EU leaders back Ursula von der Leyen for second term as president

Ursula von der Leyen has clinched the nomination to serve a second term as president of the European Commission, despite Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s complaints of a “wrong” process.

Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, is set to become the EU’s top diplomat, representing the bloc on the world stage for the next five years. The former Portuguese prime minister António Costa has been elected to take over as president of the European Council, putting him in charge of finding compromises between the 27 heads of state and government.

At the end of an EU summit that was devoted to Europe’s future and security policy, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, tweeted: “Kaja, Ursula and António accepted. Defence plans accepted. Satisfaction. For Poland and for Europe.”

Meloni abstained on von der Leyen’s appointment and voted against the other two.

Von der Leyen’s path to a second five-year term it is not a fait accompli: she must win over a majority of the European parliament’s 720 MEPs, who are expected to vote next month.

Kallas has to be confirmed by the Commission president, a formality. She will also appear before MEPs in the autumn, although they cannot reject her as the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs.

In 2019 von der Leyen became the first woman to lead the EU executive in its 62-year history, but only narrowly secured the support of MEPs. While on paper the groups backing her command a comfortable majority of 55%, a sizeable number could vote against her during the secret vote.

She said she would work “intensively” to broaden her support beyond the platform of the EPP, Socialists and Renew. She promised to talk to national delegations and individual MEPs “those for example who are critical, who have questions”.

A former German government minister, von der Leyen is deemed by EU leaders to have performed well in handling the EU’s response to a once-in-a-century pandemic and the biggest war on European soil since 1945. Her frontrunner status was further cemented after her centre-right European People’s party (EEP) secured the largest number of seats in European parliament elections earlier this month.

Another hurdle was cleared this week after a deal between EU leaders representing the bloc’s largest pro-European groups, the EEP, the Socialists and the centrist Renew group.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has bitterly railed against the agreement among the three pro-European groups.

As the summit broke up, Meloni repeated her criticism of the process that she complained was “wrong in method and substance”. Her government, she said continued “to work to finally give Italy the weight it deserves in Europe”.

Meloni is the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, the third largest in the parliament. She accused the six male leaders who took the decision of behaving like oligarchs.

Earlier in the day, centre-right leaders embarked on a charm offensive to win round Meloni. Tusk stressed his “great respect” for Italy and its prime minister. “There are some emotions, but in reality, they may have resulted rather from misunderstandings,” he said. “There is no Europe without Italy and there is no decision without prime minister Meloni.”

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister and fellow EPP negotiator, struck a similar tone: “It was never our intention neither to exclude anyone nor offend anyone.”

Talks began around sunset in Brussels, at the end of a day when leaders met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who urged them to fulfil their promises for military support and ammunition. Russia’s latest offensive in the Kharkiv region, which Zelenskiy said had been stopped, proved that the existing pressure on the invader “is not enough”, he said.

Related: Zelenskiy says Russia’s recent offensive shows pressure on Kremlin ‘not enough’

Once Zelenskiy had gone, EU leaders later sparred over defence spending that touched on whether Europe should repeat the Covid recovery plan experiment with more collective borrowing. Von der Leyen told them €500bn of defence investments were needed in the EU. Member states, she said, had to decide whether they preferred to fund defence through their own budgets or common EU borrowing.

Germany and its frugal neighbour, the Netherlands, voiced their opposition to joint debt and watered down a text to reflect their concerns about making open-ended, costly financial commitments.

When the talks eventually turned to top jobs – over a dinner of summer vegetables, Ostend-style filet of sole, followed by nectarine and rosemary tart with yoghurt mousse – von der Leyen and Kallas left the room.

Kallas, who has warned for years on Russia’s aggression, emerged as an early frontrunner to take over from Spain’s Josep Borrell as the EU’s chief diplomat. Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson praised her “impeccable track record”, saying she “will bring solid experience within several areas, not least the EU’s unwavering support to Ukraine”.

Costa, who has served three terms in Portugal, is expected to take up his post on 1 December. He said he was “fully committed to promoting unity between all 27 Member States”. The veteran Socialist is well liked by EU leaders, even securing the endorsement of Hungary’s rightwing nationalist Viktor Orbán.

Orbán voted against von der Leyen. He abstained on Kallas and voted for Costa.

Earlier in the day, Belgium’s outgoing prime minister Alexander De Croo had dismissed criticism of the deal between Europe’s three pro-European political groups.

De Croo, a liberal, who leads a seven-party coalition government in Belgium, said finding agreement between different political forces was “how democracy works”. “Democracy is not only about blocking, democracy is about who wants to work together and those three political groups are willing to work together for the benefit of all Europeans.”

Asked about Meloni’s angry speech to the Italian parliament on Wednesday, De Croo turned to a Dutch proverb. “Sometimes the soup is not eaten at the same temperature that it is being served,” he said. This “basically means yesterday was yesterday, let’s listen [to] what is being said around the table today”.