Montserrat will likely keep her other jobs as head of delegation of Spain’s People’s Party and the EPP group vice chair in Parliament, while taking on the extra full-time job as secretary-general.
Weber has routinely placed key allies from the Parliament in top positions, including French MEP Xavier-François Bellamy as treasurer and former Belgian MEP Tom Vandenkendelaere as his chief of staff. He has sidelined opponents such as his current, and outgoing, Secretary-General Thanasis Bakolas, who has previously openly challenged him.
The EPP, the most powerful European party dominating the EU’s policymaking institutions, is undergoing an internal job reshuffle and governing bodies’ reform, as it battles internal divisions following the party’s rightward shift since June’s EU election.
The president and the secretary-general will be formally elected during a party congress in Valencia on April 29-30.
Weber loyalists, such as Romanian lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan, called Montserrat a good choice.
“She is a really good politician and has a long career in Spanish politics, also growing within [the] EPP,” said Mureșan.