Hear
BRUSSELS.- When dinner was served, a menu of onion pie, fried haddock with Mediterranean vegetables and rum cake, the atmosphere in the room had soured. The work dinner of the leaders of the EU countries to discuss the appointments of senior officials of the Union -without cell phones or advisors in the room at the European Council in Brussels- The meeting started two hours late and with most of the political challenges already on the table. But not on the finely prepared table that failed to produce a political compromise last Monday to elevate the future European leadership.
Before, in another room of that cube-shaped glass building, one of the most powerful centers of the community institutions, negotiators from the three main European political families had begun haggling to designate those who will preside over the European Commission and the European Council for the next five years and the person who will hold the head of EU diplomacy. First, a four-way meeting: two popular negotiators, the Polish Donald Tusk and the greek Kyriakos Mitsotakisand two social democrats, the Spanish Pedro Sanchez and the german Olaf Scholz. Afterwards, another meeting with the Dutchman Mark Rutte and the french Emmanuel Macron, liberals. Six of the 27 heads of State and Government around a small low table with a couple of Coca-Colas, sparkling water, some fruit and a few folders.
The list of candidates was clear days before: the conservative Ursula von der Leyen to repeat at the head of the community Executive; the Portuguese socialist António Costa for the Council and the Estonian liberal Kaja Kallas as high representative for Foreign Policy and Security. But the stakes began to rise. “The popular ones got greedy, they want it to be visible that they have won the European elections and demand half of the five-year mandate of the European Council, two and a half years”explains a source familiar with the negotiations. The Social Democrats refused. The negotiation ran aground.
The rest of the leaders waited sipping coffee or took the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings. And the main room began to get hot. “We will not accept a ready-made agreement”launched the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, visibly upset at not being part of that negotiating mini-summit. “The Italian has shown herself to be the winner of the European elections that have tilted the Union further to the right, as the leader of a stable government of the third largest economy in the EU, and she saw that, when push came to shove, she was “I ignored it out of ultra,” describes a high-ranking community source.
The Italian shared her anger with the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fialafrom his same European political family, the Reformists and Conservatives (ECR), and with the Hungarian national populist Viktor Orban. Also the Swedish conservatives, Ulf Kristerssonand Irish, Simon Harris, began to criticize the fact that “small countries” were not taken into account. “Many leaders were very upset by the atmosphere in which more and more secret pacts were being forged, also for intermediate positions”says a high-ranking community source.
The high-level meeting was predicted to be somewhat different from previous ones, in which political knives predominated. As in 2014, which was preceded by a mini-summit of the northern axis, opposed to the appointment of the Luxembourg conservative Jean-Claude Juncker. Or that of 2019, in which everything was blown up when the candidate endorsed by the powerful Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans, fell due to vetoes coming from the European People’s Party (EPP) itself, the German woman’s family, remember Juan Pablo García-Berdoy, who was the ambassador representing Spain to the EU at that time and until 2021. “The liberals shuffled [la danesa Margrethe] Vestager. But finally Macron put the name of Ursula von der Leyen on the table, which was a good way out for Merkel.”says the diplomat.
After the European elections of June 9, in which the rise of the extreme right has left the governments of France and Germany – the driving force of the EU – very affected, Russia’s war against Ukraine, Israel’s war in Gaza and a very turbulent global climate, there was a rush to close the matter. But the power play is inevitable. The main names are very clear and hardly anyone questions the Von der Leyen shortlistCosta, Kallas – the presidency of the European Parliament, which the conservative Maltese aspires to repeat Roberta Metsola, although it is only the first part of the legislature, it was barely debated on Monday -, which meets gender, political and regional family balance. But everyone wants the best possible quota in the next community Executive. “Here we talk about many things, but above all about national interests, and more so the more nationalist you are”points out García-Berdoy, today head of European Public Affairs for the consulting firm LLYC.
“Everyone knows what the role of Italy is, which today has the most solid government of all,” Meloni stressed on Wednesday, who acknowledged that he will push for his country to have “a role of the highest level.” That’s what it’s about now. In fact, some observers believe that the Italian leader’s anger is “overacting” and a form of political pressure. But not only for this agreement, but to show what a European Council in permanent crisis could be like if the extreme right is isolated. The leaders will meet again this Thursday and Friday in Brussels to close the agreement. But the contacts do not stop. Nor with Von der Leyen, whom everyone demands a good portfolio in exchange for his support and, in some cases, also that of his parliamentary group in the decisive July vote in the European Parliament, in which he will need 361 votes out of 720 .
The alliance of EPP, social democrats and liberals that has historically supported the Union – and its mandate – totals 399 seats. A figure that is too tight in a secret voting process in which the German is not even guaranteed by all of her party. This raises the stakes for the support that would give him the necessary slack, which for some sectors of the right is closer to Meloni (24 MEPs), while others look towards the Greens (51 seats). In fact, the co-leader of that group, Terry Reintkewalked through the most public rooms of the Council on Monday while dozens of journalists gathered in the cafeteria to watch the Euro Cup matches and in another area the leaders debated.
Italy wants one executive vice president. A good position, if possible an economic portfolio, that shows Meloni’s leadership at home and abroad and that she is also president of a party with neo-fascist roots like the Brothers of Italy, recently involved in scandals of historical memory, but that some conservatives , like Von der Leyen herself, see it as an acceptable far-right – you know negotiate, play and agree.
The Italian did not feel the same last Monday. Her ultra-European family, ECR – which also includes the Spaniards from Vox or the Poles from Law and Justice (PiS) – is emerging as the third political force in the European Parliament, after the collapse of the liberals. And Meloni hoped there would be some kind of reorganization of hierarchy in negotiation.
Already in the run-up to that dinner and in the previous conversations – Macron and Scholz met with Von der Leyen taking advantage of the G-7 meeting shortly before – it was clear that this was not going to be the case. In fact, The German chancellor demanded that Meloni and his ECR be excluded from the talks, according to several sources. A cordon sanitaire for far-right parties that govern (or support Executives) in eight Member States. And, like Meloni, they also want their share of power to elect the community leadership.
The Italian Prime Minister “He did not read” correctly the type of summit that the EU’s senior officials decide, points out a diplomatic source in a weighty delegation. It’s not so much about policy anymore as it is about politics. “In the end everything is done between the popular, socialists and liberals,” Orbán sarcastically concluded while he was waiting for his official car to return to his luxurious hotel in the center of Brussels.
“It seemed surreal to me that some presented proposals for names for high-level positions without first reflecting on what the signals were coming from citizens and what the change of pace in priorities should be,” Meloni summarized a couple of days later.
By the time the coffee and herbal teas were served after dinner on Monday, and the doors were opened to the advisors, It had already been clear that there would not be a declaration of political commitment as Von der Leyen would want. Now is the time for the agreement, the debate, to be “marined,” Macron noted. Let it macerate until next Thursday, when leaders hope to reach an agreement that will mark the future of the EU.
By María R. Sahuquillo and Manuel V. Gómez
THE COUNTRY
