By Bruno Waterfield - 20th July 2004
A first-time Spanish Socialist MEP has been elected president of the European Parliament by an absolute majority.
Josep Borell, elected to the EU’s parliament on June 13 2004, secured the backing of 388 colleagues to take the top job.
Borrell a member of the parliament’s second biggest centre-left grouping, the Party of European Socialists (PES), will serve a two and a half year term as president after a controversial deal with the centre-right.
The European People’s Party (EPP) – parliament’s biggest grouping with 268 of 732 MEPs – backed the Spaniard on a “technical agreement” sewing-up the post between left and right.
Borrell will officiate for the first half of the five-year presidency term, then hand over to EPP group leader Hans-Gert Pöttering in late 2006.
'Technical'
But 80 MEPs from the PES and EPP failed to back Borrell with 208 votes going to a candidate fielded by the Liberals.
Polish MEP Bronislaw Geremek, a founder of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union, was a popular contender easily beating a French Communist challenger Francis Wurtz into third place with 51 votes.
Liberal leader Graham Watson claimed that backing beyond his group’s 88 MEPs for Geremek showed anger at horse-trading between the parliament’s two power blocs.
“The fact that the candidate of the Christian Democrats and the Socialists fell 80 votes short of their combined total speaks volumes for the dissatisfaction within their ranks,” he said.
'Unnatural'
Watson and other disgruntled MEPs are attacking an “unnatural alliance” between left and right to scoop the parliament’s top jobs.
“If the two big groups try to use this alliance to carve up the decisions in this Parliament, we will fight them every inch of the way. Our citizens are fed up of the opaque way in which the EU reaches decisions,” he said.
“I look forward to the day when this parliament is mature enough that we can build political majorities, not just technical ones".
But Socialist leader Martin Schulz hit back - hailing a deal that would give the centre-left a crack of the whip after a previous presidency carve-up between the centre-right and Liberals.
“We are delighted to have a socialist once again as EP President after a long period in which this position has been occupied by conservatives and liberals," he said.
"Europe needs a strong European Parliament. I am convinced that Josep Borrell, as president, will do all that he can to bring this about."
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