How Macron Won It All: The French president as master kingmaker.

• Author: Engelen, Klaus C.

The French did it again. By recalling Christine Lagarde, who has served as managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 2011, from Washington and throwing her into the race to succeed Mario Draghi as head of the European Central Bank, French President Emanuel Macron effectively won the real power game in the competition for the top European positions after the May elections for the European Parliament.

But since Macron helped nominate, in a big surprise, Ursula von der Leyen, the Brussels-born francophone long-time member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, to lead the new EU Commission, the disappointment in Germany of not seeing Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann chosen as Draghi's successor may have been somewhat mitigated.

HOW MACRON GOT THE POLE POSITION

When the race for the new EU chief executive began, the French president started questioning the system of Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidates). Macron referred to the Lisbon Treaty, which left the Council in the lead role to select and propose a candidate whom the European Parliament then would have to confirm with an absolute majority.

The Council consists of the heads of state or governments of the member countries, together with its president and the president of the Commission. In Macron's view, the 2014 European election, when the center-right European People's Party got Jean-Claude Juncker elected Commission president with the help of the Progressive Alliance for Socialist and Democrats, was an aberration to be corrected. Macron and other European leaders oppose any automatism on the side of the EU Parliament in determining who the EU Commission president should be. In this year's election, the lead candidates and their political groupings campaigned vigorously on a pro-Europe agenda, promising the voters that this time around one of the lead candidates would become the new EU president in an effort to strengthen democracy and bring citizens closer to the European Union. But this was ignored by the Council in a turbulent selection struggle.

To move the Council back to its pivotal role, Macron had to get Manfred Weber of Germany-the lead candidate of the largest political grouping, the European People's Party-out of the way. This was despite the fact that the three leading candidates had been promising the citizens all over Europe that one of them would be chosen to lead the EU Commission, and that there would be no back-room deals for the Council as in the past.

The French president waged a fierce personal attack against Weber, accusing him of "insufficient experience" and "lack of credibility," causing a lot of irritation and bad blood even among the EPP members and especially among Merkel's Bavarian CSU party allies. The CSU has sent Weber to the European Parliament since 2004.

Merkel-who lost much of her former negotiating leverage in Brussels after giving up her party leadership-did not make Macron's relentless attacks on Weber an issue, but backed Weber as lead candidate to the bitter end.

In an interview with the German tabloid Bild, Weber complained bitterly. "His bid to be European Commission president was rejected by EU leaders because French President Emmanuel Macron and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were powerful forces who did not want to accept the election results. There were backroom talks and late-night sessions, during which the Macron-Orban axis prevailed and the Spitzenkandidat system was dismantled. This is not the Europe I want and I will continue to fight for the democratization of the European Union." Weber pointed to Macron's earlier EU election speeches calling for citizens "to vote for my Europe, not for Orban's. And suddenly they are working together and damaging democratic Europe. And now we are in shambles."

As it turned out, Weber was given the chance to serve the second half-term as president of the European Parliament, succeeding the Italian David Sassoli, its newly elected president.

EU PARLIAMENT GAVE AWAY ITS CHANCE

Since 2014, the European Parliament has had 751 members, according to the terms of the Lisbon Treaty. In the May 2019 elections, seventy-three British members took part who will leave when Britain departs from the European Union.

The EPP center-right alliance again emerged as the largest group. There was the expectation that Weber from the German CDU/CSU should become Commission president. There was hope that he would...