POLITICO Brussels Playbook: Voters vs. Spanish law — Barnier’s job application — Big ship, small man

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By FLORIAN EDER

with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH

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WELCOME EVERYBODY, JUST NOT YOU: MEP-elect Carles Puigdemont was barred from entering the European Parliament building in Brussels on Wednesday. Puigdemont, who fled Spain in 2017 to avoid charges related to the Catalan secession referendum deemed illegal by Spanish courts, tweeted that Parliament’s Secretary General Klaus Welle had given instructions to refuse access to him and fellow separatist MEP-elect Toni Comín. Both now live in Brussels and won Spanish seats in the EU election. They are free men everywhere, except in Spain.

Why they were barred: A Parliament spokeswoman confirmed that Puigdemonat was denied a provisional badge — ie entry — for now. She told POLITICO that the institution can only issue accreditation to MEPs “when they receive the national lists” from countries with the names of their MEPs. In the case of Puigdemont, Parliament “didn’t get the lists from the Spanish authorities” and “decided not to give him a temporary pass before having received those.” Maïa de La Baume and Zia Weise have more.

Voters vs. Spanish law: The newly elected Parliament’s (unchanged) administration is facing its first challenge, scandal, or choice of allegiances. It’s a very simple question that needs an answer at some point soon: Is it voters or the Spanish judiciary who get the final say on who can be an MEP and who can’t? In Wednesday’s decision, Parliament went for the latter, so as not to face accusations of disregarding Spanish law. “We knew that this would be used by him [Puigdemont] but the potential damage would have been bigger had we issued a provisional accreditation,” a senior official dealing with the case told Playbook.

Good Thursday morning, and if you’re in Belgium, we hope you’re enjoying the day off. But while the EU institutions are closed for the long weekend, there’s plenty going on.

HORSE TRADING

HAPPENING TODAY: The race for Brussels’ top jobs has entered a quiet phase, with contenders and their camps focusing on their next moves. The conferral of the Charlemagne Prize upon U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres today in Aachen, a European Ascension Day classic, offers an opportunity to seek advice from Jean-Claude Juncker or Martin Schulz on how they played the game last time round.

Who’s not coming: Some told Playbook they were hoping for a word at the margins of the Aachen ceremony with the European Council’s informateur-en-chef Donald Tusk. But Tusk went off to Tajikistan on Wednesday for a three-days visit to Central Asia.

Angela Merkel, another Aachen regular, is in Boston today to give a speech at Harvard University’s annual commencement ceremony. Expectations couldn’t be higher, judging from the trailer put out by the university. Merkel will avoid Washington, limiting political meetings to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, according to her agenda.

MEANWHILE IN BRUSSELS: Talks — “on all levels” except the bosses’ — between the parliamentary families started Monday with a meeting of the groups’ secretaries general (instead of the dinner that wasn’t), at which they prepared the statement released by Parliament on Tuesday. The talks are ongoing, MEPs and officials of several groups told us.

The aim … for the EPP, S&D and Greens at least, is to meet the challenge (and deadline) put out by EU leaders, who essentially invited Parliament to try to present the European Council with a candidate for the Commission presidency who commands a majority in the Chamber. There’s a long way to go. A sign of progress: we didn’t hear anybody repeat on Wednesday that there must be a majority to the left of the center, when there is no such thing.

GREEN LOVE FOR OETTINGER: One opportunity for a cross-party schmooze-fest was a farewell not-party-but-two-hour-long-panel-discussion for outgoing Green MEPs Wednesday evening, where Commissioner Günther Oettinger, from the EPP, was much-applauded for “being often closer to us on EU affairs than to his own party,” as one participant put it. MEP Helga Trüpel, one of those being farewelled, said he’s “truly a European commissioner of German nationality.” There were plenty more mutual niceties.

Words of wisdom: Then, Rebecca Harms took the stage to speak truth of the Spitzenkandidaten process. “What we see now is exactly what we did not want,” she said: political groups in Parliament going into a process that risks becoming an institutional fight without a joint battle plan. “I was there, at the backroom talks in 2014,” the former Green group leader said. “They were totally different, because Juncker and Schulz were clear that the candidate of the biggest group would get the other’s support.”

This time round, the lack of joint action in Parliament is “a disaster,” she said, suggesting the Greens better go for Michel Barnier or Margrethe Vestager as Commission president — a good indication, given the history of Harms’ relationship with the current leadership, of what the group won’t do.

REAL TRADING

TIME TO MOVE ON: While Barnier has yet to secure a new job for himself, his deputy Sabine Weyand has already got one. From this weekend, she will be director general of the Commission’s trade department, and said she’s looking forward to both “achievements to build on and many challenges ahead.” Weyand replaces Jean-Luc Demarty, who will keep advising Jean-Claude Juncker on soy beans, liquified gas and other means of dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump, the Commission said.

Some stats: The College also appointed Ditte Juul-Jørgensen, head of Cabinet for Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, as the new director general for energy. She replaces Dominique Ristori, who will retire July 31. The promotions raise the number of female directors general to 14 out 40. Overall, 39 percent of the Commission’s senior management is female (that’s unchanged — both women were already senior managers). The headcount for French DGs will be down to five from August.

TARIFF MAN: Weyand’s appointment comes at a tense time for the EU’s trade policy, and some experience with tariffs, customs, and stable geniuses won’t hurt. Tariff Man is on track to hit hard again this summer, spelling bad news for EU companies ranging from Dutch cheesemakers to industrial heavyweight Airbus — let alone what U.S. car tariffs would mean for the EU’s economy.

Subsidies row, next chapter: Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström warned the EU’s trade ministers at a closed-door meeting on Monday that they needed to steel themselves for Trump to hit billions of euros worth of European goods with tariffs, ramping up a decades-long dispute over unwarranted subsidies for Airbus. “We should brace for this,” officials cited Malmström as saying. One EU diplomat said the U.S. duties would likely hit the EU by the end of July or early August: “It’s what this U.S. administration likes.” Hans von der Burchard, Jakob Hanke and Maxime Schlee report.

MEANWHILE, IN OTHER NEWS FROM TRUMP WORLD … The U.S. Navy tried to obscure the USS John S. McCain warship from President Donald Trump’s view ahead of his visit to Japan last week, the Wall Street Journal reports. The destroyer, named after the father, grandfather and the Arizona senator and Trump provocateur himself, was reportedly concealed with tarps and hidden behind a barge.

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BREXIT MEANS … WHAT?

THANK U, NEXT: Brexit is done, in Brussels’ view, no more negotiations are planned, and Donald Tusk reported Tuesday that during the leaders’ dinner, “no one even tried to discuss” the affair — Brexit is so yesterday for most in Brussels. Less so in London, where the Conservative Party’s leadership contest is in full swing. It’s all about the question of whether whoever succeeds Theresa May would pursue a no-deal Brexit. Let’s take a look.

In case you’ve lost track: About a dozen candidates have declared their interest in the Tory leadership — which is impressive enough, given the job description is essentially just completing what seems to be an impossible task: delivering Brexit. But then again, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn seen as vulnerable, just about anybody is having a go. And the bar isn’t particularly high — you’ll probably never be a more hazardous gambler than David Cameron was, and it’ll be very hard to achieve less than May, despite her hard work.

Not no-dealers: Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, ruled out a no-deal Brexit if he wins the race, saying: “You need a Brexit deal to last for 40 years — the danger of [revoking Article 50] or no deal is that you end up in a very unstable situation.” He also warned, in an interview with the Times, against using no deal as a lever in talks with Brussels. Stewart took aim at one of his rivals, Jeremy Hunt, saying that threatening Europe with no deal is like “threatening to blow your head off with a gun” to get a better price on a car: “That’s not a good negotiating strategy.”

No-dealers: Brexit Minister James Cleverly, the latest to throw his hat into the ring, told the BBC that while a no-deal Brexit is not his “preferred destination,” it would not be “massively damaging to Britain,” and “not delivering Brexit would be … significantly more damaging.” And former Cabinet Minister Esther McVey, who is also standing, wrote in the Telegraph: “The only way to deliver the referendum result is to actively embrace leaving the EU without a deal.”

Is there a choice? Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who also wants the job, pointed to the one constant in the British parliament’s Brexit stance: There has always been a majority against no deal. “The brutal reality is no deal is not a policy choice available to the next prime minister.”

EU REALITY CHECK: “If the choice is to leave without a deal — fine. If the choice is to stay in the EU — also fine. But if the choice is still to leave the EU in an orderly manner, this treaty is the only option,” warned the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in an interview with the New York Review of Books, published Wednesday.

Cautionary tale: Barnier said the Continent’s leaders needed to heed the lessons of Brexit. “For Britain, it’s probably too late, but it’s not too late for other countries where we have exactly the same problems, including my country,” Barnier said. “Looking at the causes of Brexit, we also find typically British reasons: the hope for a return to a powerful global Britain, nostalgia for the past — nostalgia serves no purpose in politics. In my country, too, some politicians still prefer to live in the past.”

Job application? If Barnier was offered the Commission presidency, would he take it? “That’s not a question for today,” he demurred. “I can only restate: I always tried in my life to be useful. And I will continue that. We’ll see where I could be most useful.”

OPINION — EUROPE’S POPULISTS CAN BE CONTAINED: Right-wing populism can’t be rolled back in Europe, but it can be contained, argue academics Maciej Kisilowski and Anna Wojciuk in an op-ed for POLITICO.

IN OTHER NEWS

BRUSSELS TRIES NEW BALKAN PUSH: For the second year in a row, the European Commission called on the EU to let Albania and North Macedonia begin membership talks. The Commission argued on Wednesday that bringing Tirana and Skopje closer to the EU would make both the volatile Balkan region and the European Union itself more stable. Jacopo Barigazzi has more on the EU’s new Balkan push.

SPOTLIGHT ON ROMANIA: Our own Anca Gurzu writes in with this report: In a televised address on Wednesday, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called for the “immediate” resignations of Foreign Minister Teodor Meleșcanu and Interior Minister Carmen Dan after numerous videos surfaced on social media showing thousands of Romanians queuing up for hours at embassies and consulates across Europe to vote in the EU election — with many of them not being able to do so in the end. The president said long waiting times were reported in the country too.

Right of reply: Dan called the president’s demand “unjustified” and added she “won’t resign neither immediately, nor immediately [sic].” Melescanu blamed the president himself for the long queues, because Iohannis announced the referendum after the number of polling stations were agreed upon, complicating and extending the voting process.

ISRAEL GOING BACK TO THE POLLS … after Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, with a new election tentatively expected on September 17. The New York Times has more.

MUELLER SPEAKS: In concluding remarks before formally leaving his post after more than two years, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller made clear on Wednesday that he did not determine Trump hadn’t obstructed justice, and that “if we had had confidence the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.” Full statement here | Analysis courtesy of POLITICO’s Anita Kumar here

OVER AND OUT

FAREWELL: We had our own farewell party Wednesday, for Tom McTague — a top journalist, colleague and person — wishing him well for new endeavors and celebrating the great time we’ve had together. His greatest hits as our chief explainer of British exceptionalism: How David Cameron blew the referendum; How Theresa May blew the 2017 election (actually that one’s a book); and How the U.K. lost the Brexit battle. The drinks during the first part of the evening were beers served warm enough to farewell a Brit. There’s one more story by him to come, stay tuned.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: MEP David-Maria Sassoli; Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini; POLITICO alum Fiona Maxwell; Andrew Hood.

THANK YOU: To our producer Miriam Webber.

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