António Costa traveled to Brussels one day after being elected president of the European Council and met at the airport with the candidates for the other two high positions of the EU. The Portuguese politician promises to create consensus and is already preparing his cabinet, as he told the Portuguese press.
“I perfectly understand the vote of the Italian Prime Minister, which has been explained publicly. I will work closely with Giorgia Meloni, as well as with the other 26 EU leaders,” new European Council President António Costa told Portuguese journalists on Friday at the Party of European Socialists headquarters in Brussels.
The Italian leader, Giorgia Meloni, She was the only one who voted against Costa at the EU summit, but considered the vote normal because the “European Council is not an association of bureaucrats, but of politicians who have their political orientations and vote based on them,” he said.
Without much pause to rest and write a book, or to think about his possible candidacy for the presidency of Portugal in 2026, António Costa will assume a position of great international relevance on December 1after resigning as Prime Minister of Portugal last year following a judicial scandal.
Good relationship with Von der Leyen and Kallas
The chance encounter with the other two nominees at the airport occurred in the same tone of good cooperation that he maintains with the president of the European CommissionUrsula von der Leyen, for five years, “especially during the Portuguese presidency in 2021 and during the pandemic.”
“I also have a good relationship with the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallaand we have the advantage of learn from previous experiences to continue with good practices and avoid bad ones,” Costa added.
For the first time, a politician from the south of the European Union will assume the presidency of the European Council, an institution that Costa knows well, since he was head of Government there for almost a decade and where he acquired a reputation for being a good negotiator, mediator and passionate supporter of the European Union project.
Cabinet in preparation
The president-elect said that has already held meetings with the secretary general of the Council of Europe and with the current president, Charles Michel, and that he will organize the cabinet taking into account the internal strategic agenda and the international agenda, wishing to “speak with the leaders of the 27 countries to see how working methods can be improved.”
This lawyer by training, who has been in politics since he was 14 years oldwill oversee the meetings of the 27 leaders in a time of great challenges regarding the transition of the economic paradigm and geopolitical positioning.
“A great effort must be made and, despite the political differences between the governments and the levels of development of the countries, we have to be able to make decisions together“he said, not wanting to speculate on the results of the elections in Francewhere the extreme right could win.
Costa, 62 years old, is the son of a communist writer with roots in Goa, former Portuguese colony in India, and journalist and defender of women’s rights. Considered pragmatic and determined, he intends to maintain this attitude.
“The president of the European Council must place himself above political families and realize that the 27 heads of Government and State They have the same rights and deserve the same respect. I will work and help form consensus by qualified majority and, when possible, by consensus, without any veto,” she explained.
