The 27 EU leaders were unable to agree upon Ursula von der Leyen’s reappointment as EU Commission President—or on the other top EU positions—during the first round of Council negotiations on Monday, June 17th. This is despite diplomats hinting that such matters were a fait accompli just a day before.
With the negotiations apparently stuck between the two largest blocs—von der Leyen’s centrist European People’s Party (EPP) and the social democrats (S&D)—conservatives are being ignored. Seen from the Right, the main problem is that the Brussels mainstream treats the so-called horse-trading over appointments like it was only their game in town. It is unwilling to recognize the conservatives’ election results and the will of the European voters.
The Council will reconvene next week (June 27-28th) to try again, hoping to agree a deal, ready to submit for the Parliamentary vote in mid-July.
Age-old ‘horse trading’ on the mainstream
As we also reported, the informal consensus that emerged during last week’s G7 Summit and the Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland was that von der Leyen should continue as the head of the EU for another five years for the sake of stability and continuity—at a time when Europe faces geopolitical challenges such as Ukraine. “Never change horses in midstream,” as the scandal-hit incumbent president’s much-ridiculed campaign message insisted in the hit cult movie Wag the Dog (1997).
Alas, von der Leyen remains the fastest horse on the track, but she couldn’t get past the finish line just yet. According to sources present at Monday’s meeting, that’s mostly because of the arrogance of her centrist EPP, which wanted too much after retaining its leading position in the European elections.
Initially, the social democrat (S&D) camp was prepared to back von der Leyen’s second term in exchange for giving the European Council (EUCO) presidency for Portugal’s ex-socialist PM, António Costa. However, on Monday, the leaders belonging to EPP insisted on a deal that would carve up the EUCO president’s term into two, 2.5-year halves, pledging one to a centrist candidate. That’s in addition to von der Leyen as Commission chief, as well as Roberta Metsola as European Parliament President, both of whom are EPP.
The reason for failing to agree in the end, therefore, “was partly hubris from the EPP,” one EU official said. “By asking to have a mandate for only 2.5 years it created a huge perception problem with [socialists], who would be put in a difficult position. The EPP did not play this one well. This will be difficult to solve.”
To be exact, the EUCO president is elected for two and a half years according to the treaties anyway, which is then (almost always) renewed at the midpoint of the parliamentary term. The real problem, therefore, is not the idea of halving the mandate but EPP’s insistence on calling dibs on the other half, breaking tradition. No amount of commissioner seats would compensate the socialist parties for an unprecedented humiliation like this.
How “the Will of the People was ignored”
Nonetheless, what’s really outrageous in the reports coming out from the Council chamber, is that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—the head of the European Conservative and Reformist (ECR) group and the only major European leader who emerged victorious from the EU election—was apparently sidelined as the centrists and socialists haggled over terms and positions.
According to a diplomat, Meloni contested the entire approach of the discussion. Rightly so, the meeting should have been about, in her eyes, “what to do in light of the signals from the European elections and then, from that starting point, to begin the discussion on the names for the top jobs, and not vice versa.”
Even if Meloni’s position was undoubtedly the strongest during the first informal meetings at the G7, it was France’s Emmanuel Macron who acted as the primary broker of the preliminary agreement, and the one who confidently said there would be a deal this week. Macron’s liberal Renew group is also set to be awarded one top job: the famously hawkish Estonian PM, Kaja Kallas, is slated to become the EU’s next foreign policy chief.
But the Italian PM’s anger is justified: if you look at the electoral results, Macron should be the last one calling the shots on anything substantial, and nothing should be decided without Meloni’s involvement.
The feeling of EPP’s betrayal was shared by many on the Right, including Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, who made the same observation. “The will of the European People was ignored today in Brussels,” the conservative premier wrote on X, decrying EPP’s approach of ‘business as usual’ with the socialists and liberals while the voters clearly wanted a conservative shift.
“They don’t care about reality, they don’t care about the results of the European elections, and they don’t care about the will of the European people,” Orbán wrote.
Meloni’s great gamble, as we explained before, is trying to enter into a “center-right” coalition with EPP and Renew, with her ECR as a third leg instead of the socialist S&D. But if Monday is any indication, the EPP would rather continue with its leftist allies for another five years despite the electoral results, which in turn could open the door for something Meloni has been rejecting so far—uniting the conservative Right.
We don’t know if this sidelining will change Meloni’s mind about the conservative merger, but at least that’s what Orbán seems to be suggesting as an alternative, and the plan is backed by the entirety of the other national conservative group, the Marine Le Pen-led Identity and Democracy (ID). “We will not give in to this! We will unite the forces of the European right and fight against pro-migration and pro-war bureaucrats,” Orbán wrote.
