By Athena Papakosta

First meeting of the “27” after the European elections and first failure to reach an agreement

What was described as an easy agreement at the beginning turned out to be a more… complicated process, since, although the European leaders met for hours to come up with who will be elected to lead the European institutions for the next five years, in the end, they failed.

Everything showed that there was a prior consensus both in favor of her candidacy Ursula von der Leyenon behalf of the European People’s Party, for a second term as president of the European Commission, as well as the candidacy of the former prime minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, on behalf of the Socialists, for the position of president of the European Council and for its prime minister of Estonia, Kaya Kalas, on behalf of the Liberals, for the position of High Representative for the European Union’s foreign policy.

The facts, however, have changed, when, for example, the European People’s Party put on the table the idea that the term of the president of the European Council should be broken and the position should be shared by both the Socialists and the EPP.

In more detail, the idea, which belongs to the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenkovic, concerns the start of the new cycle with the Socialist Antonio Costa as president and after 2.5 years the position will pass into the hands of the European People’s Party.

As it was next, the Socialists reacted strongly with the EPP insisting not only on claiming the new term of the Commission presidency but also half of the presidency of the European Council.

In his statements, the outgoing president of the European Council, Charles Michel, emphasized that the meeting was “a good opportunity for an exchange of views” clarifying that there is no agreement but that “the political parties have submitted their proposals” and in the following days “we will have the opportunity to work further and prepare the decisions we have to make.”

An unnamed official says that Mr. Charles Michel was not particularly…helpful, instead of trying to reach an agreement, it constantly allowed new data to come to the table.

With his post on the X platform, formerly Twitter, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, harshly criticized underlining, among other things, that “the will of the European citizens was ignored in Brussels” pointing out that the winner is the Right, not the Left, nor the Liberals and for this reason, as he said, “we will fight against the bureaucrats who are in favor of immigration and pro-war”.

Now “exiled” from the European People’s Party, Mr Orban objected to von der Leyen’s candidacy and sought a meeting with Italy’s prime minister and head of the Eurogroup of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in the European Parliament, Giorgia Meloni. who seemed particularly displeased with the attempts of her colleagues to sideline her by choosing to keep her papers, for now, closed.

For his part, the weakened by the result of the Eurocalp, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, emphasized, albeit modestly, that “an agreement is close” referring to the final decisions in the planned Meeting on June 27-28.

It was the first meeting of the “27” after the European elections. Expectations were high and the decisions may be postponed for a week later, but time is still pressing since, as the Europeans have communicated, both geopolitically, with the ongoing war in Ukraine and politically, with the possible return of Trump to the White House there is no scope for lasting negotiations.