Amsterdam, 1 June 2022 (dpa/MIA) - Manfred Weber of Germany's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party will in future head Europe's largest political grouping, the European People's Party (EPP). At a congress in Rotterdam on Tuesday, the 49-year-old was elected unopposed with 89% of the votes as president of the pan-European Christian Democratic organization, to which the Bavarian-based CSU and its larger sister party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), also belong. He succeeds former EU Council president and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who wants to concentrate on national politics again. Weber's declared goal is to give the EPP more importance again. The Christian Democrats have recently suffered heavy defeats - for example in the Bundestag elections in Germany and the presidential elections in France. Weber has led the EPP group in the European Parliament since 2014. As the leading candidate of his party grouping in the 2019 European elections, he failed in his bid to become president of the European Commission.