The six EU leaders negotiating the bloc’s top jobs have agreed that Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, Portugal’s António Costa, and Estonia’s Kaja Kallas should get the most senior positions at the European Commission, European Council and foreign policy service, Politico wrote citing five EU officials, APA reports.
The six negotiators are Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (for the European People’s Party), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (for the socialists), and French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (for the liberals).
The next step will be a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday at which the three names will be presented to the heads of state and government for their approval.
One of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiation, said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni won’t like that she (again) wasn’t involved in the negotiation as her political group in the European Parliament is now the third-largest after June’s European election.
Meloni was not part of Tuesday’s discussion as a condition set out by the liberals and center-left groups, who had vowed not to back von der Leyen if she struck deals with the Italian leader.
Still, Italy is likely to get a very senior portfolio in the next European Commission.
The same official said: “Now that they agree, this [should sail] through the European Council easily.”
However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on social media after the news broke Tuesday that the deal the EPP “made with the leftists and the liberals runs against everything that the EU was based on. Instead of inclusion, it sows the seeds of division. EU top officials should represent every member state, not just leftists and liberals!”