Mario Draghi and his chances of becoming President of the European Commission (or of the European Council)

With the exception of Christine Lagarde, who has a mandate at the head of the ECB until 2027, all the other posts are up for renewal: presidency of the European Parliament; presidency of the European Commission (including the vice-presidents and the 27 European commissioners, one for each member country of the Union); foreign policy directorate; and, finally, presidency of the European Council. And for two of them in particular, the presidency of the Commission and the presidency of the Council, one of the names most strongly in the running is that of Mario Draghi, who will be seventy-seven years old in September this year, but who remains fully active. 

Let's start with the first thing: who, with real power, is behind Draghi's double candidacy? It is none other than Emmanuelle Macron, President of the French Republic and currently the strongest leader in the Union as a whole in the face of the weakness of the social democrats in Germany, the economic limitations of the Meloni government and the real blockade currently being suffered by the government led by the socialist Pedro Sánchez. 

Macron already managed in 2019 to play king-maker in the distribution of posts that year and, in addition to placing his compatriot Lagarde at the head of the ECB (the French lawyer was at that time managing director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF), he agreed with the Germans on the name of the then German Defence Minister Von der Leyen to chair the Commission. But five years later, and despite the fact that he has the support of the main European family (the "popular or conservative", embodied in the European People's Party), Macron no longer wants to see Von der Leyen chairing the Commission, and, to this end, there is no more effective element than to put a prestigious name on the table: that name is, of course, that of Mario Draghi. 

So far, Draghi has kept silent, but people close to him claim that he wants neither to be President of the Commission nor President of the Council (incidentally, both posts have the same rank). But it is no less true that Draghi is increasingly expressing his concern about the drift that European integration is taking ("this cannot go on like this", he has said on several occasions) and, on the other hand, European integration is at the stage where Draghi is at his best, which is the Banking and Monetary Union. 

What has been noticeable for some time now is that the Union's top positions are increasingly being filled by people of substance. To take one example: the presidency of the European Council and the foreign policy directorate. The first chosen for these posts were, almost a decade and a half ago, the 'grey' Belgian Herman van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton (in the latter case, by the way, it would not be possible to see a British woman at the head of European diplomacy, since the United Kingdom has not been a member of the European Union since December 2020). Now, on the other hand, the President of the European Council is Charles Michel, a Belgian like Van Rompuy, but ostensibly younger and clearly a person of greater weight within the EU institutions. Given the possibility of a macro-enlargement of the European Union, which would soon increase from the current 27 members to no less than 50, it will be necessary to have the best European politicians of the moment, and not people who go to the EU institutions as a place of "golden retirement".  

Hence, relevant names are being considered for the top posts, such as the Dutch Mark Rutte, prime minister between 2010 and 2023, or Matteo Renzi, who, although his career is apparently over in his country, is still the youngest president of the Council of Ministers in the history of republican Italy (he was not even 40 when he became premier in February 2014). And there are more names, such as Portugal's António Costa, with whom Portugal has emerged from a financial 'bailout' situation to be among the most booming European economies; some of the Scandinavian leaders; and even some 'dark horse' from the countries of Eastern Europe. It should not be forgotten that it is a Bulgarian, Kristalina Georgieva, who replaced Lagarde as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) almost five years ago. 

The main problem for Draghi's candidacy is precisely his age: 77 is a long time to lead a team of 27 commissioners for five years, and it is also a long time to be constantly travelling as president of the European Council. Draghi has been working for more than half a century: orphaned since the age of 16, at that age he had to go to work in his native Rome to support his two younger brothers. After completing his doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (one of the three most prestigious universities in the world), under the guidance of the Nobel Prize winner in Economics Franco Modigliani, Draghi taught at several universities in Italy, worked for a decade at the Directorate General of the Treasury, and was in private banking at the highest level in the world; he was in private banking at the highest level; he served as governor of the Bank of Italy; he led the European Central Bank (ECB) in its toughest and most successful period; and, finally, as premier, he managed to achieve a growth rate (+8.3% of GDP) in his country by 2021 not seen since the 1980s. 

All indications are that Draghi will not accept any more leadership positions, although there is room for surprise: few expected that, in February 2021, at the age of 73, he would accept to become President of the Council of Ministers, and he finally did. Moreover, he is surely by far the most outstanding European leader of his generation: there is no one who can overshadow him. And it goes without saying that President Macron's persuasive powers, together with the close support of the current transalpine centre-right government, may push him to accept something that, from the point of view of his advanced age, he could refuse with the greatest of ease. 

In reality, there is only one post that Draghi would certainly like to obtain as the culmination of his public life: the presidency of the Republic, for which he is perfectly old enough to assume. But the reality is that the current head of state, Sergio Mattarella, is in full power and more popular than ever, and his mandate does not expire until February 2029. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the parliamentarians who must elect the President of the Republic, as was seen in the last election (February 2022), have a clear tendency to elect a politician and not a complete independent like Mario Draghi, over whom no one can have any influence. 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves: first the European Parliament has to be renewed, and then come months of tough negotiations to choose the different leadership positions. The only thing that is clear is that Draghi is still active and that he makes no secret of his concern for the progress of European integration: how far can the capacity for sacrifice of this wonderful economist and financier go? Time will tell 

Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a lecturer at the Camilo José Cela University (UCJC) and author of the book "Italia, 2018-2023. De la esperanza a la desafección" (Madrid, Líber Factory, 2023).