BRUSSELS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron sought to break a deadlock over the EU’s top jobs on Tuesday by proposing France’s Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to lead the European Central Bank (ECB), diplomatic sources said.
In his proposal, made to tired EU leaders on a third day of arm-wrestling over who will hold the posts for the next five years, Macron also proposed German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen to head the European Commission, the EU executive.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s spokesman said that Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland supported von der Leyen, who speaks fluent English and French and wants Germany eventually to reach NATO’s requirement of spending 2% of its economic output on defense.
The leaders are trying to balance political affiliations, the varying interests of different regions and an acute lack of women in senior ranks as they seek to fill five jobs coming vacant later this year.
Following the French president’s proposal, one source said: “Things are going smoothly now.”
The marathon talks have underlined the growing fragmentation in the 28-nation European Union, increasingly struggling to agree a common platform on major challenges from migration to trade to climate change.
A diplomatic source said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU’s most powerful leader, was “very positive” about the proposal of Lagarde, a former center-right French finance minister. She is also likely to welcome the proposal of von der Leyen, who is from Merkel’s governing conservatives.
Lagarde, an experienced political operator and a persistent advocate of letting more
