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Ella Joyner, Samuel Petrequin And Lorne Cook, The Associated Press
32 minutes ago
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni waits for the start of a roundtable discussion at the EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, June 27, 2024. European Union leaders are expected to discuss the next EU top post on Thursday, as well as the Middle East and Ukraine situations, security and defense, and EU competitiveness. (Leading photo by Olivier Hosselet via The Associated Press)
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders on Thursday approved the appointments of three people to head their common political body, reappointing German conservative Ursula von der Leyen for another five years as European Commission president.
Sitting alongside Ms von der Leyen at the head of the EU’s executive arm will be two new faces: Portugal’s Antonio Costa as president of the European Council and Estonia’s Kaja Kallas as the top diplomat of the world’s largest trading bloc.
“It’s satisfying,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council, “for Poland and for Europe.”
Both Ms von der Leyen and Ms Kallas need to be approved by the European Parliament. Mr Costa’s nomination only needs the approval of leaders and he will take up his new role in the autumn.
The flagship jobs measure had been widely expected to be approved at a two-day summit starting on Thursday in Brussels after the European Parliament’s three centrist parties reached an agreement earlier this week.
But far-right politicians, emboldened by their strong results in European elections earlier this month, have denounced the move as a pre-meeting conspiracy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed frustration at being excluded from preparatory talks with a minority of leaders who are splitting key posts, as his nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists group emerged as the third biggest party in this month’s European Parliament elections.
Meloni voted against the nominations of Portugal’s Costa and Estonia’s Kallas, two sources familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Meloni abstained on von der Leyen’s nomination for European Commission president, the same sources confirmed. The officials asked not to be identified, in keeping with EU practice.
In a post on X, Meloni said the way the mainstream parties nominated the three was “wrong in both method and content. Out of respect for the people and the opinion they expressed during the election, I have decided not to support them.”
In the end, only Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rejected their proposal outright.
“European voters have been deceived,” he said on Facebook on Thursday night. “We will not support this shameful agreement!” His objections were moot: the deal only needed a two-thirds majority to pass.
The June 6-9 elections saw the European Parliament shift to the right, dealing a major blow to the mainstream ruling parties in France and Germany, but the three mainstream groups managed to retain a narrow majority of seats.
Costa, a former Portuguese prime minister, is from the centre-left Social Democrats, which came in second, while Kallas is prime minister in his tiny Baltic nation. He is from the pro-business liberal group that includes embattled French President Emmanuel Macron, but lost a seat in June’s election, dropping him to fourth place.
Appointments to the EU’s top brass are supposed to ensure geographic and ideological balance, but the final say lies with the EU’s 27 leaders, usually the most powerful among them.
While Costa’s appointment will be a decision made solely by EU leaders, both von der Leyen and Kallas will need to be approved by a majority of lawmakers – a minimum of 361 in a 720-seat parliament – and that vote could take place when the newly constituted European Parliament meets for the first time in July.
The European Council is made up of the leaders of Portugal’s 27 member states. If confirmed, Costa’s role as president would involve brokering deals within an often hopelessly divided political club. In Portugal, he is known as a shrewd negotiator.
She will be representing the European Union on the world stage as Russia’s neighbour, Kallas, takes a hard line against Moscow over its war with Ukraine.
But Ms von der Leyen’s role is the most powerful: as president, her job is to draw up and implement the EU’s common policies on everything from migration to the economy to environmental rules.
Critics say she is trying to roll back EU ambitions amid a far-right backlash against key policies of the past five years.
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