Giorgia
Meloni rejects deal on EU top jobs after talks snub
Italian PM
visibly upset after leaders of centrist parties excluded her from initial
discussions
Giorgia
Meloni arrives for an informal EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Monday.
Officials warned that snubbing the Italian premier could complicate efforts to
secure a swift deal on the bloc’s future leadership
Laura
Dubois, Henry Foy, Andy Bounds and Paola Tamma in Brussels and Amy Kazmin in
RomeYESTERDAY
https://www.ft.com/content/2afa6c37-3e21-4ff7-bfce-f345fdfdad10
Giorgia
Meloni was visibly upset when she was left out of a small group of EU leaders
discussing top jobs. But snubbing the Italian prime minister could further
complicate efforts to secure a swift deal on the bloc’s future leadership and
priorities, according to officials involved in the talks.
During a
private dinner on Monday evening, the EU’s 27 leaders discussed a potential
deal to nominate Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as European Commission
president — along with three other top appointments reflecting the result of
European parliament elections.
The mood of
the discussions was soured by a preceding closed-door meeting between six
national leaders from the EU’s three largest political parties: von der Leyen’s
European People’s party (EPP), the Socialists & Democrats and liberal
Renew.
Meloni, who
heads the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which
finished fourth in the elections, was particularly irked by her exclusion from
the pre-dinner talks, according to officials briefed on the discussions.
“The
strongest reaction was probably the one expressed by Giorgia Meloni; very firm,
very tough, to criticise those negotiations among the three political
families,” a senior EU official involved in the negotiations said.
Meloni raged
at French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish
Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the prime ministers of the Netherlands, Greece
and Spain for making her and others wait while they cooked up a deal that was
then presented as a fait accompli. Afterwards, Meloni told reporters that “we
will not accept a pre-packaged agreement”.
Renew, led
by Macron’s party, has claimed the post of EU top diplomat — set to go to
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas — given that Renew secured third place with
80 seats.
But that job
could be contested by Europe’s hard right if French far-right leader Marine Le
Pen’s Identity and Democracy (ID) group teams up with Meloni’s ECR and
potentially adds 11 MEPs from the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orbán. Such a “supermerger” would turn them into the third-largest force in the
European parliament.
The decision
is made by a qualified majority, meaning that leaders could in theory seal the
deal at next week’s summit without Meloni or Orbán, who also protested at the
stitch-up. However, officials fear that isolating Meloni might not only
embolden the Italian PM to team up with Le Pen but could also scupper other
decisions down the line.
While Meloni
has so far kept Le Pen at arm’s length, some members of ID are still saying
that efforts to create a Eurosceptic supergroup are continuing.
“The three
political parties made a strategic choice. They decided to show [Meloni] is
isolated. This is a power play,” the senior official said. “Do we want a total
battle with the risk that the European Council will be blocked?”
“A lot of
goodwill was lost last night,” a second EU diplomat said, adding that it would
also complicate von der Leyen’s efforts to drum up a parliamentary majority.
Another
person involved in the top job negotiations said the handling of Meloni “has to
be corrected” ahead of the next top jobs summit.
In the
run-up to the EU vote, von der Leyen had courted Meloni and her ECR group as
possible allies to secure a parliamentary majority, which is required to
confirm the candidate appointed by the leaders.
Von der
Leyen must secure 361 votes in the 720-strong assembly for a second term as
commission president. Due to the strong showing of her own EPP, that majority
can be reached together with S&D and Renew, who now command 406 seats in
parliament, no longer needing the ECR votes.
Meloni,
while bolstered by voters compared with Macron or Scholz, turned out not to be
“such a power player as she thought she was going to be”, said a party official
from another group. “It is always the big three groups that negotiate. The
election result showed the big three have a majority.”
Scholz on
Monday repeated his call for von der Leyen not to “rely on the rightwing
populist parties” — a reference to Meloni.
According to
people involved in the discussions, the German chancellor asked that Meloni and
the ECR be excluded from the negotiations. Both the S&D and Renew have
pledged not to negotiate with Meloni, who they deem too far right.
“If the
coalition is broadened, it should be to the Greens, not the ECR,” said Giacomo
Filibeck, secretary-general of the S&D. The Greens lost heavily but still
have 52 seats and are willing to consider entering a governing coalition at EU
level for the first time.
However,
Rome-based political analyst Ernesto Di Giovanni, who was active in the youth
movement where Meloni cut her political teeth, said Meloni’s exclusion from
serious talks about top jobs could backfire.
The three
largest parties had only a thin majority, Di Giovanni said, which might not
hold given their inability to ensure that all their affiliated MEPs followed
the party line.
“It’s a
poker game,” he said. “It’s very risky for them not having any kind of
negotiation with Giorgia.”
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