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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.”