The first televised debate between the candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission is scheduled to take place on Monday, the 28th of April. The participants will be Jean-Claude Juncker of the European People’s Party, Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists, Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Ska Keller for the Greens.
The leader of SYRIZA and the European Left’s candidate, Alexis Tsipras, will not be participating in the debate as the event organizers sent the invitation late and Mr. Tsipras had already made prior arrangements in relation to his European tour.
The debate will take place in Maastricht before an audience of 700 from various European countries and will be broadcast by Euronews in 13 languages (including Greek). The debate will also be broadcast online at eudebate2014.eu, while updates on twitter will use the #eudebate2014 hashtag.
The first presidential candidate debate is being organized by the University of Maastricht, while a second debate – arranged for 15th of May by the EBU – will take place in the European Parliament Assembly in Brussels. Mr. Tsipras has confirmed his participation.
The 90-minute live-audience debate will be televised by Eurovision and covered online at eurovisiondebate.tv. The twitter hashtag of the debate is #TellEUROPE.
