EU top candidates debate twice this WEEK

The quartet will have another debate on Tuesday in the European Parliament. The debate will be webstreamed live on Euranet, a network of 15 European radio stations, from 14.30 local time.

There will be four more debates ahead of the EU elections on 25 May, with leftist top candidate Alexis Tsipras joining the four other top candidates in the last one, scheduled to take place in Brussels on 15 May. The Greens' other top candidate, Jose Bove, is meeting Juncker, Schulz and Verhofstadt on 9 May in Florence. Juncker and Schulz also have two separate head-to-head debates on German public TV.

The debates and the campaigning by the would-be commission presidents are a novelty prompted by the Lisbon Treaty which says EU leaders have to take the result of the EU elections into account when nominating a candidate. Several EU political families have interpreted this to mean that candidate of the party that wins the most seats in the European Parliament should become commission president.

In other news, EU diplomats on Monday are expected to expand the sanctions list against Russian officials close to President Vladmir Putin, in reaction to the escalating crisis in Ukraine.

Employment ministers meanwhile are meeting for a two-day informal session in Athens Monday and Tuesday.

The outgoing head of the EU commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, is travelling to the US Thursday and Friday, with meetings scheduled in the US Senate, with the head of the Supreme Court and with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. He will first visit Berlin, on Tuesday, to coordinate with Chancellor Angela Merkel who is also travelling to Washington on Thursday.

EU council chief Van Rompuy is travelling to the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Wednesday, with the EU institutions closed on Thursday for May Day.