President of the European Council Donald Tusk informed on Wednesday that he expected to start the nomination process of appointing new people to the EU's most powerful roles during a summit on May 28, two days after the bloc's European Parliament vote.
"On the 28th of May I will call a meeting of all 28 EU leaders in order to start the nomination process. My intention is to carry out the election of heads of EU institutions in a swift, smooth and effective manner. Naturally, this process will follow the rules set down in the treaties," said Tusk.
He added that he would not refrain from ordering the vote over nominations, if the compromise should be hard to reach.
European Council President Donald Tusk also said on Thursday the rule of law was central to the bloc, as he attended talks with EU leaders in Romania.
Speaking at the news conference along with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Tusk said the rule of law was the essence of EU's political activity and entity.
"With my own personal experience, I know one thing that if you are ready to defend the idea of rule of law then you can be optimistic, but only then. It's not only the problem in some European member states. We can, unfortunately, we can talk about very dangerous trend in global politics and this desire in some governments to reduce the rule of law or independence of judiciary system, this is something visible not only in Europe and this is why everything or almost everything is in your hands," he said.
The EU's executive has repeatedly said judicial changes made by Romania's ruling Social Democrats have reversed decades of democratic reforms and weakened the country's ability to fight corruption. Romania currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
"Today it was obvious that for all of us or maybe almost all of us the rule of law is the essence of our political activity and there will be also in the centre of the attention in our future documents, including the strategic agenda, no doubt. And, there is no Europe without rule of law. This is not because of some ideological, you know, doctrines. No, this is the quintessence of Europe as a political entity," the president of the European Council underscored.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP