Merkel ally Manfred Weber takes leap towards becoming next EU president

Top MEP endorsed by main centre-right group at congress in Helsinki

Manfred Weber speaking in the European Parliament (Getty)

An ally of Angela Merkel has taken a major leap towards becoming the next president of the European Commission after the EU's largest party endorsed him as their candidate.

Manfred Weber was backed as the European People's Party's (EPP) so-called spitzencandidate at its congress in Helsinki on Thursday with 79 per cent of delegates' vote.

Mr Weber, a member of the conservative CSU party which is closely allied with Angela Merkel's CDU, beat former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, who has positioned himself as a liberal conservative.

He was endorsed by all of the EPP’s sitting heads of state and government and most of its national member parties.

“I stand here not only to ask for your support as a candidate, but I stand here to ask you for a mandate, a mandate to change Europe!" he told delegates in a speech before the votes came in.

The next European Commission President will be chosen by the heads of state and government of the 27 remaining EU member states after next year's European Parliament elections.

Under the spitzencandidate convention the leaders are supposed to choose the lead candidate of the largest parliamentary group – which is likely to be Mr Weber. Some states have however disputed this process and it is not clear whether they will respect the parties' choice.

Other potential candidates for Commission president include Frans Timmermans, who is the lead candidate for the socialist group, and Michel Barnier, who missed out on being lead candidate for the EPP because of his Brexit commitments but who is thought to want the job.

The EPP is expected to come top in the European elections, as it has done in all recent votes – but be heavily wounded by a surge in support for the far-right and populists.

Mr Weber currently leads the EPP's group in the European Parliament, which is the legislature's largest.