PRAGUE: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Tuesday that four ex-communist eastern European countries had not agreed to propose outgoing European Commission deputy head Maros Sefcovic as their candidate to lead the next bloc's executive.
Babis told reporters the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland -- known as the Visegrad Four -- would like to secure one of the top EU positions up for grabs later this year, but denied a Czech newspaper report of a deal to nominate Sefcovic.
"We as the region, V4, certainly believe that the territorial principle should be maintained," he told reporters before leaving for a meeting of European leaders in Brussels.
"But V4 certainly has not agreed on the candidacy of Mr. Sefcovic, so this is not true information."
Daily Hospodarske Noviny, citing Czech and EU sources, also reported earlier on Tuesday that the four countries could push for Sefcovic, a career diplomat, to take the EU's foreign policy post if he cannot secure the top spot.
Leaders of EU member states will meet on Tuesday evening to assess the outcome of last weekend's European Parliament election and begin the process of bargaining over EU leadership jobs and policies.
Moscow-educated Sefcovic, 52, has been a Commission member since 2009, and currently oversees EU energy policy.
He was backed by Smer, the leftist party that has dominated Slovak politics since 2006, in Slovakia's presidential election in March, but lost to liberal lawyer Zuzana Caputova.
Sefcovic had said last year that he would stand for the Commission presidency but later withdrew his bid and endorsed another deputy at the executive arm, Dutchman Frans Timmermans, a fellow member of the Socialists. In Brussels, Sefcovic was not immediately seen as having a strong chance.
Horse-trading over the EU's top jobs will last at least until a June 20-21 summit.
A standoff is shaping up with parliament, where most EU party chiefs want the national leaders to endorse the assembly's pick to replace Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Other names in the running to include a German conservative EU lawmaker Manfred Weber, EU's Brexit negotiator, Frenchman Michel Barnier or the EU's top competition official, Denmark's Margrethe Vestager.
For the eastern flank of the EU, other names in the game include Bulgarian World Bank head Kristalina Georgieva, the Czech Republic's current EU commissioner, Vera Jourova, and Slovakia's former foreign minister, Miroslav Lajcak.
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