Leaders of the 27 EU member states are meeting in Brussels on June 27-28, where they are expected to decide who will take the top jobs across the bloc's various institutions. The key roles are the three presidents -- of the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament -- and the bloc's foreign policy chief.
In all likelihood, the German center-right candidate from the European People's Party (EPP) group, Ursula von der Leyen, will get another five years as president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, as will her fellow EPP member and Maltese politician Roberta Metsola, who is expected to retain the presidency of the European Parliament for another two and a half years. Metsola would then hand over the role to a candidate from the second-biggest group in the chamber, the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats (S&D) in a classic European Parliament power-sharing deal.
The general consensus is that former Portuguese left-wing Prime Minister Antonio Costa will replace Charles Michel as the president of the European Council, and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas from the liberal Renew group will succeed Spaniard Josep Borrell as the EU foreign policy chief.
Deep Background: There were high hopes that this process could have already been wound up last week, on June 17, at an informal EU leaders' meeting in Brussels. But according to several sources I have spoken to who are familiar with the discussion, two things prevented a deal.
Firstly, the EPP, which emerged as the winner of the recent European Parliament elections, is asking for more. According to my sources, in addition to the presidencies of the European Commission and European Parliament, the EPP also wants to get half of the European Council president's job.
But how would this work? While the European Council president serves a term lasting five years, after two and a half years, the 27 EU heads of state and government evaluate the job done by the office holder and -- at least so far -- renew the term for another two and a half years. The vote has to be carried by qualified majority voting, which means 55 percent of the EU member states, representing 65 percent of the bloc's total population.
Normally, the largest political group in parliament gets to put forward its candidate for the European Commission president's post, whereas the second and third groups get dibs on the European Council president and the foreign policy chief jobs.
The EPP suggested Costa, the main candidate for the post, just serve half a term and then be replaced by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, an EPP stalwart. Needless to say the EPP's suggestion didn't go down very well.
Why is the EPP feeling so confident? It certainly had a good result in the European Parliament elections as the only major group to gain ground, finishing first by some distance with 190 seats.
It's more, however, to do with the composition of the European Council, which comprises the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member states. Thirteen leaders on the council belong to the EPP, although they are mainly smaller countries, with the biggest being Poland. The EPP is banking on more, calculating that within two years there will be future EPP-affiliated leaders coming from heavyweights such as Germany and Spain. If that bears out, the EPP would have more than a qualified majority in the room.
The second factor that prevented a deal last week was the process itself. Apparently, the chief negotiators from the three main parliamentary groups -- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the EPP, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for the S&D, and Renew's French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte -- hammered it out for over three hours, leaving the other leaders waiting around.
Right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Mel
