The Italian Prime Minister, maximum representative of the radical right in the EU, now considering abstaining from the vote on the new community leadership for the period 2024-2029 during the European Council that begins this Thursday in Brussels, According to the newspaper La Stampa.
This gesture of protest it won’t help you at all: The ‘grand coalition’ brings together 23 of the 27 EU governments, which represent 80% of the European population and has almost 400 seats in the European Parliament. A sufficient majority to carry out the appointments. Only the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy and Hungary are left out of the agreement. The first two have already given signs of their intention to join the majority.
[Los negociadores de la ‘gran coalición’ pactan la cúpula de la UE: Von der Leyen, Costa y Kallas]
Viktor Orbán is considered a lost cause, but the ‘grand coalition’ negotiators They still hope to add Meloni to the agreement during the summit. An agreement that was closed by videoconference by Mitsotakis himself and the Polish Donald Tusk on behalf of the EPP; while Pedro Sánchez and the German Olaf Scholz have represented the socialists; and the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron and the Dutchman Mark Rutte were the voice of the liberals.
“Unanimity is not necessary, but the bigger the support, the better. We all hope that the third largest economy in the EU will get on board,” explains a European diplomat.
The names are already closed and there will be no change, according to all the sources consulted. The German Christian Democrats Ursula von der Leyen He will repeat a second term at the head of the European Commission, the position with the most power; the former portuguese prime minister, the socalista Antonio Costa, will be the new president of the European Council; while the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallasfrom the liberal family, will replace Josep Borrell as head of community diplomacy.
However, negotiators still see room for Von der Leyen offers Meloni a powerful vice presidency in the Community Executive. The German has a “strong incentive” to “try to appease” Meloni with an “interesting portfolio” in the Commission, says another senior European official.
Nobody in the EU is interested in Italy settling into a permanent blocking position in Brussels, as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is already doing right now. At the same time, the Commission president will need to find a “subtle balance” in the distribution of functions in her team so as not to anger other Member States. According to him Financial TimesMeloni aspires to the same portfolios as Macron: trade or competition.
Due to the death of his wife’s father, Pedro Sanchez will not travel to Brussels for the European Council meeting. The president of the Government has delegated his vote to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
In the hours before the meeting in Brussels, Meloni has made no effort to hide his discomfort. In a combative and at times openly Eurosceptic speech in her Parliament, the Italian Prime Minister predicted a “fragile majority” for the second term of office. Ursula von der Leyen at the head of the European Commission and has demanded more power for Rome.
“We are a founding country of the EU, the Italian economy is the third largest in Europe, our industry is the second largest on the continent, we are the third Member State by population, we have records in many fields and Today we have a new political stability and economic solidity which has allowed us to leave behind too many prejudices of which we were victims,” said the Italian Prime Minister.
Meloni announces that he will strive to “ensure that our nation is better represented in the highest positions of the European Union.” “We have to work so that what is owed to Italy as a nation is recognized, not to the Government, not to this or that party, but to the nation. “That weight has not always been adequately recognized in the past,” he alleged.
The Italian Prime Minister has made use of her great result in the 9-J elections to ask for a change of course in the EU, which she has once again defined as “bureaucratic giant”. While the forces that support the Government of Rome obtained 53% of the votes, in Spain that percentage is reduced to 34%, in Germany to 32% and in France it barely reaches 16%, Meloni has alleged.
“It is clear that “The Italian Prime Minister is important and must be part of the agreement.”says another prominent diplomat in Brussels. Of course, the negotiators of the ‘grand coalition’ want to close the distribution at all costs at this summit. The EU cannot afford to waste any more time on appointments with two wars in the neighborhood (Ukraine and Gaza) and the imminent danger of a possible return of Donald Trump to the White House.
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