The race is on: Candidates vie for top EU jobs

EU leaders on Thursday are seeking to fill up to five key jobs supervising the 28-nation bloc's policies that will be vacated in coming months. They include the post of Council President, held by Donald Tusk; president of the powerful executive Commission, now led by Jean-Claude Juncker; president of the European Parliament; chairman of the European Central Bank and the EU foreign policy chief.

Here are some of the leading candidates for the jobs in alphabetical order. Candidates may be considered for more than one job.

Michel Barnier, France

FILE - In this file photo dated Monday, May 27, 2019, Denmark's Margrethe Vestager, speaks at the European Parliament in Brussels. In recent years Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has ramped up enforcement efforts on tech giants, but has also declared that stronger consumer protection rules would have a big role in protecting consumers. (AP PhotoFrancisco Seco, FILE)

Barnier, a 68-year-old Frenchman, has used a lifetime of diplomatic acumen to keep 27 EU nations together as they faced off with Britain over the Brexit divorce negotiations. From the Savoie area, Barnier was responsible for organizing the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympic Games before plunging fulltime into politics. He was France's European affairs, farm, fisheries and foreign ministers before becoming commission vice president. Yet because of the timing of the Brexit talks, he has not publicly campaigned for a new EU job.

Josep Borrell, Spain

Borrell, the minister for foreign affairs, is being touted as a possible EU foreign policy chief or a commission vice president. The 72-year-old socialist was minister of finance and the economy and held other senior Spanish posts during the 1980s. Elected to the European Parliament in 2004, he was its president for five years.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte arrives for an EU summit at the Europa building in Brussels, Thursday, June 20, 2019. European Union leaders meet in Brussels for a two-day summit to begin the process of finalizing candidates for the bloc's top jobs. (Julien Warnand, Pool Photo via AP)

Ska Keller, Germany

Franziska Maria "Ska" Keller is president of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and a candidate for the parliament presidency. The 37-year-old was born in what was then communist East Germany and has been a member of European Parliament since 2009. She is known for her commitment to fighting corruption and she also backs fair trade policies, welcoming refugees and ensuring legal migration is possible.

Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania

European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, left, speaks with Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels Tuesday, June 11, 2019. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP)

The 63-year-old former EU budget commissioner has served two consecutive terms as Lithuania's president — the first woman to do so. A political independent, Grybauskaite took office in 2009 when public anger over the economic downturn spilled into the streets with violent riots. Nicknamed Steel Magnolia for her tough stance on corruption and Russia, she has lobbied hard to free Lithuania from dependency on Gazprom energy supplies. Grybauskaite has been one of loudest advocates for NATO to prepare defense plans for the Baltic states.

Stefan Lofven, Sweden

Lofven has been Sweden's prime minister since 2014, two years after becoming the Social Democratic leader. In January, the 61-year-old skilled negotiator presented a two-party, center-left minority government. Lofven was at the helm when Sweden took in a record number of migrants from the Middle East and Africa in 2015 on top of the hundreds of thousands admitted before. He tightened immigration laws in a country that prides itself on welcoming migrants and refugees.

Angela Merkel, Germany

Merkel, Germany's chancellor since 2005, is said to be a candidate for Council president. Germany's first female leader has said she does not plan to run again after her term ends in 2020. She was a central figure in European efforts to tame the Greek debt crisis, and won widespread praise — plus much criticism — for welcoming refugees in 2015. Merkel, who turns 65 next month, is a trained scientist but has been in politics with the Christian Democratic Union for decades.

Mark Rutte, Netherlands

Rutte is a three-term Dutch prime minister known for his bridge-building skills developed over years of forging coalitions in the Netherlands.

A former human resources executive at Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, Rutte is a member of the pro-business Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy who has steered the party to the right. He is pro-EU but wants the bloc reformed so it can focus on tackling major cross-border issues such as climate change and migration. Rutte has said previously he is not interested in a top EU job, but that has not dampened speculation.

Frans Timmermans, Netherlands

Timmermans is a former Dutch foreign minister who speaks several languages and has been the first vicepresident of the commission since 2014. He has wide experience in Europe, having been a Dutch minister for European affairs. The Labor Party politician earned respect at home in the aftermath of the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine in July 2014 when he made a angry speech at the United Nations, saying the loss of nearly 200 Dutch citizens "left a hole in the heart of the Dutch nation."

Margrethe Vestager, Denmark

Vestager, the EU's competition chief since 2014, is being touted as a possible commission president. A former Danish deputy prime minister and economy minister, Vestager, 51, is best known for making headlines by repeatedly slapping heavy fines on big tech companies. She was elected to Denmark's Parliament in 2001 and became in 2007 the political leader of Denmark's Social Liberal Party for seven years.

Manfred Weber, Germany

The 46-year-old Bavarian is a member of the conservative Christian Social Union party in Germany, the partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. He's the European People's Party candidate for commission president. Weber has been endorsed by Merkel but has struggled in campaigning, weakened by EPP losses in last month's EU elections. Weber has warned populists that they have no place in the European Parliament's largest political group unless they share its vision of an "integrated and more ambitious Europe."

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as many Americans say they learn about the 2024 election campaign from national news outlets, a disquieting poll reveals some serious trust issues.

About half of Americans, 53%, say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. Some 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories, according to a poll from the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll found 47% of Americans also expressing serious concern that news outlets would report information that has not been confirmed or verified, and 44% worry that accurate information will be presented in a way that favors one side or another.

Half of Americans say they get election news always or frequently from national news outlets, a percentage that is higher among older respondents, the poll found.

“The level of engagement is good,” said Michael Bolden, CEO of the American Press Institute. “The thing that's most concerning is that they're not sure they can actually trust the information.”

Years of suspicion about journalists, much of it sown by politicians, is partly responsible, he said. People are also less familiar with how journalism works. The poll found about half of respondents say they have at least a moderate amount of confidence in the information they receive from either national or local news outlets when it comes to the 2024 elections, though only about 1 in 10 say they have a great deal of confidence.

“There may have been a time when people knew a journalist because one lived on their block,” Bolden said. “The way the industry has been decimated, that's much less likely.”

Simply putting out the news often isn't good enough anymore, he said. There's a growing disconnect between news organizations and communities that the outlets need to address, by helping to let people know what journalists do and how people reporting news are their friends and neighbors, he said.

Outlets should lean into a convenor role, bringing people together for newsworthy events, he said.

About half of U.S. adults say they follow the news about presidential elections closely, with older adults being more engaged. About two-thirds of Americans age 60 or older say they keep a close eye on presidential election news, compared wth roughly one-third of those under age 30.

The same trend is seen with local and state election news. While the poll found that 46% of Americans age 60 or older say they follow news about local and state elections closely, only 16% of people age 18 to 29 said the same thing.

“As they transition to becoming older people, will they begin to care?” Bolden asked. “If they don't begin to care, what will that mean for local and state communities?”

Young people, those under age 30, are about as likely to get election news from social media or friends or family as they are to get it from national or local news outlets, the poll found. Black and Latino adults are somewhat more likely to express “a great deal” of confidence in the reliability of social media as a source of election news than white Americans are.

That's both a warning sign, since there is a lot more misinformation to be found on social media, and an opportunity for traditional outlets to make more of their work available this way, Bolden said.

About 6 in 10 Democrats say they get election news from national outlets at least frequently. That's more than the 48% of Republicans or 34% of independents, according to the poll. Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to express concern about inaccurate information or misinformation in news coverage during the upcoming elections. About 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned about this, compared with about half of Democrats.

Besides inaccuracies, many also expressed serious concern about election news that focuses too much on division or controversies or concentrates on who may win or lose — the horserace aspect of political coverage — rather than issues or the character of candidates.

Most Americans say that for them to make informed decisions about the 2024 state and local elections, they want national and local news outlets to highlight candidates’ values or their different positions on key social issues. In each case, about three-quarters of U.S. adults say they would like “a lot” or "some" coverage of these topics.

The poll of 2,468 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.

FILE - Journalists line the press stand before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a caucus night party in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2024. Attitudes toward the media and political news ahead of the election were explored in a poll from the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)