The political wrangling over the EU’s top jobs gets under way in Bari this week with the leaders of France, Germany and Italy meeting Ursula von der Leyen for the first time since her centre-right party won the European parliament elections.
A summit of G7 leaders hosted by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will feature private conversations with the European Commission president as she seeks five more years as head of the EU’s executive.
The national leaders don’t just represent the EU’s three biggest economies. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the lead negotiator for the Socialists and Democrats, French President Emmanuel Macron the figurehead for the liberal Renew group, and Meloni presides over the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists — the parties who came second, third and fourth in the vote.