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The political wrangling over the EU’s top jobs gets under way in Bari this week with the leaders of France, Germany and Italy meeting Ursula von der Leyen for the first time since her centre-right party won the European parliament elections.
A summit of G7 leaders hosted by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will feature private conversations with the European Commission president as she seeks five more years as head of the EU’s executive.
The national leaders don’t just represent the EU’s three biggest economies. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the lead negotiator for the Socialists and Democrats, French President Emmanuel Macron the figurehead for the liberal Renew group, and Meloni presides over the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists — the parties who came second, third and fourth in the vote.
Manfred Weber, the leader of von der Leyen’s European People’s party told the Financial Times that “the principle that the winner of an election has the right to present government” was central to any democratic system. “When they are sitting together, I would invite Scholz and Macron to be clear on respecting the outcome of the election.”
The bloc’s leaders in coming weeks will also need to agree on two other top jobs as part of a package deal with von der Leyen at the centre.
The Socialists are eyeing the European Council presidency, with former Portuguese PM António Costa currently the frontrunner. The foreign policy job is likely to go to a liberal politician, with Belgium’s outgoing premier Alexander De Croo or Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas touted as possible options.
In addition to leaders’ backing, von der Leyen will also require at least two of their parties to join with her EPP in a vote in the European parliament next month.
EU officials involved in preparations for the summit sought to play down the importance of any job deals struck there. “In the past, agreements made in G20 or G7 meetings create more tension than provide solutions because it is a limited number [of participants],” said one.
In 2019 a group of EU leaders at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, agreed on a configuration of top jobs centred around a Social Democrat at the helm of the commission. The deal fell apart upon returning to Brussels.
But officials said it was important to have a first round of talks on the matter, given the leaders’ national and political representation. Complicating the gathering is the sharply varied mood among them.
Macron and Scholz’s domestic parties were battered by their own voters in the election, undermining their governments’ standing. Macron, who saw the nationalist party led by Marine Le Pen win more than twice the votes of his, called a snap election. Scholz was forced to reject demands to do the same.
Meloni’s party, by contrast, triumphed, enhancing her claim for increased influence over the EU’s future direction, bolstered by a surge in support for wider European far-right and nationalist parties.
Von der Leyen’s team is nervous about how the French president’s major electoral gamble will affect his strategy for the EU’s future leadership.
“We were worried that the French result [in the EU vote] would force him to take drastic action, either at home or in the EU space,” said a person close to the von der Leyen campaign. “Ultimately the [French] election creates a lot of unknowns and uncertainty, and that’s not ideal from our point of view.”
“It certainly does not diminish the power of Macron’s hand,” said a senior EU official of the negotiations over von der Leyen’s second term. The French election “means he could go in either direction”.
Macron has not publicly backed von der Leyen but a French official told the FT the results had been understood: “The EPP won the elections. They have the right to nominate the president of the commission.
“The likelihood of a von der Leyen coalition of Renew, the Socialists and the EPP has increased,” they said.
Scholz’s coalition government agreement specifies that he should support von der Leyen for the commission presidency or, if she fails to secure a second term, put forward someone from his Green party coalition partners as the country’s commissioner.
The chancellor has already warned von der Leyen against seeking a deal with Meloni — and so have Macron’s lawmakers. The Italian PM has yet to publicly endorse her for a second term.
After the Bari summit, where discussions will focus on a US-led plan to issue a $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by revenues generated by Russian sovereign assets held in G7 members and allied countries, von der Leyen will expand her charm offensive to the rest of the EU’s leaders.
A gathering in Switzerland this weekend to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine will give her the chance to huddle with other leaders, ahead of an informal European Council in Brussels on June 17. A second, formal EU summit on June 27 could include a decision to finalise the package deal of the top three jobs.
Additional reporting by Paola Tamma in Brussels and Barney Jopson in Madrid.
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