It was quite the sight as Manfred Weber, the Bavarian conservative politician, ushered in Ursula von der Leyen - fellow German conservative politician - to the European Parliament on Wednesday (3 July).
Europe has only learned von der Leyen's name some 12 hours before, when EU leaders decided to nominate her for the presidency of the EU commission - a job Weber had been campaigning for over six months across Europe.
It symbolised what went wrong with the so-called Spitzenkandida...
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Eszter Zalan is a Hungarian journalist who worked for Brussels-based news portal EUobserver specialising in European politics, focusing on populism and Brexit.