German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves after addressing the Bundestag, the German lower house of parliament on March 9, 2017 in Berlin. Merkel, who spoke ahead of a EU summit in Brussels, said the planned re-election of Poland’s Donald Tusk as president of the European Union is a “sign of stability” for the bloc, despite bitter opposition from Warsaw. / AFP PHOTO / Tobias SCHWARZ
The re-election of Poland’s Donald Tusk as European Union president would be a “sign of stability” for the bloc, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, despite bitter opposition from Warsaw.
“Today we will decide on the re-election of Donald Tusk as president of the EU for another two and a half years,” Merkel told parliament before heading to a Brussels summit of EU leaders.
“I see his re-election as a sign of stability for all of Europe, and I am happy to continue working with him,” she added.
Merkel’s strong support for Tusk came as Poland’s right-wing government threatened to derail the EU summit if leaders went ahead and re-elected their countryman Tusk as the bloc’s president.
Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told TVN24 channel that “we’ll do everything we can to ensure that the vote won’t take place today”.
“We have informed the Germans that it isn’t necessary to elect the EU president today,” he added.
Poland’s eurosceptic government on Saturday proposed MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski as its official candidate to replace Tusk, but Warsaw appears to have won no support from other EU members.
Turning to refugee policies — a key issue dividing the bloc — Merkel said the EU had “undoubtedly made progress, but more progress still needs to be made”.
She made a fresh call for “solidarity” from other EU members, in terms of accepting refugees, and urged reform of the asylum system to share the burden more equally.
“We need to reform it for more solidarity, and above all, strengthen it against crises,” she said.
Countries including Hungary and Slovakia have proposed paying financial contributions instead of actually taking in any asylum seekers.
But others such as France and Germany insist that no country can shirk its duty to admit a minimum number of refugees under the plan, which was pushed through in September 2015.
