Philippe Lamberts, the new co-chairman of the Greens group in the European Parliament (EP), said Tuesday that the Greens will not support a candidate who was not put forward by the main parties during the European elections.
Commenting on British Prime Minister David Cameron and the post of the European Commission (EC) president, Lamberts, a Belgian Green, said: "I thought Cameron was the Prime Minister of one of the EU's major powers. Yet, he is saying he can't do anything in Great Britain as some people are anti-Europe, and if the EP wants people to be less anti-European it should appoint someone other than Jean-Claude Juncker."
"I would say that if Cameron is a democrat he must accept sometimes being in a minority. If a majority of heads of state and government want to nominate Juncker, then he should be nominated by the heads of state and government. The UK can't always be in the majority."
Juncker is the favored candidate of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) which won the most seats in the new EP. Cameron has obstinately opposed his nomination, claiming Juncker is a federalist incapable of driving reform of the EU institutions.
In a treaty change, the new EC president is to be nominated by the heads of state in the European Council "taking account" of the result of May's European elections. Most of the leading political groups in the EP presented their favored candidates for the post before the elections took place.
At the same time, Lamberts doubted that the Greens would vote in favor of Juncker as the next EC president.
"If Juncker is put forward to the EP then we will look at the program and see whether he can really present a different policy to the one of the past five years," he stated. "(German Chancellor) Angela Merkel is the real boss of the EPP, so can we expect a different policy in the future? I doubt it. And if it is the same policy it will be hard for the Greens to be on board."