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Britain's Farage blasts 'business as usual' in Brussels

27 May 2014, 15:02 CET
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(BRUSSELS) - Voters may have just delivered a stinging rebuke to the EU establishment but it looks like "business as usual" in Brussels, Nigel Farage, head of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, said Tuesday.

"There is a big, dissident voice now in the European Parliament," Farage said as party leaders met to work out the next step after anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties upset the traditional centre-left/centre-right apple cart.

"And yet, I have just sat in a meeting where you would think nothing had happened at all, it was business as usual," he said.

Farage is well known as an MEP for his biting attacks on the excesses and failings of the EU and his presence may have proved uncomfortable for European Parliament party leaders trying to settle who of their candidates should go through to head the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm.

They agreed that Jean-Claude Juncker, backed by the centre-right European People's Party, should be first up since the group, though much reduced in Sunday's vote, remains the largest, with 213 of the 751 seats.

Rival Martin Schulz of the Socialists, who will have 189 seats, pointed out that while the EPP had lost more than 60 seats, it still did have the right to put Juncker forward as the biggest group.

Guy Verhofstadt, of the Liberals, third with 64 seats, warned European Union leaders who will meet later Tuesday to discuss the elections, that they must pick the next Commission head from the candidates put forward by parliamentary groups.

"It would be the end of democracy in Europe if they do not," said Verhofstadt, who is the Commission candidate of his party.

The leaders have traditionally named the Commission head on their own, but under new rules they now have "to take account" of the European election results.

One reason cited for the success of the anti-EU camp is popular resentment against aloof bureaucrats in Brussels who know nothing of the daily problems of the EU's 500 million citizens.

The parliamentary groups insist that the best way to bolster the bloc's democratic credentials and so meet such charges is to name one of their candidates from the EU's only directly elected institution.

If Juncker cannot build a sustainable majority in the new parliament, then it would be up to Schulz to see if he could do so.

Schulz pointedly said that Juncker could go nowhere unless he got the support of the Socialists.

The 28 EU leaders will discuss the vote and the Commission appointment, due to be made in July, but officials say no names will be decided Tuesday.


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