The Chattering Classes: European capitals sour on Costa and Kallas; Austria’s shadow chanc
Source: Euractiv
OVER THE TRANSOM
European leaders are a fickle lot. After years of moaning about former European Council President Charles Michel – whom they considered a self-aggrandiser lacking either the diplomatic aplomb or organisational acumen for the task – they installed their dream candidate, Portugal’s 63-year-old former socialist premier António Costa.
Costa, a gregarious political operator in the final stages of his career looked to be the perfect choice to both broker consensus among the EU’s 27 leaders and handle “Ursula”.
Yet just three months into Costa’s term, the leaders are back to their whinging.
Annoyed Spaniards
Costa, diplomatic sources from four different member states tell us, has run afoul of member states big and small, who accuse him of being out of his depth and over his skis.
Even socialist Spain, the sources say, has expressed frustration over what several member states see as a lack of leadership, initiative and tangible action from the Council president in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks.
To be fair, when he has shown initiative, it hasn’t gone well either. At the Munich Security Conference, the Council president granted an interview to the Financial Times in which he called for negotiations on a “new security architecture” with the US and Russia. The comments caught many leaders by surprise, sparking criticism that he hadn’t coordinated with them first.
A number of countries were also irked that Costa did not call an extraordinary Council meeting to discuss the crisis in the transatlantic relationship after Munich, agreeing instead to jet to Paris for a mini-summit with Emmanuel Macron, von der Leyen, NATO chief Mark Rutte, and a handful of other European leaders. Some of the countries not included – the vast majority of the 27 – grumbled that Costa ignored them.
Axis of MAGA
The real issue lay in Budapest – and Rome and Bratislava. Costa has the unenviable task of coordinating discussions about Europe’s strategy towards Trump and Russia with Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni and Robert Fico, leaders other EU capitals suspect of working in cahoots with either Trump, Vladimir Putin or both.
The distrust over leaders’ loyalty to Europe has made Costa’s jump particularly fraught. At last week’s Council on Ukraine, for example, staff were ordered to leave the room at one point and mobile phones were banned. But some leaders, our sources say, were still reluctant to speak openly as long as Orbán, Meloni, and Fico were in the room.
If the whispers about Costa sound familiar, that’s because they echo the Europe’s age-old challenge: speaking with one voice.
The same capitals grumbling about Costa were also annoyed by EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas’s declaration on 28 February that “the free world needs a new leader”, a position many member states share privately but are not ready to advertise so forcefully.
Where’s Ursula?
Speaking of voices, von der Leyen, who normally doesn’t shy from the spotlight, has gone underground on the transatlantic front, apparently worried about exacerbating tensions further.
The Commission president, we’re told, tried hard to win an audience with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before the inauguration and was rebuffed.
She was forced to make do with brief meeting with JD Vance on the sidelines of an AI trade fair in Paris last month. How did it go? A few days later, Vance delivered his withering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference as von der Leyen looked on.
Trump, who recently accused the EU of trying to “screw” the US, likely regards von der Leyen as a Merkelist, which isn’t wrong. But if there’s one person you don’t want to be associated with if your trying to win over Trump, it’s the former German chancellor.
Divide and conquer
With out without von der Leyen, the EU appears hopelessly divided when it comes to settling on a strategy for dealing with Trump. Even as many leaders are declaring a new era as the US withdraws, others are doing whatever they can to get back into Washington’s good graces.
Case in point: Just a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood up Kallas in Washington, he met with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis.
The episode underscored how easy it is for Washington to divide and rule Europe. That’s particularly true now, given the lack of trust between the leaders. That’s not Costas’ fault, but instead of improving the situation, he appears to be making it worse.
CHATTER IN THE PROVINCES
Return of Austria’s prodigal chancellor?
A favourite parlour game in Austrian media is trying to predict when Sebastian Kurz, the Icarus of the country’s politics, will make a comeback. Despite his repeated denials, few think he won’t.
Kurz, 38, was forced to resign amid a corruption probe in 2021. He has since been convicted of making false statements to a parliamentary committee. In addition, Kurz still faces an official probe into allegations of blackmail and fraud in connection with manipulated opinion polls and advertisements that a lieutenant of his placed in Austrian media using public money.
Nonetheless, Kurz’s chances for a successful return are better than one might expect, if for no other reason than that his centre-right party, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) has no one else. His successor, Karl Nehammer, threw in the towel in January after suffering massive losses in September elections and ceding first place to the far-right Freedom Party. Nehammer tried and failed to build coalition with the Social Democrats and the Neos, a liberal party, but came up short.
Next up was Christian Stocker, a party apparatchik who spent most of his political career working in local politics. Despite declaring Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl “a danger to democracy” after last autumn’s election, Stocker decided to try and form a coalition with him. Fortunately for Austria, the gambit failed. Stocker was forced back into the arms of the Social Democrats and Neos and this time around the parties came to an agreement. The new coalition took office last week.
Yet few Austrians envisioned Stocker in the role of chancellor, especially considering that Nehammer was the ÖVP’s lead candidate in the campaign. A colourless politician known more as a behind-the-scenes operator than as a standard bearer, Stocker has never even served as a minister, much less as chancellor. A lawyer by profession, Stocker was best known as his party’s secretary general, a public defender role that made him a familiar face on Austrian television (where we once a memorable run in).
Vienna’s chattering classes are rife with speculation that Stocker, a loyal party soldier, will ultimately make way for Kurz, once he’s clarified his legal difficulties, if not before. Austria’s pro-Kurz tabloids are already beating the drum. One of the papers, oe24, recently aired a lengthy, soft video interview with Kurz in which he insisted he was “happy with what I’m doing,” while not ruling out a return. Last week the paper published an article about Stocker’s dismal poll ratings: “No bonus for Stocker”. Only 12% of Austrians support Stocker as chancellor, the poll found.
The real question though is how many would support Kurz.
That’s it for this week. Remember: Send tips to Transom@euractiv.com.
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