Macron bemoans ‘failure’ of EU leadership all-night summit, while Merkel urges patience

Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel have aired concerns after a marathon EU summit, held to allocate the bloc’s top jobs, ended without a decision being reached. Both leaders said they hoped talks on Tuesday would be more fruitful.

After more than 18 hours of negotiations, leaders of the EU’s 28 member-states were unable to select the next leadership for the bloc.

Up for grabs at the Brussels pow-wow are the presidencies of the EU Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council of EU governments, the EU’s foreign policy chief and the head of the European Central Bank, which governs the euro currency.

The deadlock proved to be particularly frustrating for the French president, who told reporters that the summit’s “failure” portrays “a very bad image for both the [European] Council and for Europe.”

Macron said “personal ambitions” were preventing a deal from being reached.

His German counterpart was less eager to broadcast her disappointment, but said that the summit failed as a result of “big member states that couldn’t live … with the proposals we had today.”

Merkel stressed, however, that pushing through a half-baked agreement could result in living with “insurmountable tensions in the European Council for five years.”

She said that instead of “rushing things,” it was better for EU leaders to “sleep on it for one night, and look again to see whether there is a new point of view.”

Even if a deal is reached, the grueling summit has apparently left Macron deeply displeased. The French president told reporters that the experience has convinced him that “deep changes” are needed in how the EU’s institutions operate.

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