Personal view of #florencedebate before my battery finally dies. Much better than I expected. Genuine interaction and debate rather than position-taking (though obviously plenty of that too). Not sure how it came across down the lens but in person it was
Engaging and interesting. Verhofstadt underperformed my expectations – too much inside baseball. Timmermans was clearly a class act but also careful about what he promised, which makes sense but made him seem flat compared to some of the grander visions.
Weber overperformed my expectations and I left thinking for the first time he might do ok as President on a personal leadership level. Keller was good and passionate but sat back on Green core issues and counterattacked rather than playing outside her comfort zone.
Timmermans was the winner for me, but I expected that and I am a pro-European progressive. I left wanting him more visionary rather than hedging and trimming, and thinking that Weber might have been a bit underrated, including by me.
On the issues, carbon tax for EU spending was surprisingly popular, climate change is still not being taken seriously enough as a policy challenge across the board, democracy and rule of law were underplayed – but you’d expect me to say that.
Thanks to @MESandbu @ftbrussels and @EuropeanUni, a good evening.
Originally posted as a thread of 6 tweets on Twitter on 2 May 2019. View the original thread.