the next president of the European Commission&comma; which proposes and enforces EU laws&comma; with policy commissioners who supervise policy on everything from national budgets to migration&comma; from competition issues to health&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Over what has been one of the longest summits in recent years — surpassing even the record set during the Greek debt crisis&comma; Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva from the centre-right European People’s Party group looked likely to follow Donald Tusk as head of the European Council&comma; which coordinates policies of member states and organises summits&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>An EU official later said that Ms Georgieva was part of the reason for the holdup&comma; and it remained unclear whether she would get a green light&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Others in line for top jobs were pro-business liberals Belgian prime minister Charles Michel or the current EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager from Denmark as foreign policy chief — essentially the bloc’s top diplomat&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The leading EPP candidate Manfred Weber appeared in line to serve at least half a term as president of the European Parliament&comma; the diplomat said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The aim is to fill the posts respecting political affiliations&comma; geography&comma; a balance of countries from Europe’s north and south&comma; east and west&comma; population size and gender considerations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But the wrangling is yet another sign of the way that EU elections in May — which saw the two mainstream parties lose seats in the European Parliament — have shaken up Europe’s political landscape&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As she left&comma; German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to play down the impasse&comma; saying it’s worth spending a little more time to achieve as broadly accepted an agreement as possible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mrs Merkel said the leaders put off their quest to fill the top posts because there were &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;big member states that couldn’t live … with the proposals we had today”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>She did not offer details&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>She suggested that&comma; while it would be technically possible to outvote countries with a total of 100 million inhabitants&comma; it would be unwise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mrs Merkel said that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;politics is attempting to implement what is possible&comma; and sometimes that takes time”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;If we rushed things now … and then lived with insurmountable tensions in the European Council for five years&comma; we would be asked&colon; &OpenCurlyQuote;Why couldn’t you take one more day&comma; and sleep on it for one night&comma; and look again to see whether there is a new point of view&quest;&&num;8217&semi;”<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed8715b9332">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; function &lpar;&rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;if &lpar; false &equals;&equals;&equals; &lpar; window&period;isWatlV1 &quest;&quest; false &rpar; &rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&sol;&sol; Use Aditude scripts&period;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;tudeMappings &equals; window&period;tudeMappings &vert;&vert; &lbrack;&rsqb;&semi;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;tudeMappings&period;push&lpar; 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