(Bloomberg) -- The process of picking new heads for the European Union’s top institutions faces hurdles at a summit on Tuesday after regional and national elections left many leaders weakened or running provisional governments.
For two contenders for the European Central Bank presidency, those developments could mean they miss the chance of a lifetime. Finland’s Erkki Liikanen and Olli Rehn probably won’t be put forward in Brussels as their country has been governed by a caretaker administration since national polls last month.
While talks to put together a coalition are on the home stretch, it will still take days or weeks before the cabinet is officially sworn in. In the meantime, the government of former Prime Minister Juha Sipila can only take care of routine business and is restricted from making new political overtures.
The two Finnish central bankers -- Rehn heads the national central bank and Liikanen is his predecessor -- may also lose a potential ally. Austria, which might have backed a compromise candidate for the ECB to avert a standoff between Germany and France, will probably be represented in Tuesday’s summit by a caretaker leader without a mandate to push for specific picks. Sebastian Kurz and his cabinet are on track to be ousted on Monday after a scandal stripped him of his erstwhile coalition partner.
Several other key decision-makers in Tuesday’s gathering will be lame ducks, either embroiled in drawn-out coalition talks after an election, such as Belgium; facing upcoming elections, such as Denmark; or enfeebled by the fallout from a catastrophic EU Parliament election results.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is due to call snap vote for the end of June after a crushing defeat by the opposition in the EU elections. Romania’s government is in shambles, with its de facto leader sentenced to three and a half years in prison for corruption.
With so many pieces not still in place, several EU officials said that the chances of a breakthrough in Tuesday’s dinner summit are slim.
