IMeloni says EU top jobs deal ignores voters' wishes as Von der Leyen set for reappointment
Now it looks like Anasila von der Leyen will continue to reign supreme as the president of the European Commission as EU leaders meet today. The German Chancellor, Olaf Schultz confirming that the parliament's three main centrist groups will back out for a second term, with Portugal's as Premier Antonio Costa set to be chair of meetings of EU national leaders and the Estonian Prime Minister, the block's new foreign policy chief. The moves though, well criticised by Italy's far right leader Giorgio Maloney, who says the plan to share out the top EU jobs ignores the success of right wing parties in this month's European elections. Well, let's cross them to Brussels. We're going to talk to our correspondent who joins us from there, Dave Keating. David, it seems like the top jobs are pretty much in the bag. But Giorgio Maloney not happy. Does she have a point? She may have a point. I mean her her point is that her group, the European Conservatives and Reformists, came in third in the election. They're now the third largest party in the European Parliament. However, this deal has been cooked up only by the three centrist parties, the centre right EPP, centre left SND and liberal Renew Group of Emmanuel Macron. And she was shut out of those talks. Now, she hasn't said anything about trying to to vote, voting against Ursula von der Leyen. But what I'm hearing is that she is indeed considering it, and she may threaten to do so today. Now, she can't veto the reappointment of von der Leyen. This is a majority vote. But Italy is the third biggest country in the EU. It is a founding member and having a new president be appointed while the Italian Prime Minister has voted no would be quite a big deal. It's happened before in the past. David Cameron voted against Jean Claude Juncker in 2014. They bypassed him and went ahead. But the UK was always kind of on the periphery in terms of its power here in Brussels. Italy is a different story. So we'll see. She may try to get some concessions today in order to have an affirmative vote or at least an abstention, which would probably involve her asking for the commissioner from Italy to be made executive vice President, the second highest position in the European Commission. That person wouldn't necessarily be from her ECR group because the Italy governing coalition also includes the center right. So we'll see what happens there. Otherwise, we don't have any indication of any other leaders voting against this reappointment except Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who will almost certainly vote against von der Leyen. He also did so along with David Cameron back in 2014 against Jean Claude Juncker. The meeting is not just about selecting leaders, is it? Dave is also about deciding priorities. Yes, exactly. So they're going to be adopting this strategic agenda today or possibly tomorrow that will set the leaders priorities for the next five years. That's because it's the start of a new EU term that basically is a list of instructions to the European Commission for what they want to carry out. And Ukraine will feature very heavily on that list of strategic priorities. Will also see today a Ukrainian President Zelensky visiting the council. He's the special guest today. He will be marking the start of Ukrainian accession negotiations to the EU, which started on Tuesday. And then separately, they're going to be signing an assistance pact with Ukraine that will promise all kinds of things, from military equipment to hosting Ukrainian refugees to prosecuting Russian war crimes, and which will contain assurances that the EU will continue to work toward EU membership for Ukraine. Not a promise of membership, but a commitment to keep working toward it. So that will be the big highlight this afternoon when President Zelensky is there. It's a big symbolic moment for the EU to demonstrate its continued support for Ukraine, even as Hungary is about to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers on Monday. And Hungary has made a lot of noises, of course, that they want to slow down EU accession and and they are still blocking EU assistance to Ukraine. So this is important symbolic moment for the EU to demonstrate it is still there for the country.