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The EU is
about to have its first president from an ethnic minority
António
Costa, the incoming president of the European Council, hopes his Indian
heritage will help him win over a multipolar world.
November 22,
2024 4:00 am CET
By Aitor
Hernández-Morales
BRUSSELS —
When António Costa takes office as president of the European Council on Dec. 1,
he will become the first person from an ethnic minority to head one of the
European Union’s most important institutions.
In his first
interview with POLITICO since he was tapped for the post in June, the former
Portuguese prime minister, who is of Goan-Mozambican descent, said he was keen
to use his Indian heritage to redefine Europe’s often unequal relationship with
Asia, Africa and South America.
While the EU
has historically had good relations with the United States, its complicated
colonial history has sometimes hindered its ability to forge strong ties with
the rest of the world.
Since
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for example, the EU has struggled to
wrangle support from African, Asian and Latin American countries in
international forums like the United Nations.
As president
of the Council, Costa can facilitate negotiations between the EU’s national
leaders and represent the bloc — along with European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas — on the
international stage.
Speaking in
a conference room in the headquarters of the Council in central Brussels, Costa
said he was eager to change the status quo with what he described as a
“multipolar world.”
“We need to
have closer relations with different regions and countries that are relevant in
a world that is much more than the G7 or the G20,” he said. “This is a world
composed of 195 countries.”
Costa
boasted that on a visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally
given him an overseas citizen card that grants him indefinite residency and
work privileges — and said that his “cultural closeness, knowledge and
sometimes even linguistic skills … obviously help, and I hope to use them in
the service of the EU.”
The incoming
Council president’s paternal grandfather was from Goa, an Indian state that
ceased to be part of the fading Portuguese empire just months after Costa’s
birth. His paternal grandmother, meanwhile, was French-Mozambican.
Costa’s
background distinguishes him from the previous holders of top EU posts, most of
whom have a hard time connecting with continents where Europe’s representatives
are sometimes dismissed as condescending interlopers.
During his
eight years as Portuguese prime minister, Costa built up close relationships
with overseas leaders, especially those from the African, Asian and South
American countries that are part of the Lusophone Community of
Portuguese-speaking countries. His personal charisma, and Portugal’s status as
a small, unthreatening country, helped forge strong economic ties and even a
free-movement agreement with former colonies.
“I think
there are clear signs that Europe wants to have a 360[-degree] vision of the
world, not a unidirectional one,” Costa added.
Ready to
talk
As prime
minister, Costa became famous for securing unlikely political agreements in
Lisbon — dealmaking skills that are in high demand in an increasingly polarized
EU.
The incoming
Council president’s paternal grandfather was from Goa, an Indian state that
ceased to be part of the fading Portuguese empire just months after Costa’s
birth.
Political
leaders in France and Germany, the traditional heavyweights within the Council,
are distracted by domestic crises, while ascendant Euroskeptic and
ultranationalist politicians are taking leadership roles across the bloc.
Against that
backdrop, Costa’s challenge will be to get the 27 national leaders who sit on
the Council to agree to a common position on European defense; forge a response
to a potential trade war with the U.S. and China; and agree the bloc’s next
seven-year budget.
The
president-elect said he was confident the elite group would be able to reach
consensus agreements, just as it did during the eight years he sat at the table
as Portuguese prime minister.
“Even at the
most critical moments — like the ones we’ve experienced since Russia invaded
Ukraine — the Council has always managed to take decisions,” he said.
“Sometimes it has required holding another summit, but it’s always been
possible to reach an agreement.”
In
preparation for his new gig, he has spent the fall visiting the bloc’s 27 heads
of government — a listening tour he plans to repeat every September, coinciding
with the start of the new political season.
“My main
mission is to guarantee unity between everyone … And that means being in
permanent contact,” he said.
Unlike his
predecessor, Belgian Charles Michel, Costa said he was eager to be in regular
contact with Commission President von der Leyen.
Michel and
von der Leyen spent most of the five years they held the top EU jobs feuding,
to the point that the EU’s two most important institutions virtually ceased to
communicate.
Costa, by
contrast, has a seemingly warm relationship with von der Leyen, with whom he
bonded when Portugal held the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe in
2021. The former Portuguese prime minister said he had worked closely with von
der Leyen on policies aimed at dealing with the Covid crisis and the rollout of
the EU’s recovery plan, and that since September their teams had been preparing
the “coordinated and harmonious” rollout of the new political term.
Costa’s
selection as Council president represents a reversal of fortune for a
politician whom many wrote off just one year ago, when he was forced to step
down as Portuguese prime minister in the wake of an influence-peddling scandal.
Costa was
named as the subject of an official investigation related to the affair. But in
the 12 months that have elapsed since then, no legal charges have been filed
against him, and it’s widely expected that the probe will be dropped.
The
president-elect said the episode had been “sad,” but that it was important to
let the justice system do its work. The affair doesn’t appear to have done
long-term damage to his prestige in Brussels, where European leaders and
officials are palpably excited about him.
That may say
more about their eagerness to finally be rid of Michel, who will be remembered
as a self-obsessed Council president with a tendency to disrupt summits and
grandstand abroad.
“We expect a
lot from Costa and his team,” said one senior EU diplomat. “But, of course, the
bar is so low.”
Barbara
Moens contributed reporting.
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