It’s all about placating Italy’s Meloni as EU leaders start top job talks

4 months ago 13

EU leaders arriving in Brussels on Thursday (27 June) made last-ditch efforts to placate Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni but gave little indication that they will change the proposed EU top job package, which had been agreed without her.

As part of an anticipated deal agreed by three pro-EU centrist political groups, incumbent European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would get a second term, Portugal’s former prime minister Antonio Costa would take the European Council, and Estonia’s liberal Prime Minister Kaja Kallas would be the bloc’s new foreign policy chief.

Ultimately, EU leaders will have to approve the names by a qualified majority.

A number of EU diplomats stressed before the summit it would be ‘constructive’ for EU unity to have all of the bloc’s EU27 leaders on board with the decision rather than force a decision against Rome’s will.

Meloni has argued for a bigger say in the negotiations after her European party family, the conservative ECR, won a large number of seats in the EU elections earlier this month.

Even though von der Leyen’s backers are certain she can get enough votes in the Parliament in mid-July, ECR votes could be beneficial for her credibility as leader.

Placating Meloni

Both centre-right lead negotiators for the top jobs package, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, stressed on Thursday their “respect” for Meloni and Italy’s place in the EU.

Tusk struck a particularly conciliatory tone towards his Italian counterpart.

“There is no Europe without Italy and there is no decision without Meloni – it’s obvious,” Tusk told reporters in Brussels.

Despite the apparent efforts to placate Meloni, Tusk and his fellow negotiators had already ‘pre-cooked’ an agreement involving the three main political families before EU27 leaders met for an informal dinner last week, which some saw as an attempt to present it as a fait accompli this Thursday.

On the eve of the summit, Meloni heavily criticised the negotiators for presenting the same names again as “surreal” and “oligarchic”.

Speaking about the process, Tusk said that “the only intention, the only reason we have created this platform [of negotiators] is to facilitate the process”.

Still, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, one of the two liberal lead negotiators, called for “listening around the table”.

“I think that is maybe one of the points that needed to happen last time, a bit more talking and a bit more listening, instead of proposing a group altogether,” De Croo said.

Mediation attempts

At the same time, several EU leaders, including Greece’s Mitsotakis, had made attempts to mediate with Meloni ahead of Thursday’s talks but it is unclear whether they have actually spoken, and to what effect.

A Greek government spokesperson told Euractiv that Meloni and Mitsotakis had been in touch “recently” but declined to comment on exactly when or about what.

Cypriot President President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters in Brussels he has been in touch with Meloni and would meet with her again during the negotiations.

Other EU leaders, such as Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, remained cautious.

“We are close (…) a lot of work has been done, there have been discussions between [EU leaders] in the background,” Orpo told reporters in Brussels.

“At the same time, of course, we have to think about the [European] Parliament, because this package has to have parliamentary support and it is such a complex package.”

‘Done deal’

German Socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz, one of the six negotiators, doubled down on the deal being ready to be approved, saying it is the only solution possible.

“We have reached a political understanding” among the European Parliament’s three main centrist groups, Scholz said.

“We will discuss this carefully and fairly. All 27 are equally important. That is also important to me. But we have made it easier to reach a decision,” he added.

In the same vein, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stressed that Meloni “is not locked out” of the negotiations as such, alluding to her being part of Thursday’s EU27 discussion.

“The fact is that the ECR, which is the party that Giorgia Meloni belongs to, is not at those talks because that is not acceptable to other parties”, Rutte said about the Socialists’ refusal to deal with the hard-right.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]