MEP Siegfried Muresan : EPP to hold summit in Sibiu in 2019

National Liberal Party (PNL) MEP Siegfried Muresan has announced that the European People’s Party (EPP) will hold a summit in Sibiu in 2019, event that will be organised amid the European Parliament elections campaign scheduled for May 2019. The European People’s Party (EPP) will designate, at a party conference next week, its candidate for the helm of the EC. “A meeting of historic character will take place in Sibiu on 9 May 2019, namely a summit of all Heads of State and Government in the European Union, a summit in which the future of the European Union will be discussed. Ahead of all the summits of Heads of State and Government, the European People’s Party always organises a summit of Heads of State and Government belonging to our political family. Namely, all the Presidents and Prime Ministers who come from parties that are members of the European People’s Party meet to prepare the great summit, to prepare the European Council. You can imagine that if German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and all the other EPP Prime Ministers will meet in a hall to prepare the European Council, then the decisions they take will give backbone to the decision taken at the main summit,” Siegfried Muresan stated following the event titled ‘Sibiu Summit – priorities and values for the future of the European Union,” an event that took place on Saturday in Sibiu. The PNL MEP also said that the previous summit of its kind was organised by the EPP in Salzburg, on September 19. “In the past, the EPP has always organised – when there were such informal summits of Heads of State and Government – an EPP summit ahead of the main summit; the latest took place on September 19 in Salzburg, the EPP summit took place before the main summit organised by the Austrian presidency. Hence, the European People’s Party is willing to organise an EPP summit in Sibiu, ahead of the main summit, a summit that we will organise as a family, the EPP along with the National Liberal Party, with the other Romanian party member of the EPP and one of the most influential member parties of the EPP, and it’s obvious that this summit will take place amid the elections campaign.” He added that the candidate for the office of European Commission President will be selected at the EPP party conference in Helsinki, on November 7-8. “Next week, the EPP will organise in Helsinki, Finland, the party conference with which we will basically launch the campaign for the European Parliament elections, we will select our candidate for the office of European Commission President. After this party conference, very important for the whole of the EU, the preparations for the summit in Sibiu will start. We will give you details as soon as we have them.” On October 11, PNL President Ludovic Orban announced that the Liberals will support EPP parliamentary group leader Manfred Weber for the office of European Commission President. Alexander Stubb is another EPP candidate who has entered the race for the helm of the EC. He visited Bucharest on October 29 and presented before PNL’s Executive Bureau several points of the programme he will implement if he takes over the presidency of the European Commission, Mediafax informs.