“It’s a joy! Very good for Europe, very good for Portugal” – President Marcelo
Days before Portugal stormed through to the quarter finals in the Euro 2024 championship following a dramatic penalty shootout, the country had another ‘high point to savour’: the passage of one of its own to one of Europe’s most responsible positions.
António Costa, former prime minister – a man often credited with the ability to ‘charm birds out of the trees’ – has finally been confirmed as the next President of the Council of Europe.
It has been a ‘bumpy ride’ (there is still the inconvenient issue of ‘Operation Influencer’ wobbling about in the background), but Brussels has been convinced that the likelihood of the former Socialist leader emerging in any kind of dim light is minimal (and the whole issue of the integrity of the public prosecutor’s office is now so public, and somehow shabby, that no-one appears to be taking ‘stalled corruption investigations’ very seriously).
Reacting to the appointment last week, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa went through a gamut of positive adjectives. “It’s a joy!”, “It’s magnificent!”, “It’s very good for Europe, and very good for Portugal”, he told reporters.
Like the performance of the national team, it was a rare moment where almost everybody was on the same page in sharing a sense of pride and delight in something that ‘not everyone is capable of’.
Mr Costa himself – who has spent the last few months away from the media spotlight shedding weight and apparently brushing up on his spoken English – wrote on his social media pages: “It is with a great sense of mission that I take on the responsibility of being the next President of the European Council. I thank the members of the European Council for the trust they have placed in me by electing me, as well as the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the Government of Portugal for their support in this decision.”
As president of the European Council, Costa says he will be “fully committed to promoting unity among the 27 member states and focused on implementing the Strategic Agenda (…) which will guide the European Union over the next five years”.
Mr Costa’s mandate is just two and a half years – on the understanding that a second two-and-a-half-year term could be voted for when the time comes.
But once the fairy dust settled on all the ‘national jubilation’ that António Costa will be working closely with Ursula von der Leyen (European Commissioner), Roberta Metsola (President of the European Parliament) and Kaja Kallas (elected Europe’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) – the absolute enormity of his task (and indeed theirs), and the problems already littering the way, came sharply into focus.
Some observers have gone as far as to suggest that ‘Europe is imploding’: the second round of the French elections looks set to bring back the country’s first far-right government since World War II; no one can predict what that will mean in terms of France’s future position within Europe.
Last month’s European elections also saw major gains for the far-right throughout northern countries. Germany, particularly, is seeing a great deal of ambivalence to the ‘European position’ over Ukraine, for example. Of course, there are voters who stand firm to the commitment of European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen that “Europe will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes” – but there are many that don’t.
And just as António Costa basked in the ‘victory’ of clinching his coveted European role – due to begin on December 1 this year – Hungary’s prime minister launched a far-right platform “Patriots for Europe”, designed to be a bloc of the far-right within the European Parliament.
“Patriots for Europe” already has the support of the far-right parties of Austria and Czechia – and, on Sunday, Portugal’s far-right CHEGA, already the country’s third political force with no less than 50 MPs in parliament, said it too would like to join.
The observation by Portugal’s current prime minister Luís Montenegro that “Europe faces great challenges” is putting the reality mildly.
Writing in people’s tabloid Correio da Manhã on Tuesday, editor Manuel S. Fonseca remarked that “the trembling body of Joe Biden, his vacant gaze, and his raspy, hesitant voice are the closest metaphor today for the state of democracy in the world (…) If Trump wins America from the zombie that Biden has become, what Europe will resist the axis of Putin-Iran-China? What European Union, with the internal poison of Le Pen in Brussels, could stand up and oppose Putin’s dream of reoccupying the East, from Poland to Romania? There are tough winds ahead for Costa, and for Ursula”.
Some of Costa’s “agenda full of challenges”
Thus, everyone who values António Costa’s extraordinary ability to forge consensus – even among parties who can’t stand each other – has fingers tightly-crossed that he is the ‘man for the job’. Current president Charles Michel, it has to be said, is not: there are issues with Ursula von der Leyen. It is not a ‘happy team’ in the way this new group (von der Leyen, Costa, Kallas and Metsola) is expected to be.
Costa’s ‘first task’, say reports, will involve ‘the extension east’: the EU began negotiations this week on the adhesion to the bloc of Ukraine and Bulgaria. In the middle of a bloody conflict, Ukraine will be expected to implement judicial, economic and constitutional reforms. Seven other mainly Balkan countries are waiting to become members of the EU.
On the external policy/common security front, Costa will have to establish consensus between the 27 member states on military support to Ukraine; on the crisis in the Middle East and on strategy for the industry of defence.
Then, there is the European Pact for Migration and Asylum – already contested by international organisations like Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders – which seeks to send migrants and refugees to ‘third countries’ and allows states to pay not to receive asylum seekers, through a form of “flexible solidarity” scheme.
And all this will need to be tackled at a point where Hungary has just taken up the reins of the rotating presidency of the EU Council.
The next few months will be a snake-pit, in other words, which is possibly why Europe has plumped for a man who is the closest individual on the political stage who could pass for a snake-charmer.
