EU leaders have chosen Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as European Commission president, six EU diplomats told POLITICO.
At a meeting in Brussels, the national leaders also picked Portugal’s António Costa and Estonia’s Kaja Kallas for the most senior positions at the European Council and the EU’s foreign policy service, respectively.
On Tuesday, six negotiators from the three main centrist political groups approved von der Leyen, Costa and Kallas for the roles. On Thursday, the other leaders supported those decisions.
Earlier in the week, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made clear to the other leaders she was angry about being left out of the negotiations, given that her political grouping in European Parliament is now the third largest after June’s European election. On Thursday night, she abstained from supporting a second term for von der Leyen and she voted against Costa and Kallas.
Now, von der Leyen faces a knife-edge vote in the European Parliament, which even her own party allies admit will be more of a challenge to pull off in comparison. That vote could come as soon as July 18.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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