European Commissioner in charge of Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images Liberals to present slate of candidates for top EU jobs Aligning with Macron, party backs away from Spitzenkandidat system for picking Commission president.

MADRID — European liberals will present a slate of candidates for top EU jobs in a move designed to push back against the Spitzenkandidat system for picking the European Commission president, and please French President Emmanuel Macron.

The announcement was made on Friday by Hans van Baalen, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) party, at a congress in Madrid.

“We decided that we will not nominate a man of a certain age,” van Baalen told party members. “We are going to have a campaign about ideas," he declared, “not the jobs we can take ourselves.”

Under the Spitzenkandidat system first used in 2014, the European Council picks a Commission president from among the "lead candidates" nominated by political parties to spearhead their European Parliament election campaign.

The system is backed by the two biggest groups in the Parliament, the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Socialists and Democrats. The EPP on Thursday nominated Manfred Weber, their group leader in Parliament, as their lead candidate while Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans is the Socialists' sole candidate for their nomination.

Picking a team of candidates for top EU jobs, many of which are up for grabs next year, would allow ALDE to highlight some of its prominent female officials, such as Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová.

The slate will be selected at a congress in Berlin in February. The team, van Baalen said, will have “all different backgrounds.”

The Liberals were originally in favor of the Spitzenkandidat system, arguing it would make the choice of Commission president more democratic and transparent.

But Guy Verhofstadt, the ALDE leader in Parliament, backed away from the process in an interview with French daily Ouest France in September. That move brought him closer to Macron, with whom the Liberals aim to form an electoral alliance.

Macron and other national EU leaders have criticized the system, saying they cannot agree to an automatic mechanism that diminishes their power to pick Europe’s most senior official.

Christophe Castaner, the former chief executive of Macron's La République En Marche party, called the process “a real democratic anomaly,” that would only benefit the EPP, which is forecast to retain its position as the Parliament's biggest group.

Verhofstadt justified ALDE's shift away from the system by saying it only makes sense if voters can pick from a pan-European lists of candidates, with each party's Spitzenkandidat at the top. Earlier this year, the Parliament rejected introducing such lists for next May's election.