The tricky distribution of top jobs is the next chapter after the elections to the European Parliament.
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00:00The negotiations to decide who will lead the European Union for the next five years officially
00:06kicked off on Monday.
00:08The three big posts to fill are the European Commission president, the European Council
00:12president and the high representative for foreign policy.
00:16But the heads of state and government will have to respect a series of geographical,
00:21gender and party requirements.
00:25The clear favorite for the European Commission president is the current holder, Germany's
00:29Ursula von der Leyen.
00:31However, the Italian Mario Draghi, now almost ruled out, or even the current prime minister
00:38of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, have both been mentioned before as favorites.
00:47The EPP's victory in the European elections and the stability of von der Leyen's time
00:51in office work in her favor.
00:57The European Council will have, you know, will be quite motivated in getting, you know,
01:02the institutional turnover, let's say, get this finalized quite quickly, because, you
01:07know, we live in very turbulent times, very turbulent geopolitical times.
01:11We are facing potentially another presidency of Trump.
01:14So I think leaders are really, you know, very keen on having a new commission with a new
01:18agenda installed as quick as possible.
01:23For the Council president, the field is more open.
01:26Although everything points to it going to be a social democrat.
01:31The most likely candidates are Portugal's former Prime Minister António Gosta, now
01:35that his judicial problems seem to have been cleared up, and Danish Prime Minister Mette
01:40Frederiksen.
01:47For the post of high representative, the field is even wider, although in principle it should
01:51go to a liberal.
01:53On the table are Estonia's Prime Minister Kaya Kalas, Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław
01:58Sikorski, and Belgium's acting Prime Minister Alexander de Groot.
02:04Although for now it seems that the favorite is Kalas, despite her hard-line stand on Russia.
02:09There are so many balances that I have to take into account that I think this fact is
02:16outweighed by the fact that she's female, that she's from a Baltic state, and that she,
02:21you know, checks lots of the other boxes.
02:25The final picture could be exactly this one, or a completely different one.
02:29Five years ago, the negotiation took three nights.
02:33This time it could go much faster.