politjobs.eu job alert – Spitzenkandidaten Rock’n’Roll

With the last plenary session of the outgoing European Parliament, with Notre Dame a symbol of mankind burning down, and a royal baby boy born in the UK, EU events turned human over these past weeks.

As a relief to many, Brexit is not being talked about anymore – at least for the moment and at the EU side of the pond. In the UK, a minister for once did not resign but got fired: defence minister Gavin Williamson had to go for allegedly leaking information on having Huawei participate in building the UK’s 5G network. At the same time, we see first the first extremely serious concerns coming true: a journalist killed in Irish Londonderry riots lets many of the not-even-that-much-older generation remember the bleak times of the Northern Ireland conflict – and fear a new one.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament “Spitzenkandidaten” get ready to rock ‘n’ roll – at least some of them try to: the first matches of the biggest parties’ lead candidates Frans Timmermans (S&D) and Manfred Weber (EPP) left the impression of a much more political debate than during the last elections. Turns out Timmermans is the punchier speaker but the EPP remains the strongest party – and on fundamental topics, both candidates are aligned; a fact that is easy to understand for anyone in the EU bubble, but very hard for most voters out there. Positively striking: the high public interest in the fundamental issues Europe needs to solve, such as climate change or migration – as opposed to cucumber standardisation.

Weber faces at least one problem less, but that brings a new one: Orban now publicly stated that he will not vote for Weber; thus leaving no reason for the EPP to keep him with his Fidesz party within their ranks, and a high probability for a significant strengthening of the European far right.

Someone else is struggling to get into the game: former Catolonian leader Puidgemont was first to be excluded from the European elections on the grounds of not residing in Spain (he fled from accusations of rebellion and abuse of public money), but now received backing from the Spanish courts – much to the dismay of the Spanish conservatives.

But not all of the EU is drowning in elections. The European Commission still succeeded in receiving the European Parliament’s backing for a connected cars approach favouring Wifi over 5G – whether a smart or not-so-smart move is answered differently depending on who you ask: carmakers betting on Wifi or 5G, or on Deutsche Telekom and Samsung, or other providers.

If none of this strikes you as too political, if on the contrary, you are willing to immerse yourself in this currently quite heated environment, then find some jobs attached and as usual more on politjobs.eu!

Irina Michalowitz