The heads of State and Government of the European Union agreed this Thursday appoint the German conservative Ursula von der Leyen for a second term in the presidency of the European Commission and the Portuguese socialist António Costa as president of the European Council, as well as the Estonian liberal Kaja Kallas as high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs Exteriors.

“Kaja, Ursula and António have accepted,” announced Polish Prime Minister and former President of the European Council Donald Tusk, one of the chief negotiators, in a brief message on social media. The heads of state and government of the European Union have sealed this Thursday the distribution of the top community posts after a negotiation that has gone ahead without the support of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and despite the firm rejection of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Diplomatic sources point out that Meloni has voted against Kallas and Costa but has abstained in the election of Von der Leyen. The leaders, who met in Brussels in the early afternoon, began discussing the so-called ‘Top Jobs’ in community jargon around 10:00 p.m. and in just an hour and a half they announced the agreement, which confirms the package previously agreed by the governments of the ‘popular’, social-democratic and liberal families and which involves the renewal of the conservative Ursula von der Leyen at the head of the European Commission on condition that she overcomes the vote of the European Parliament, probably next July 18.

The agreement also means that the former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costasocialist, assumes the presidency of the European Council from Charles Michel the next December 1with a mandate of two and a half years after which the leaders must make a new decision, as established by the Treaties.

The third high position that completes the complex territorial, ideological and gender balance is that of High Representative of Foreign Policy of the EU exercised by the socialist Josep Borrell and that with the change of legislature it will pass into the hands of the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, who at the time of the vote has been absent from the leaders’ meeting and delegated her vote to her Finnish colleague, Petteri Orpo. Von der Leyen also left the room at the time of the leaders’ decision.

The Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, who at the beginning of the negotiations was against the distribution proposed by the coalition, has confirmed in a message published on social networks minutes before starting the final deliberations that the candidates “meet the criteria,” that he knew all of them personally and that he has had “a very good experience” working with them.