The visible faces of the EU are already looking at the elections with mixed feelings: two of their own profiles and quite a bit of wear

The countdown to the 2024 European elections has already begun. There is one year left to go to the polls again and the machinery is being activated through the corridors of Brussels with a view to once again filling the high positions of the institutions with names after one of the most demanding legislatures, if not the most, since the founding of the European Union. On this stage, the four names of those who have been the visible heads of the Union in the last four (which will be five) years are staged: Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Metsola, Charles Michel and Josep Borrell.

“Some of them will repeat, of course”, assume in Strasbourg community sources consulted by 20minutos about the future of this quartet of leaders. However, not all start in the same position because the five-year period for the EU has been unexpected and agitating. And that is why those names should be divided into two different blocks, with Von der Leyen and Metsola in the first, and Michel and Borrell in the second.. Your future does not go hand in hand.

In the case of the president of the European Commission, her path seems clear. She came to office without being in the pools, after the European People's Party, the family to which she belongs, was the most voted in the 2019 elections. The bet of the EPP was Manfred Weber, now speaker in the European Parliament, but the Member States were not for the work. France made force, citing Weber's poor preparation for the position and Macron promoted Von der Leyen in his place.

Von der Leyen and Metsola, two own profiles

Since landing in Berlaymont, headquarters of the European Commission, Von der Leyen's profile has been consolidating with a hit of reality. She started out doubtful, with criticism for her way of managing day-to-day, but first the response to the Covid pandemic and then the EU's reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have consolidated her as a reliable leader with her own profile. “It has been built with the passage of the legislature,” reaffirm the sources.

Known, however, is his strained relationship with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. In the EU there is an important fight of egos that has been evident on numerous occasions. One of the clearest clashes occurred in Ankara, when Von der Leyen was 'separated' from the photo with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in what became known as the Sofagate. The German leader could not sit at the same height as Erdogan and Michel himself, and what was most surprising was the Belgian's passivity in that situation.

“I am the first woman to be president of the European Commission, and that is how I expected to be treated when I visited Turkey, but it was not.. I can't find a justification for how I was treated so I have to conclude that it was because I am a woman. Would it have happened if I had worn a suit and tie?” Von der Leyen herself asked herself days later before the European Parliament, in an appearance in which Charles Michel had to apologize.

But, in the end, the reality is that the former Defense Minister with Angela Merkel has gained momentum and now aspires to repeat the mandate after 2024. To do this, he needs to get closer to the Social Democratic leaders, at least for the moment, with whom he has a good relationship.. This is the case of Pedro Sánchez and Antonio Costa. And at the same time, Von der Leyen has the support of a decisive voice: that of Emmanuel Macron.. His path is paving even despite the friction with his own in-laws, including Weber.. The truth is that the current president of the Commission has options to keep the position if the electoral results accompany hers.

Roberta Metsola also has many supports. The president of the European Parliament replaced the late David Sassoli in the middle of the legislature, but she has also known how to handle times and forms positively, even with a quick reaction from the institution to the biggest problem it has faced from the point of view of internal view in recent years: the Qatargate. Maltese politics have the support of the EPP while the Socialists and Democrats also recognize their good work. Not surprisingly, they gave her their support to raise her to office in January 2022.

“It has been fundamental,” explained the spokesman for the European Parliament, Jaume Duch, in an interview with 20minutos, about Metsola's role in managing the ravages of the corruption scandal. “The president was the one who first grasped that her responsibility had to be precisely to defend the reputation and image of that vast majority of deputies who are doing their job, and who are working hard and well, and who do not have to see themselves splashed”. Metosla, in fact, has played a very important role in the approval of a package of 14 measures that are already beginning to be applied, and “also in the fact that a whole process of discussion on other complementary measures has already been launched. Duch concluded.

The president was the one who first grasped that her responsibility had to be precisely to defend the reputation and image of that vast majority of deputies who are doing their job

Like Von der Leyen, Metsola walks with a firm step to continue as president of the Eurochamber if the Parliament resulting from the 2024 elections resembles the current one. The atmosphere in the corridors of the institution is calm with the role of the president, whom most voices praise for her ability to react to complicated situations. In the House that represents almost 450 million people, the legislature has become – and is becoming – too dense, but after the shock with Qatargate, the tense calm that characterizes it can be breathed again.

More complex is the situation of Charles Michel and Josep Borrell, and not because the two cases are similar to each other. The former Belgian prime minister reaches the end of a very worn community five-year period, with a particularly strained relationship with Von der Leyen without having achieved what his ticket colleagues have achieved. His work has not been easy, in any case: the leaders of the 27 are a demanding classroom, but for many the teacher has not been up to the task.

Michel renewed his mandate in March 2022 as there was no alternative candidate to replace him, and for some critics of the Belgian that was the real problem. He continued because there was no one called to replace him. In these years, Charles Michel has stood out for focusing his action and discourse on increasing the geopolitical weight of the European Union in the world, and at the same time he is remembered for his rudeness to Von der Leyen both in Turkey and for his indifference when the Uganda's Foreign Minister, Haji Abubaker Jeje Odongo, did not want to shake hands with the chairperson of the Commission.

Borrell, the man of critical discourse

Michel will not continue in office because he will have already completed the two periods of two and a half years that are allowed in the Treaties, but at the same time his figure is the one that has suffered the most wear. Something different happens with Josep Borrell because that wear and tear is not so much on a political level as it is of intensity in his day-to-day life. It has been the harshest voice during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the most critical.

“Yeah. Europe is a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that humanity has managed to build,” he said, before adding that “most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.”. That was perhaps his most famous phrase, while he recalled that the EU has been paying a significant toll for decades by depending on Russia for energy, the United States for Defense and China for business.. “That has to stop,” Borrell insisted.

“Borrell has assumed the role that corresponds to him intensely and speaking clearly”, acknowledge the sources consulted, who assume the fact that the High Representative has been very exposed at all times, especially after the start of the war in Ukraine. This will perhaps be the last service of the Spaniard to the EU -he was also president of the European Parliament- and he will leave after five years in which the EU has had to change not its reason for being, not its substance, but its form. In 2024 a new legislature begins… and we will have to see who will lead it.