30-06-2025
Eurozone leadership battle
Eddy Wax Jun 30, 2025 08:30 9 min. read News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Welcome to the Capitals, your concise and comprehensive summary of European news from Brussels by Eddy Wax, with Nicoletta Ionta. We welcome feedback and tips here. You can sign up here.
In today's edition:
Who gets to steer the Eurozone?
Orbán attacks Brussels after Budapest Pride.
France claims latest Russia sanctions are the toughest yet.
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Spain and Lithuania's socialist governments want to dislodge Ireland's centre-right Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe from his post as the chair of the Eurogroup at a vote a week today. But Donohoe will be a hard man to beat.
Since COVID, the 50-year-old has chaired the monthly meetings of the Eurogroup – an informal gathering of the 20 EU finance ministers whose countries' currency is the euro.
Pitching himself as a safe pair of hands, Donohoe is on course to secure at least 11 votes and win a third term, taking him close to surpassing Jean-Claude Juncker's record as the longest-ever head of the Eurogroup.
But Donohoe faces two challengers.
On Friday, Spain's Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo threw his hat into the ring, while his Lithuanian counterpart Rimantas Šadžius is also competing, and will launch his bid today.
Spain's Cuerpo believes that more EU common borrowing – like the bloc did post-COVID – is a 'no-brainer'. That's a non-starter for more fiscally conservative countries and Cuerpo didn't mention it in the letter he wrote to finance ministers setting out his stall.
Cuerpo was a civil servant until he was appointed by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as economy minister in December 2023, taking over from Nadia Calviño when she went to run the European Investment Bank.
Framing himself as the change candidate, Cuerpo put in a barbed line in his letter that suggests he thinks Donohoe is leading the Eurogroup – whose main role is economic coordination between countries – as a mere talk shop, writing: 'The time has come to move from discussion to delivery."
'Cuerpo is pro more common borrowing and proposed the [EU common budget] should be funded at 2% of GNI!' one EU diplomat told my colleague Thomas Moller-Nielsen. 'This radical position has not gained support especially with Germany, Netherlands and other frugals."
Cuerpo's last-minute bid also comes just after Spain refused to meet NATOs' 5% spending target and at a rocky time for Sánchez's government, raising questions about whether Cuerpo could last the two-and-a-half-year term.
According to a second EU diplomat, there's little political appetite in the bloc to reward Sánchez with a win right now.
In fact, Cuerpo's bid will probably only underscore how isolated the Socialists are in Europe. Aside from his six EPP colleagues who are backing Donohoe, the Irishman has also secured Finland's support, and several finance ministers who are not themselves from EPP parties are governing in coalition with the centre right.
Donohoe is pitching himself as the candidate for stability in turbulent times. The Eurogroup gets a lot less attention these days than it did during the years of the Greek debt crisis. But with Donald Trump's tariff threats coming to a head on 9 July, a sluggish EU economy, wars, and who knows what other surprises around the corner, Donohoe might be a man we come to see a lot more of.
EU out in force at Budapest Pride
Viktor Orbán is seething after 100,000 people took to the streets of his capital city for an LGBTIQ+ Pride festival Saturday, in defiance of his government's threats and orders to ban it under the guise of child protection.
Reuters reported that Orbán said the event was 'repulsive', and accused the EU of directing opposition politicians to organise the event. It was actually organised by the city's green mayor Gergely Karácsony; Ursula von der Leyen had called for authorities to permit it.
There is nothing new about Orbán's claim that the EU is undermining his country's sovereignty – but those attack lines may well be set to go into overdrive ahead of the 2026 elections. Polls are putting EPP member Péter Magyar's Tisza party well ahead of Orbán's Fidesz.
Lots of EU folks did show up at Pride, including the leaders of the Socialists Iratxe García, the leader of Renew Valérie Hayer, and EU Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib.
New sanctions against Russia
'The moment has arrived to force Vladimir Putin to cease fire,' declared France's Europe Minister Jean-Noël Barrot in a sit-down interview on French channel LCI over the weekend. He claimed that the EU was preparing the 'heaviest sanctions that we have taken since 2022' in its upcoming package. The tough rhetoric is reminiscent of Emmanuel Macron's proclamation that Russia would face 'massive' sanctions if it didn't agree to an immediate ceasefire. That was back in early May.
The sanctions Barrot said are coming in days are the EU's 18th package, and its most ambitious component – further restricting the price of Russian oil – is both less demanding that what Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants and not acceptable to the US. There is so little big stuff left to sanction that the EU is now targeting gas pipelines that are no longer operating. Claiming that these are the toughest since Russia's full-scale invasion is obvious hyperbole.
What's more, the difficulties agreeing the new package as a 27-strong bloc persist. EU ambassadors are not going to sign off on the package today, because Hungary and Slovakia are still blocking them. This week Commission technocrats will visit Slovakia to assess the impact of the bloc's plan to phase out Russian energy – a concession Robert Fico squeezed out of the EU at last week's summit, as he maintained his stranglehold on the 18th package.
Grims reaper lives on
Slovenia's Branko Grims, the rebellious EPP lawmaker who initially put his name to a petition to bring down Ursula von der Leyen's EPP-led Commission withdrew his name under massive internal pressure. But there's no sign the EPP will rein in Grims or other MEPs from Janez Janša's party in Brussels ahead of Slovenia's 2026 election. In fact, they're getting a lot of support from the EPP group ahead of a vote in Strasbourg next month.
Grims wrote he removed his name to avoid 'malicious manipulation' and stop anyone linking it to a parallel endeavour from his party colleague Romana Tomc to push through a controversial resolution raking up Slovenia's 20th century history.
Critics say the resolution should not be discussed in Brussels and is mere point-scoring for a domestic audience. The Socialist, Renew and Green groups walked out of a vote on the topic in the petitions committee last week, before a right-to-far-right alliance carried it. The full-Parliament vote will be in July. Around the bloc
GERMANY| Germany plans to develop a 'cyberdome' in cooperation with Israel to defend the country against drones and cyberattacks. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel over the weekend, described it as a 'holistic' system, combining military and civil protection. He also wants to increase cooperation between German intelligence services and the Israeli Mossad and establish a centre for German-Israeli cyber research.
FRANCE | The bill on the reform of public broadcasting will be debated today and tomorrow in the National Assembly. Championed by the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, it aims to rationalise spending by bringing together France Télévisions, Radio France and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) within a single holding company named France Médias, under the authority of one sole CEO. The proposal is deemed unacceptable by the trade unions, who argue that it jeopardises both the future of employees and the independence of news reporting. The stations of the Radio France group began an open-ended strike on Thursday, and are now being joined by employees of France's public television channels. The aim of the strike, as stated by the unions in a recent press release, is to 'force the government to back down'.
ITALY | The International Criminal Court prosecutor has formally asked judges to declare Italy non-compliant with its obligations under the Rome Statute, following the controversial release in January of a Libyan official accused of crimes against humanity. Read more.
PORTUGAL | Hundreds of people took to the streets of downtown Lisbon on Saturday in a demonstration for the right to housing, which mainly attracted young people. Read more.
POLAND | Some 40% of Poles say it is possible the recent presidential election may have been rigged, according to a new poll. Read more.
CZECHIA | At a closed-door NATO dinner last week, European leaders pressed Donald Trump to get tougher on Russia, but the US president remained hesitant, Czech President Petr Pavel revealed in an interview on Sunday. Read more. Also on Euractiv
