June 26 (UPI) — Centrist groups nominated three people for top European Commission positions, paving the way for Ursula von der Leyen to return as president.
Six negotiators chose von der Leyen for European Commission President, Estonian Prime Minister Kallas for High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Portuguese Prime Minister Costa for European Council President.
They represent political parties that won 55% of EU parliament seats in the June elections.
The three nominees will be presented for approval in Brussels on Thursday by the leaders of EU member states.
Far-right parties made strong gains, but the center-left bloc retained the majority of seats.
The six EU leaders who negotiated the nominations are French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte representing liberals, Greek Prime Minister KyriakosMitsotakis and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for the European People’s Party, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz representing the socialists.
The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists party was not represented among the six negotiators who nominated the top European Commission leaders.
The ECR overtook Macron’s liberals to become the third-largest party in the European parliament.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni belongs to that party and she was not part of the nominating discussion, a condition that the center-left bloc insisted on.
Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on X, that the European People’s Party nominating deal “made with the leftists and the liberals runs against everything that the EU was based on. Instead of inclusion, it sows the seeds of division. EU top officials should represent every member state, not just leftists and liberals!”
Of the three people nominated for the European Commission top posts, von der Leyen is center-right, Costa a socialist and Kallas a liberal.
