The summit to renew the EU leadership ended without an agreement, although without alternative candidates
The 27 members will meet again in 10 days for a formal summit where decisions are expected. Von der Leyen, Costa and Kallas are the only names qualified to lead the Commission, the Council and diplomacy, although populists want more prominence in the Council, with half a mandate for them.
Informal summit heads of state and government European Union Talks on renewing the EU leadership concluded tonight without any compromise On the names to occupy the four institutional positions at stake.
The leaders of the 27 will try again at their now formal summit next week (June 27 and 28).
Although this Monday’s meeting was planned as a first exchange of views on the negotiations, several names arrived on the table with the support of the majority of leaders: German Ursula von der Leyen For the European Commission, Portuguese Antonio Costa For the European Council and Estonia Kaja Callas As High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Furthermore, and despite the fact that EU leaders do not elect the President of the European Parliament, he was expected to indicate that he or she would preferably be a representative of the European People’s Party, thus paving the way for Maltese’s re-election. Roberta Metsola At the head of this institution.
The president of the European Council, Belgian Charles Michel, said the dinner was a good opportunity to “exchange views” on the election results and to prepare for a formal summit next week, at which Yes leaders must reach an agreement on institutional renewal.
Upon leaving the meeting, the acting Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, assured that “everything is much clearer” than in 2019, the last institutional renewal, when “everything was up in the air for three days.”
EPP calls for splitting the European Council into two mandates
The European People’s Party (EPP) has formally proposed a change to the traditional structure of the posts: the presidency of the European Council, to which the Social Democrats fully aspire, could be divided into two terms of two and a half years each so that they could stay with one of them. This is the same format followed for the presidency of the European Parliament. Proposal has not been accepted.
While von der Leyen and Metsola appear to be the most stable sector of the “pool”, there are more doubts with Costa – whom the Popular Italians, part of the government coalition in Rome, question for not supporting Ukraine enough – and with Kallas, of whom the European governments closest to the Kremlin, such as Slovakia or Hungary, are reluctant.
However, if even one of the names fails, the entire group could collapse, since a certain balance of gender, geographical origin and political color must be respected.