The 2024-29 legislature can really begin on 18 July in Strasbourg. That day, as confirmed by the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola on the sidelines of the European Council in Brussels, MEPs will most likely vote, by secret ballot, on the election of the President of the Commission indicated by the leaders, Ursula von der Leyen. Giorgia Meloni’s abstention on the candidate, and her vote against Antonio Costa, the first President of the European Council from Southern Europe after two Belgians and a Pole, and the High Representative Kaja Kallas, does not at all appear, seen from Brussels, as an impossible rift to mend.
The abstention on von der Leyen leaves the way open for a recomposition in Parliament. Von der Leyen needs at least 361 votes to be elected: on paper, PPE, S&D and Renew have 399, but the snipers could be about sixty, therefore, the base must be broadened, probably both to the right and to the left. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, liberal, veteran of the European Council and next Secretary General of NATO, urged not to dramatize too much, after the votes of Meloni and Viktor Orban: “I think things will settle down – he said – Meloni was clearly irritated by the fact that she was not involved, which was not possible because she is not part of the three central parties. But she is the Prime Minister of Italy and is highly respected”.
Meloni, Rutte added, “has her own ideas on how this process should have been conducted and she has expressed them with total clarity. But the close personal ties that we have remain.” After all, he recalled, “last time, in 2019, we did not agree unanimously on top jobs,” given that Angela Merkel had to abstain on von der Leyen. It is a little different this time, but “it is not strange: it happens,” Rutte noted. In 2014, David Cameron and Viktor Orban voted against Jean-Claude Juncker, but “in 2019 the United Kingdom was no more, and yet we did not vote unanimously” on Ursula von der Leyen’s first mandate.
It is not only Rutte who sees Meloni’s abstention as secular. Even if “it is not clear exactly what the Prime Minister wants”, notes Janis Emmanoulidis, deputy CEO of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, her abstention on von der Leyen, in reality “is good news, a good result” for the Commission President. Because, “if Meloni had voted in favour, he would have created problems for von der Leyen in Parliament”, alienating her votes on the left. If instead “he had voted against, he would have sent a clear signal to Fratelli d’Italia”, which has 24 MEPs, “from which it would have been difficult to back down”.
Even the vote against Antonio Costa and Kaja Kallas, according to Emmanoulidis, can be understood, since “if von der Leyen were to fail” and fall in the vote in the European Parliament, Meloni “could say that she was against Kallas and Costa and that, therefore”, with the fall of von der Leyen, “the entire package” of top positions should be reopened. For Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive of the EPC, Meloni played a game essentially for internal purposes. For the prime minister and leader of FdI, “it was very important to demonstrate that she defends Italy. But in the end – he underlines – she did not prevent” the nominations from passing. The fact is, she notes, that in the EU “there is still a centrist majority”, made up of parties that “have no qualms about showing their muscles”. However, she notes, “we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, and definitely something is going on.”
It will be mainly a question, says Zuleeg, of seeing “what portfolio” the Italian commissioner will have and “how much money”, that is, what budget, he will be able to dispose of. Yesterday, the Foreign Minister and vice-president of the EPP, Antonio Tajani, reiterated that Italy aims to have a vice-president of the Commission, with a weighty portfolio, possibly economic. In any case, for Zuleeg the “narrative” according to which the EU does not listen to citizens is destined to be repeated more and more in the coming months, especially if there is a second presidency of Donald Trump in the USA. The agreement reached on the nominations leaves open the question of the mid-term renewals of the president of the European Council and the president of the Parliament.
“At the end of two and a half years – explained Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro (PSD, EPP group) – there will be a re-candidacy” of Costa, “or another personality”. We will have to see what the composition of the European Council will be in two and a half years: it could be very different from the current one. While the European Parliament is elected and remains fixed for five years, the European Council, and especially the EU Council, co-legislator of the Union, varies over time, following the national electoral cycles. The EPP, notes Emmanoulidis, has “good chances” of taking back “two large countries, Germany and Spain”.
Tajani clarified that, if Costa has a second mandate, then the Maltese Roberta Metsola will also have the right to a third mandate at the helm of the Parliament, because “it is the EPP that won the elections”. For the Portuguese prime minister, however, the agreement on the appointments had an “overwhelming” majority in the European Council and, despite “knowing the diversity of opinions” among the political forces, “there are all the conditions to be confident” in view of the vote in Parliament. For the PSD prime minister “there are the conditions to broaden” the consensus on the top positions, and in particular on Ursula von der Leyen, “in the coming weeks”.
Even for Montenegro, the votes of Meloni (abstained on von der Leyen, against Kallas and Costa) and Viktor Orban (against von der Leyen, abstained on Kallas, in favor of Costa) are not a drama: “Finding points of contact between 27 member states – he observes – is an enormously difficult task. It is complicated to get the leaders of 27 countries to agree and it is even more difficult when they belong to different political families”. It is not strange, therefore, that there were different votes, but “the compromise, between states and political families, is largely majoritarian” and “such as to be able to attract other political families” in the coming weeks.
Montenegro is thinking “for example” of the Greens, who have already said they are willing to vote for von der Leyen, even if a formal expansion of the majority to them would create serious problems within the EPP (the Italian delegation, Tajani clarified again yesterday, is decidedly against ). In addition to the top positions, the European Council last night approved 21 pages of conclusions, on Ukraine, the Middle East, security and defense, competitiveness, migration, the Black Sea, Moldova, Georgia, hybrid threats, internal reforms, plus the agenda strategy for 2024-29, which extends for nine pages.
Throughout the text of the conclusions, the absence of references to how to finance the many common objectives that the EU sets itself, for example in the field of security and defense, stands out. Even where these needs emerged, as in point 26, the reference was appropriately nuanced: the European Council, we read, invites the Commission to present “options” for “public and private financing to strengthen the technological and industrial base and to address capacity gaps”. Rather than ‘address’, the draft called for ‘filling’ capacity gaps, a wording deemed a little too explicit.
The reason is always the same and the next NATO secretary general and outgoing leader of the Frugals, Mark Rutte, made it clear: EU member states “must collectively look at what can be done” to strengthen European defense, but “there are many options”. Eurobonds, Rutte stressed, would be “a huge step, a Hamiltonian moment. Germany and some other countries are not in favor of it”. For Zuleeg, however, “if two years ago we had said to our military industries ‘we will buy your ammunition, and then we will find a way'” to pay for it, “of course it would have been complicated and expensive”, but, “if we had done that, we would not be in a situation where Ukraine does not have enough bullets and ammunition” to defend itself from the Russian invader.
The strategic agenda itself, as Emmanoulidis notes, is not “strategic” at all, since the “conscious choice” was made to “keep everyone on board”. The result is that, “with the ambition of unity, ambition is undermined”. Reading the nine pages of the agenda, one is struck by the abundance of objectives, even very ambitious ones: for example, it is ensured that “we will build our capabilities in key sectors and key technologies for the future, such as defense, space, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors, 5G and 6G, health, biotechnology, zero-emission technologies, mobility, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and advanced materials”.
All, or almost all, sectors in which the EU has accumulated significant delays compared to the US and China, which would require massive investments to catch up. But this crucial aspect is not mentioned in the strategic agenda: von der Leyen herself, last year, had to quickly bury her idea of establishing an EU sovereign fund, due to the strong opposition of Germany and the Nordics. We await the report by Mario Draghi, who has repeatedly ‘scourged’ European leaders on this key point (“please, do something”, he said to the presidents of the Parliament’s committees last spring). But Zuleeg doubts that the reports will be able to move the capitals: “I am sure that it will contain many right things – he says – but I am very sceptical that we will see any concrete action. Because any concrete action – he concludes – entails political costs”.
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