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00:00The negotiations to decide who will lead the European Union for the next five years officially kicked off on Monday.
00:11Italy's Prime Minister hosts a G7 summit accused of double standards in its differing support for Ukraine and Gaza.
00:18The negotiations to decide who will lead the European Union for the next five years officially kicked off on Monday.
00:31The three big posts to fill are the European Commission President, the European Council President and the High Representative for Foreign Policy.
00:39But the heads of state and government will have to respect a series of geographical, gender and party requirements.
00:48The clear favorite for the European Commission President is the current holder, Germany's Ursula von der Leyen.
00:55However, the Italian Mario Draghi, now almost ruled out, or even the current Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, have both been mentioned before as favorites.
01:10The EPP's victory in the European elections and the stability of von der Leyen's time in office work in her favor.
01:19The European Council will have, you know, will be quite motivated in getting, you know, the institutional turnover, let's say, get this finalized quite quickly.
01:30Because, you know, we live in very turbulent times, very turbulent geopolitical times. We are facing potentially another presidency of Trump.
01:37So I think leaders are really, you know, very keen on having a new commission with a new agenda installed as quick as possible.
01:45For the Council President, the field is more open, although everything points to it going to be a social democrat.
01:53The most likely candidates are Portugal's former Prime Minister António Gosta, now that his judicial problems seem to have been cleared up, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
02:05For the post of High Representative, the field is even wider, although in principle it should go to a liberal.
02:13On the table are Estonia's Prime Minister Kaya Kalas, Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, and Belgium's Acting Prime Minister Alexander de Groot.
02:24Although for now it seems that the favorite is Kalas, despite her hard-line stand on Russia.
02:30There are so many balances that I have to take into account that I think this fact is outweighed by the fact that she's female, that she's from a Baltic state, and that she, you know, checks lots of the other boxes.
02:45The final picture could be exactly this one, or a completely different one.
02:50Five years ago, the negotiation took three nights. This time it could go much faster.
02:56A success without fear of being refuted. In the G7 final press conference, Melanie's words left no room for interpretation.
03:05She's an exception among other G7 leaders, being the only one to have come out stronger from the EU vote, with a few countries facing national elections soon.
03:15The war in Ukraine was high on the agenda. The $50 billion dollar deal, which would have been a deal between the EU and Russia, was not.
03:23High on the agenda, the $50 billion deal to help the country through profits and frozen Russian assets was one of the summit's main achievements, something that wasn't taken for granted, according to Melanie.
03:34We intend to continue to support Ukraine, and we have chosen to strengthen our commitment and the various lines of action, with an approach that continues to be 360 degrees, to help the attacked nation look to the future.
03:51On the weaker side, the G7 has been accused of double standards for offering strength and support to Ukraine, compared to the leaders' softer stance on the war in Gaza.
04:00One of the most talked about topics at the summit was the absence of the word abortion from the final declaration. Many suspected these had created tensions between Italy and France.
04:12Melanie dismissed the issue, saying that it was done to avoid the document being too repetitive.
04:17When something is repeated, the previous documents are recalled. I sincerely believe that the controversy was created in a totally artificial way, and in fact it is a controversy that did not exist in the first place.
04:31Managing to have the Pope among the summit's guest leaders, a first for a pontiff, is widely recognized as a boost to Melanie's standing.
04:38The inclusion of countries from the global south to make the summit more inclusive was also one of Melanie's main goals.
04:45But in the long term, it is yet to be seen what concrete results it will bring.
04:50Giorgia Orlandi for Euronews, in Bari.