Manfred Weber, the center-right candidate for president of the European Commission, said he is “unconcerned” by suggestions that EU leaders could nominate another person for the top job even if his party wins this month’s election.

Weber is technically the front-runner for next Commission president, as under the EU’s so-called Spitzenkandidat (“lead candidate”) system, the Council is expected to nominate the candidate of the party that holds the most seats in Parliament — which is currently projected to be Weber’s European People’s Party (EPP).

Yet some EU leaders disagree with the Spitzenkandidat process. ALDE, the Parliament’s liberal bloc, sees the system as favoring the EPP and has refused to nominate a single candidate, instead putting forward several.

At last week’s summit in Sibiu, Romania, French President Emmanuel Macron and Luxembourg’s liberal Prime Minister Xavier Bettel cast doubt on the system.

The Council has already said that the Spitzenkandidat process is non-binding, and many see others — such as chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier — as more likely to become Commission president than party lead candidates like Weber or his left-wing rival Frans Timmermans.

Weber, however, seemed unperturbed by the debate over the system when asked about it in an interview with German regional newspaper Die Rheinpfalz on Sunday.

He said he is “unconcerned, because I have experienced this before,” citing the first time the Spitzenkandidat system was used to select Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission president in 2014.

“Back then with Jean-Claude Juncker, that question hung in the air … and today he’s been in office for five years.”

The Spitzenkandidat system has to be adhered to in order to implement principles of “democracy and transparency” in the EU, Weber continued.

He said it is important “to tell the people before the election who will subsequently take responsibility,” adding: “And the people decide who takes responsibility — no one else.”

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