Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.
EU leaders failed to reach a preliminary deal on the bloc’s top jobs that would have kept Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission chief, while former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and Estonian Premier Kaja Kallas would have become European Council president and the EU’s top diplomat respectively. No other names were mentioned in the room, we’re told, and discussions will now continue to conclude an agreement at next week’s summit next week. While outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, one of the most seasoned leaders, did not want to take a deal for granted he said there is more clarity than in 2019 “when it was a big tombola and everything was up for grabs.”