This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have clashed again over who will fill the EU’s most senior posts, prompting one frustrated national leader to claim it would be easier to elect a pope.

An unproductive meeting on Thursday between the German chancellor and the French president appeared to dash any hope of a swift resolution to their dispute over the future leadership of the EU’s institutions, including a replacement for Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European commission.

The European council president, Donald Tusk, who had previously expressed some optimism that leaders would agree at this week’s EU summit on their nominations for a cast of senior positions, offered a downcast reading of the situation. “Yesterday I was cautiously optimistic. Today I’m more cautious than optimistic,” Tusk tweeted.

Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, quipped as he arrived at the summit: “It’s quicker to elect the pope very often than it is to fill these particular positions.”

Merkel admitted to reporters: “There is still a range of problems.”

The EU’s top five jobs – presidents of the commission, council, European parliament and European Central Bank and high representative for foreign affairs – are all changing hands.

Merkel and Macron have been in dispute since the European elections over the claims to Juncker’s job of Manfred Weber, a German MEP who is the centre-right European People’s party’s (EPP) lead candidate for the post.

Merkel has been a steadfast supporter of her compatriot, whose group remained the biggest in the European parliament after May’s elections, and on Thursday she appeared to be stubbornly backing him against Paris’s open hostility.

Macron used an interview at the summit to attack the so-called spitzenkandidaten system under which the lead candidate of the most successful political group in European elections is able to stake a claim to the commission presidency. Macron said the system was a “European fiction” that lacked credibility as it was not understood by the electorate.

Macron has positioned himself firmly against Weber’s candidacy, claiming he lacks the government experience necessary to deal with the role. That the EPP, which counts Merkel as a member, emerged weakened from the elections in May has also damaged Weber’s claim to the role.

The liberal group now known as Renew Europe was bolstered by the success of Macron’s En Marche party and the UK’s Liberal Democrats, while the Greens ate into the support of the traditional centrist groups including the Socialists and Democrats.

Philippe Lamberts, a co-leader of the Greens in the parliament, said Weber should pull out of the race for the commission presidency as he had no chance of winning the support of enough national leaders.

Macron said it would be a mistake to suggest the continued debate over the EU’s leadership was a Franco-German power struggle. “I’m not locked up in any specific scheme, and our aim is to make emerge the best team for Europe,” he said.

The Franco-German tussle at the heart of who will lead the EU Read more

The nominations by the leaders for the top posts are meant to reflect the strength of the EU’s political groups and take into account geography and gender. There has never been a female president of the commission or council.

Tusk has said he wants a conclusion to the talks by 2 July when the European parliament is due to choose its president or speaker.

The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said he was supporting a fellow liberal, Margrethe Vestager, a Dane who is currently the EU’s competition commissioner, in the race to succeed Juncker. But he said the Dutch government did not have a position because there was “no emerging candidate”.

Frans Timmermans, a Dutch national, also hopes to replace Juncker in the top job and is the candidate for the rival Socialists.