Sánchez will negotiate with the European PP on behalf of the losers without ever trying to reach an agreement with Feijóo

Although he never tries to agree with Alberto Núñez FeijóoPedro Sánchez will negotiate with the European People’s Party, winner of the 9-J elections (with 186 of the 720 seats up for grabs), the distribution of senior EU officials for the next legislature. He will do so on behalf of the European Socialists, who have come in second position (135 seats) after losing four seats compared to what they currently have.

The presidency of the European Socialist Party (PES) agreed this Monday to appoint the President of the Government and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholzas representatives of the social democratic family in the dialogue to reissue a ‘grand coalition’ (popular, socialist and liberal) that guarantees the stability of the EU during the next legislature. Iratxe García, president of the socialist group in the European Parliament and first vice president of the PES, attended the meeting on behalf of the PSOE.

Specifically, the presidencies of the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament are at stake, as well as the position of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The socialists aspire to achieve the Council presidencywith the former Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costaas absolute favorite for the position. Of course, as long as he manages to be completely exonerated from the corruption accusations that caused the fall of his government.

[Feijóo se afianza como alternativa y Sánchez se tambalea tras el batacazo de Yolanda Díaz]

“The results achieved yesterday strengthen the Socialists and Democrats as the second political force in Europe, giving them strong bargaining power“PSOE sources have argued.

Olaf Scholz and Pedro Sánchez They are the socialist leaders in the European Council, but they have had very different fortunes in the European elections. The PSOE has lost one seat compared to 2019 and has come in second position behind the PP, but its delegation remains the largest within the socialist group in the European Parliament (tying at 20 seats with the Italians). In contrast, Scholz has come third (behind the Christian Democrats and the extreme right), with just 14 seats.

Sánchez was already a negotiator for the socialists (along with Costa himself) after the previous European elections in 2019. At that time he was criticized by his colleagues for not achieving the objective of supporting the Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans to the presidency of the Commission. And settle as a consolation prize for the position of head of EU diplomacy, for which he was appointed Josep Borrell.

The position with the greatest power, the presidency of the European Commission, corresponds in principle to the political family that won the elections to the European Parliament. In this case, the EPP candidate to repeat as head of the community Executive is Ursula von der Leyen, which has already begun to gather support to be confirmed. European socialists have signaled that they are willing to support it in exchange for programmatic concessions.

“The socialists and democrats reiterate their willingness to dialogue and negotiate with all political forces except the extreme rightboth the European Conservatives and Reformists (Giorgia Meloni’s group) and Identity and Democracy (Marine Le Pen’s group)”, explain the sources consulted.

If this distribution is confirmed, the position of High Representative would correspond to the liberal family in the next term. The candidate that is in all the pools is the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallaswho already expressed her interest in being NATO Secretary General but has been ruled out due to her extremely harsh stance towards Russia.