Juhansone, a former Latvian ambassador, who is currently the top EU official at the Commission, is a close ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her chief of staff Bjoern Seibert.
Should Juhansone clinch the top job at the EEAS it could be seen as a power grab by von der Leyen, who has a highly centralized, top-down management style as Commission boss. But it would also mean that with Kallas, a second person from a Baltic country would play a key role in foreign policy, a prospect that doesn’t sit well with some governments.
Tense relations
Kallas’ position, officially called EU high representative, is notoriously tricky. Although one of the bloc’s 27 commissioners, the EU foreign policy chief sits institutionally somewhere between the Commission and the Council ― which represents the member countries ― and is responsible for the 2,500-plus staff working in EEAS headquarters as well as around 2,800 employees working at delegations across the world.
Kallas is the youngest — and most senior — figure to occupy the position. The 47-year-old was prime minister of Estonia between 2021 and 2024.
Tensions between the Commission and the EEAS have already surfaced, just days into the five-year mandate of the new Commission.
The Commission is pushing plans to dramatically cut the number of people working at many of its embassies to beef up staffing in countries where it feels the bloc has a strategic interest, POLITICO reported last week. The staff reduction initiative come as the EEAS blew past its budget for 2024.
