German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Photo: AP)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’d like to see a quick agreement on who should run the European Union’s executive branch, a matter on which her own governing coalition so far is divided.

In her first comments on the outcome of the European Parliament election, Merkel said both her center-right bloc and her center-left coalition partners back the idea that the head of the EU’s executive Commission should be a politician who ran for that job.

Merkel said “we want to find a solution as quickly as possible, because the European Parliament will meet at the beginning of July and it would of course be desirable if there were already a proposal at that point” from heads of state and government.

Merkel’s Union bloc backs German conservative Manfred Weber while the center-left Social Democrats support the Netherlands’ Frans Timmermans. Merkel said “the quicker we make the decision, the better that is for the future.”