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14 May 2004
HAMBURG – German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac have agreed to support each other’s candidates for two key EU positions, the Financial Times Deutschland said.
Chirac will support a German for the post of vice president of the EU Commission, the union’s executive body. In return Germany will ask for an extension of Frenchman Pierre de Boissieu’s term as vice general secretary of the EU Council, which represents the governments of the member states.
The German government declined comment on the report.
France and Germany agree that a vice president for industrial, economic and financial policies would be sensible, a German government spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. However, the government did not want to anticipate the decision of the commission president.
If Schroeder and Chirac are successful with their personnel plans, both countries would secure strategic positions in the EU, the Financial Times Germany said.
Guenter Verheugen, who served as expansion commissioner leading up to the May 1 expansion of the EU, is the most probable German candidate for a post in the EU Commission. As vice general secretary of the EU Council, de Boissieu is the most powerful EU official in Brussels.
DPA
Subject: German news