Europe's centre right seeks champion at Helsinki talks

More than 700 delegates of the European People's Party (EPP), the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, vote on Thursday in a process that will involve a fair amount of backroom dealing.

The two candidates in the running are Germany's Manfred Weber, a little known and low-key senior MEP, and former Finnish prime minister and Twitter-maven Alexander Stubb.

The winner of the secret ballot will be a contender to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, a key prize in the top jobs horse-trading that will follow the EU elections next May.

Also in the mix are plum spots to lead the European Council -- which represents national governments -- the European Parliament, the ECB central bank or become the EU's foreign policy supremo.

Barring an upset, Weber should win. The 46-year-old is head of the EPP group in the European Parliament and member of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU.

Little known in Germany, Weber is a great connoisseur of EU institutions and has received the key nods of Merkel and the head of France's centre-right Republicans party, Laurent Wauquiez.

Weber can also count on Austria's right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Hungary's nationalist premier Viktor Orban to rally to his cause.

As an outsider, media-friendly Stubb has become the candidate of those who think the EPP should reject Orban's Fidesz and its increasing anti-EU rhetoric and authoritarian tactics.

Orban's place in the EPP will be one of the topics at a debate on Wednesday evening between Weber and Stubb. But, for the time being, the expulsion of Orban and his followers is not on the table.

"As I have often said, in every family there is an 'enfant terrible' (problem child). But I prefer to keep mine in the family and reason with him," said EPP chief Joseph Daul.