The six leaders of the European Union in charge of negotiating the most important positions in the community institutions, among them the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, agreed this Tuesday to propose that Ursula von der Leyen, Antònio Costa and Kaja Kallas be, respectively, the presidents of the Commission and the Council and the head of diplomacy of the community bloc in the next legislature.

According to sources close to the negotiations cited by Efe, the agreement was reached in a video conference between the Greek prime ministers, Kyriakos Mitsotakisand Polish, Donald Tuskrepresenting the European People’s Party; Pedro Sanchez and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, by the socialists and social democrats; and the French president, Emmanuel Macronand the outgoing Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutteby the liberals.

This pact between the three parties of the pro-European parliamentary majority must now be endorsed at the summit of heads of state and government which takes place on Thursday and Friday of this week in Brussels.

The German conservative Von der Leyen, the Portuguese socialist Costa and the Estonian liberal Kallaswere the names with which the negotiators went to the European summit on June 17, when an agreement was not possible due, among other reasons, to the intention of the EPP, winner of the last European elections, to divide the presidency of the Council in two halves, and keep the second part for two and a half years.

The negotiators have agreed leave the distribution of the second periods pending of the presidencies of the European Council and the European Chamber at the time when the date of its eventual renewal approaches to take into account the political circumstances at that time, according to sources.

To overcome the eventual discomfort of the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Melonifor not having summoned her for these negotiations, one of the six negotiators contacted her to guarantee that will have, as requested, a significant portfolio in the next community Executive.

The agreed trio of names meets the criteria of gender balance (two women and one man), origin geographical (an Estonian, a German and a Portuguese) and political color (a popular one, a socialist and a liberal).

The shortlist would be completed with the presidency of the European Parliamentfor which the leaders do not give names but indications of political color: the EPP would take the first half of the legislature – for the current president, Roberta Metsola – and it remains up in the air what would happen with the second, which the social democrats traditionally have .