Brussels, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The EU summit was held in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, on June 27, and the European Council approved the new leadership of the European Union that night. Analysts pointed out that since the end of the European Parliament elections in early June, all parties have been playing for more than half a month to finally determine the leadership of the next EU institutions. However, it remains to be seen whether the nominees, in particular European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen, will be re-elected by a majority of the European Parliament.
The candidates have been announced
European Council President Michel said on social media on the evening of the 27th that the European Council decided to nominate von der Leyen for a second term as president of the European Commission, elect former Portuguese Prime Minister Costa as the next president of the European Council, and nominate Estonian Prime Minister Kallas as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Since the end of the European Parliament election on June 9, there have been several consultations within the EU on the choice of a new leadership, but there have always been differences. According to media reports, on the eve of the summit, the leaders of six EU countries, representing the coalition of the European People's Party group, the SPD group and the European Renewal group, reached a consensus on the choice of the new leadership of the European Union. However, due to the fact that the plan needed the majority support of the leaders of the 27 EU countries at the summit before it could be adopted, in order to avoid affecting other agendas, this extremely "sensitive" topic was put on the evening of the 27th for final discussion.
When determining the leadership of the EU, it often needs to balance a number of factors beyond the results of the European Parliament elections.
Of the three nominees or elected, German von der Leyen is from the European People's Party group, the largest party in the European Parliament, and is supported by members of the group, including Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk; Costa comes from the Social Democrat group, the second largest in the European Parliament, and is supported by members of the group, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz; Kalas is from the European Parliament's fourth-largest group for Renaissance Europe, supported by French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, also from the same group.
In terms of gender, von der Leyen and Kalas are women; From the perspective of the geographical location of the country of origin, Costa represents Southern Europe, von der Leyen represents Western Europe, and Kalas represents Eastern Europe; In terms of the size of the country to which they belong, von der Leyen comes from large European countries, Costa and Kalas come from small and medium-sized countries; In addition, von der Leyen and Costa represent the "old Europe" and Kalas represents the "new Europe".
Furious Expository
Previously, the European media generally believed that the plan for the new leadership of the EU should be quickly reached at the informal meeting of EU leaders on the 17th, because the leaders of the "Franco-German axis" Macron and Scholz both revealed before the meeting that "an agreement is close to being reached". However, this prediction failed to materialize.
Analysts pointed out that an important disagreement in the past was that the European People's Party caucus proposed to break the practice of serving two consecutive five-year terms of the president of the European Council, and that the party group should be selected to win one of the two-and-a-half-year terms, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the SPD caucus that wanted Costa to win this post.
On the eve of the summit, the Belgian website "Europe Dynamics" said that the European People's Party caucus had withdrawn its request to allow Costa to serve only one term as president of the European Council, and agreed to allow Costa to serve a second term in accordance with the usual practice.
Even so, the updated plan has been criticized by Italian Prime Minister Meloni. Meloni, who comes from the European Conservative and Reform group, the third largest party in the European Parliament, expressed her displeasure at her exclusion from decision-making circles and was angry that her right-wing group was not included in the nomination.
According to an article on the website of Politico Europe, in the vote on the evening of the 27th, Meloni abstained from voting on von der Leyen and voted against Costa and Callas.
Variables remain
According to EU rules, only Costa can be directly appointed among the three candidates approved by the European Council on the 27th, and the other two still need to go through certain procedures, among which the post of president of the European Commission needs to be voted on by the European Parliament. If it fails, the Council of Europe should nominate a new candidate. As a result, there is still uncertainty about von der Leyen's re-election.
The European Parliament's vote will take place in mid-July, and von der Leyen needs to get 361 of the total 720 votes to be re-elected. Currently, the coalition of the European People's Party, the SPD and the Revive Europe group holds 399 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament. However, an article on the website of Politico Europe pointed out that in the first two votes for the president of the European Commission, 13% of the parliamentarians of the alliance did not vote in favor of the candidates nominated by the alliance, and von der Leyen may not be able to get enough votes with the support of the alliance alone.
According to media analysis here, this means that von der Leyen may need to win the support of the Greens and the European Free Alliance or the right-wing Brothers of Italy party led by Italian Prime Minister Meloni in order to achieve re-election. But the former's 54 seats in the European Parliament may not be enough for von der Leyen to win the vote, and cooperating with them could lead to a loss of support for the European People's Party caucus; The latter, on the other hand, has only 24 votes and will lose the support of the SPD caucus if they cooperate with it. So von der Leyen has to strike a "very delicate balance".