Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
EU leaders from across the continent’s political spectrum voiced support for Ursula von der Leyen to win a second five-year term as president of the European Commission on Monday evening.
The heads of the EU’s 27 member states will use a private dinner in Brussels to give political backing to von der Leyen remaining in office, diplomats and officials said, ahead of a formal rubber-stamping later this month.
“I am absolutely certain that we will be able to reach agreement within a very short time,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said as he arrived at the dinner, describing an extension for von der Leyen as a “sensible solution”.
“It is important for decisions to be made quickly . . . because we are living in difficult times,” he added.
EU capitals are poised to choose continuity over change amid the war in Ukraine, tensions with China and political uncertainty in some of the bloc’s key member states.
One EU diplomat who has spent the past week in discussions with key capitals about von der Leyen said: “Nobody is discussing any other outcome . . . For [von der Leyen], the die is cast.”
Von der Leyen would then need to win a majority in the newly elected European parliament to remain as the EU’s most powerful official through to 2029, running the bloc’s executive branch with the responsibility of regulating the world’s largest single market, proposing new legislation and steering the continent’s policy direction.
Her supporters are quietly confident of securing parliament’s assent, given the victory of her centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the EU elections this month, and the majority held by centrist parties in the chamber despite a surge in support for the far right.
Leaders from the EPP and their political rivals voiced support for von der Leyen’s candidacy, and almost all said they expected a quick decision.
Mark Rutte, Liberal prime minister of the Netherlands, said von der Leyen had done “an incredibly good job”, steering the EU through the Covid-19 pandemic and the bloc’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But she has irked some capitals and many in her own commission with her centralised decision-making and a record of pushing the limits of her institutional powers.
Her campaign stressed the value of stability, and played up the dangers of a change in leadership given the Ukraine war and the uncertainty in the US-EU relationship that would result from a potential Donald Trump victory in US presidential elections in November.
Her supporters have reinforced that message in the light of the political chaos unleashed in France by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections — a move that startled EU allies who worry about the future influence of the far-right in Paris.
Monday’s private dinner will also feature discussions about who to select for president of the EU Council — the official who chairs meetings of the bloc’s leaders — and for high representative, its chief diplomat.
Officials said Portugal’s former premier António Costa was the clear frontrunner for the former, succeeding Charles Michel, while Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was the most likely choice for the latter, taking over from Josep Borrell.
Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, seen as the most prominent alternative to Costa, told reporters as she arrived at the Monday dinner that she was “not a candidate”.
Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister who was an unheralded choice for the post of European Commission president in 2019, received a boost last week from the bloc’s three most powerful member states — France, Germany and Italy — offering their tacit acceptance at a G7 summit.
Following the summit on Italy’s Apulian coast, Macron said he believed a deal would be struck at Monday’s dinner, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she believed the EPP had the right “to propose a commission president”.
The private dinner has been arranged as a prelude to a formal summit on June 27 and 28 at which a final agreement is due. The European parliament vote on the next commission president is set for the week of July 15.
“Everyone wants to use [Monday] night to send a crystal clear message . . . so there’s no doubt over what the final decision will be,” said an EU diplomat involved in the negotiations.
Additional reporting by Paola Tamma and Daria Mosolova
