Magnus Lund Nielsen Euractiv Dec 19, 2024 15:48 9 min. read Content type: News 
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In today’s edition
- The right team at the right time: The EU might have dealt itself a strong hand to deal with the challenges that await in 2025.
- Bits of the week: Venezuela Majority celebrates its namesake, MEP gathers signatures for Maduro fan letter, and TikTok debate takes five hours.
There is no shortage of hardship in store for the EU in 2025, but the Union – knowingly or not – might have set the right line-up to try and tackle it.
After today’s European Council summit that could have been an email, the EU year will be all but done. The last six months in particular have been hectic as Brussels found its feet after June’s elections, but there’s little to suggest that pace will slow in the New Year.
The inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump will pressure test the EU machinery, should Trump decide to put tariffs on EU goods. The outlook for the EU economy looks increasingly dim, with even German industry in deep waters. And Russia’s war in Ukraine – and the profound security questions that come with it – will enter its third year.
But in the spirit of Christmas cheer, let’s dare to be optimistic on the EU’s behalf: things may turn out fine after all. And if they do, what would it take? For starters, it would take Europe's new cast of main characters being ready, willing and – most importantly – able to deliver.
Tusk minds the (power) gap
One such character comes to the fore with fortuitous timing. Come January, Poland will take over the Council presidency from the Hungarians, chairing meetings between EU ministers for the next six months.
In the power vacuum left by Germany and France fighting their own domestic demons, other actors are seizing the moment – and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has already shown he will step up, emerging as a convener on Ukraine and an authoritative voice on the EU’s defence push.
If polls are any indication, Tusk won’t need to spend much political capital backing his party's candidate in the country’s presidential elections in May, with Poles largely embracing the one-year-old government’s efforts to bring the country closer to Brussels. This could leave him bandwidth to be more hands-on at EU level, steering presidency priorities that can be summed up as ‘all things security’.
While Tusk will not chair EU meetings himself, he will set the tone for his ministers to do so – and having a friend in Tusk could prove vital for Kyiv in particular.
One thing to keep an eye on in the second half of next year: the Danes will take over the Council presidency in July. Led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, their presidency will likely come with compromises to broker on the EU budget and migration. Frederiksen, like Tusk, appears able to bridge divides: she’s a recovering frugal who now favours joint borrowing, and a social democrat who speaks fluent conservative on migration.
Costa the Orbán-whisperer, Rutte the Trump-whisperer
It’s difficult to find much animosity towards the new European Council President António Costa. Unlike his predecessor, the former Portuguese prime minister is widely respected by EU leaders – even, apparently, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
The warmth between the two is well-enough known to spark rumours that the pair played golf during Costa’s trip to Budapest in October. But Costa’s admiration is on record: in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera last month, he complimented Orbán’s summit approach, saying “even when he is isolated, I have always seen him having a constructive position”.
In recent years, overcoming the Hungarian veto has been a major obstacle to a common European foreign policy. While unanimity is always a tough nut to crack for reasons that go beyond Hungarian stubbornness, there’s a chance Costa can ease that.
Costa has already set a new, efficient tone for EU leaders’ summits: not only has he shortened meetings from two days to one, but the conclusions for today’s meeting were also drafted and agreed beforehand – unheard of since 2012, one EU diplomat told Euractiv.
Just outside Brussels at NATO’s headquarters, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has taken over from Jens Stoltenberg. Beyond his credentials as the leader of one of Europe’s largest economies for more than a decade, the alliance’s new chief was tapped for the job for his knack of getting through to Trump.
At a NATO summit in 2018, Trump was seriously contemplating leaving the alliance if the Europeans did not start paying their share. According to people familiar with the talks, it was Rutte who talked Trump down – both through assurances that European defence spending was increasing, and flattery that Trump himself was the main reason behind it.
The Dutchman looks the ideal man to continue the alliance’s Trump-proofing efforts, having already urged members to go well above and beyond current defence spending levels, which would no doubt go down well in Washington.
Kallas leading from the East, von der Leyen leading the rest
Kaja Kallas’ tenure as the EU’s top diplomat has got off to a rocky start, with EU diplomatic budget cuts inherited from her predecessor causing pointed questions to be asked. But the former Estonian prime minister brings an authenticity to her role at a time when a Western European arguably could not. Putting a Balt in charge of foreign affairs is a nod to the part of the continent that raised the alarm, long before Russia proved them right.
2025 may well be decisive year for Russia’s war in Ukraine. If Rutte is best-placed to help manage the Americans, Kallas could become the vital broker in Europe, as the continent explores novel ways to ensure the aid tap to Kyiv stays on.
"Any push for negotiations too soon will actually be a bad deal for Ukraine,” Kallas said last night. “We shouldn't underestimate our own power.”
But at the centre of the EU-niverse, once again, is Ursula von der Leyen. Moulded by the turbulence of her first mandate, and the personality clashes with some of her first commissioners, Europe’s de facto leader did not stay in the job to make friends. The Commission president has consolidated her power this time around, sitting atop a team with reporting lines so intricate that the only job description that is clear is her own.
Whether one likes her policies or not, a head of the EU executive that is willing to be decisive may be what the travails of 2025 call for. Only a few weeks ago, von der Leyen spurned French opposition to close the EU’s trade deal with the Mercosur bloc, while France and its leaders were otherwise engaged.
None of the above offers a definitive answer to the age-old question: who do you call when you want to speak to Europe? But with a range of experienced and complementary leaders on the end of the line in 2025, perhaps it won't matter too much who picks up.
Bits of the week:
The Venezuela Majority takes a victory lap: Illuminating an otherwise slow plenary this week was the award of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Price for Freedom of Thought. In October, a right-wing majority in parliament voted to hand this year’s award to the Venezuelan opposition.
For the uninitiated: that majority, which stretched from the centre-right EPP to the far-right Patriots of Europe, was then dubbed the Venezuela Majority – which the EPP will no doubt resort to for a more meaningful vote at some point in the New Year, much to the chagrin of its historic centrist allies.
Fico’s MEP circulates Maduro fan mail: Although most of the Parliament welcomed opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia to Strasbourg, not everyone was sympathetic to his cause. In an email, sent to all MEPs and seen by Euractiv, Slovakian SMER member Ľuboš Blaha circulated a letter to the incumbent Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Blaha wrote that the EU is “copying the imperialist attitude of the United States towards Venezuela” and that the Parliament “is increasingly resembling the Reichstag of the Nazi era.”
By the time of publication, Blaha’s office had not answered how many MEPs have signed the letter. Until their suspension last year, Prime Minister Robert Fico’s SMER was a part of the centre-left S&D group in Parliament. That seems like an eternity ago.
MEPs clash over TikTok and election integrity: Speaking of eternities, a plenary debate on social media misinformation on Tuesday took the best part of five hours. The Commission has opened a probe into TikTok in the wake of Romania’s annulled presidential elections after suspicion that foreign actors drummed up support for far-right candidate Călin Georgescu on the Chinese-owned platform. Even so, five hours was too long for many MEPs. As a four-term parliamentarian told EU Politics Decoded: “I have never experienced anything like it.”
EU Politics Decoded will take a break for the holidays, returning on 9 January. We wish readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
If you’d like to get in contact with tips, comments, and/or feedback, drop me a line at magnus.lundnielsen@euractiv.com.*Alexandra Brzozowski contributed reporting. [Edited by Owen Morgan]
