As he squeezes his way through the throng that has packed the entrance of Il Pasticcio with polite smiles and softly spoken apologies, I’m struck by how unlikely a figure António Costa cuts as the man the EU will rely on to face off against US president-elect Donald Trump.
Yet the Portuguese socialist, child of a communist immigrant and devotee of multilateralism, will nevertheless next month assume arguably the toughest job on the continent.
As president of the European Council, he must hold together the EU’s increasingly fractious 27 leaders in the face of a nationalist, isolationist US president who has threatened to slap tariffs on its already creaking economy and strike a peace deal with Russia, its existential foe.
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