How Pedro Lourtie became the EU’s dealmaker in chief

Council President António Costa’s chief of staff is in charge of building consensus between capitals. It’s a job that’s only getting harder.

By GABRIEL GAVIN
in Brussels

^{Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO}

BRUSSELS — When the motorcades carrying the EU’s presidents and prime ministers pull into Brussels for high-stakes negotiations every few months, it’s Pedro Lourtie’s job to make sure they leave with a deal.

In the weeks leading up to a European Council — the summits where leaders hammer out responses to trade wars and armed conflicts — the studiously polite, grey-maned career diplomat and his team have already made hundreds of calls and held dozens of meetings so they can go home with a result.

However, a European Council on June 18, originally slated to discuss the threat to EU industries from China, was roiled by revelations that Lourtie himself had opened a diplomatic back channel with Moscow, the first such confirmed move since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It was a reminder that, as head of cabinet to European Council President António Costa, Lourtie has to perform a careful balancing act: advancing Brussels’ priorities while staying closely attuned to all 27 capitals so their positions can be absorbed, reflected and, where possible, forged into consensus — all while trying to heal a bitter historic rift with the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, that derailed Costa’s predecessor.

“You’re the broker: You’re advancing the agenda decided by the leaders, negotiating, talking to everyone. I genuinely enjoy that,” Lourtie told POLITICO in an interview in his office on the 11th floor of the glass-fronted Europa building ahead of the June summit.

Costa now faces an uphill struggle to get a deal on the EU’s contentious €1.8 trillion long-term budget by the end of the year, with a series of leader summits planned for October and November to try and assuage concerns from those paying the bill and prevent a last-minute collapse in talks. Having staked their mandate on that, Lourtie’s skills as a broker have never been in higher demand.

Drawn into the fray

While he is used to working behind the scenes, Lourtie was inadvertently thrust into the spotlight by the revelations that he reached out to the Kremlin. At Costa’s direction, he placed two calls to Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Costa insists nothing of substance was discussed, and that it is well within his mandate to map out which contact points might one day become useful.

“The contacts made at this point had the mere objective of establishing a channel of communication in order to, when the moment comes, have a diplomatic channel with Russia to defend EU’s interests,” said an official with knowledge of the outreach, granted anonymity to speak frankly. The exchange, they went on, is just “diplomats doing their job.” The first call lasted around five minutes; the second just 30 seconds, the official said.

However, the episode strained relations with some of the capitals Lourtie has worked to win the trust of — particularly given contrasting accounts of who was informed and when. At a European Council summit on June 18, France and Germany voiced frustration at the move in rare criticism of Costa and his team, which had until now been at pains to keep capitals informed and on side. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal went further, telling POLITICO that it was “too early” and “misguided” to be pursuing such contacts.

But, despite the inevitable controversy arising from the move, three diplomats said the reaction would have been far tougher if EU countries didn’t have a baseline level of trust in Costa and Lourtie.

“He probably meant well,” said one national diplomat of the decision, adding that Lourtie and Costa have so far not been seen as motivated by anything other than advancing the EU’s interests. A second, meanwhile, said the debate was more a battle for control, given France has already opened its own diplomatic backchannels, while a number of smaller EU countries wanted to make sure Brussels was representing them so their interests are taken into account.

António Costa speaks with the media prior a Council summit in Brussels on June 18, 2026. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

Following the news, Lourtie debriefed ambassadors at Coreper — in a bid to reassure them that nothing had changed and he wasn’t moving faster or further than they were comfortable with.

Career diplomacy

It’s a tension between Brussels and national capitals that the Lisbon native understands well, having been on both sides of the negotiating table. Lourtie served most recently as Portugal’s ambassador to the EU, as well as secretary of state for European affairs and a foreign affairs advisor to past prime ministers. While that reassures national capitals he can see things from their perspective, it’s also made him an invaluable ally for his opposite number at the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen’s influential chief of staff Bjoern Seibert.

The two top officials maintain uncommonly close contact — speaking by phone several times a day, going for regular working dinners and holding Sunday meetings to plan for the week ahead, sometimes even jointly gathering ambassadors to troubleshoot issues.

“From the start, we have had a good relationship,” Seibert told POLITICO. “It’s not just that the two houses work together on so many complex files, it is the close relationship between the two presidents, and of course the challenging geopolitical reality which means a lot of time spent together.”

“I can say he is a true professional, able to calmly and diplomatically navigate any situation and really an asset not just for the Council, but for the capitals and the EU,” Seibert said.

That’s a marked change in tone since before former Portuguese Prime Minister Costa and his team took office in December 2024, when relations between the Council and Commission had hit all-time lows. Ex-European Council President Charles Michel had an openly hostile relationship with von der Leyen, and since leaving office has accused her of trying “to grab more power” and “to get involved in things that are not the responsibility of the Commission.”

Lourtie sees things differently. “For the European Union to deliver, the two institutions — the European Council and the Commission — must work closely together. This is what we do, helped by an excellent relationship between Bjoern and myself,” he said.

In the loop

The relationship between Brussels and national governments has also come under strain in recent years. Reaching consensus among the EU’s 27 governments can take weeks or months, particularly on politically sensitive issues. Russia’s war in Ukraine and a string of geopolitical crises have forced Brussels to move faster, leaving some governments worried officials could go too far in negotiations without a clear mandate.

Along with his boss, Lourtie has positioned himself as the eyes and ears of member countries in fast-moving international talks on issues well beyond the latest outreach to the Kremlin, usually going to unprecedented lengths to keep envoys in the loop.

In November last year, when the Trump administration abruptly announced hastily arranged Ukraine peace talks in Geneva, Lourtie and Seibert cut short their trip to the G20 summit in Johannesburg and boarded the next flight to Switzerland to join the European delegation.

After dinner with the negotiators at Geneva’s Four Seasons hotel, the pair slipped into the back of the EU delegation’s car in the parking lot to dial into an emergency call with the bloc’s ambassadors, deciding it was the most secure place to brief capitals on the discussions.

“This was quite a new approach,” recalled one participant on the call. “And it showed how important this relationship … has become.”

Regular meetings with ambassadors from member countries, known as Coreper, have become a key part of Lourtie’s strategy to keep capitals on side. Ahead of a European Council, much of the process of drafting joint statements and navigating thorny policy questions now happens in these closed-door sessions. That means when leaders do all meet, it’s no longer a painful multi-day affair with legal texts being haggled over in the room, as was sometimes the case under Michel.

Charles Michel is pictured ahead of a Council summit in Brussels on June 27, 2024. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

“For me, [Coreper is] the heart of the EU machinery — it’s where things move forward,” said Lourtie. “I’m glad this role takes me there every couple of weeks or so.”

However, a Coreper meeting ahead of the leaders’ summit on June 18 was a less comfortable exchange, coming after the revelations Lourtie had made contact with Ushakov. While he attended personally and gave an account of the contacts retrospectively, several capitals were unhappy about having heard about it first in the media. “It was a bit awkward,” one diplomat said of the meeting with envoys.

Lourtie takes the lead on corralling ambassadors in Brussels while his deputy, David Oppenheimer, deals with top aides to leaders back in national capitals. Along with Costa himself, the trio are all Portuguese, making it easier for them to play the role of neutral broker in a system often dominated by the EU’s two powerhouses, France and Germany.

And it’s not just a matter of getting EU leaders singing from the same song sheet. Costa’s team has played a major role in coordinating geopolitical efforts, such as mediating between Ukraine and Hungary to repair the Druzhba oil pipeline and unlock a much-needed €90 billion loan being blocked by Budapest, officials said. The move, one of the most difficult handled by the Council in recent years, ultimately saw the funds released.

Playing politics

For now, the strategy seems to be working. Costa faces having to renew his mandate from member countries at the start of next year. That could have put him in a vulnerable position, given his center-left political family, the S&D, has just three leaders around the Council table.

The largest group, the European People’s Party, by contrast, has 12 leaders and its chief, German MEP Manfred Weber, had floated the idea that Costa could be replaced by one of its own candidates as part of a potential shakeup. However, seven diplomats and two officials from countries spanning the political divide told POLITICO that his re-appointment is seen as a formality as a result of support from national capitals, a vote of confidence in Lourtie and Oppenheimer as well.

“We are quite happy,” said one envoy of the way the Council is operating. “He will make it,” said a second, praising Lourtie’s efforts to pre-agree European Council conclusions and make leaders’ summits a single-day affair.

But the biggest challenges could await Costa’s team in his second term. While the EU’s most high-profile blocker of decisions, Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has left the political stage, a surge of populists still threatens to narrow the path to achieving consensus that Lourtie and Seibert depend on.

Slovakia’s Robert Fico, Czechia’s Andrej Babiš and Bulgaria’s Rumen Radev now make up the reinforced ranks of the Council’s awkward squad, variously digging in their heels on issues from green policy to support for Ukraine. And a 2027 French presidential election could hand the reins of the EU’s second-largest economy to the far-right, with profound consequences for the €1.8 trillion long-term budget Brussels needs to find agreement on before the end of next year.

And, as the response to his Kremlin call revealed, the effort Lourtie will have to expend to keep Brussels’ agenda on track, and countries on side, will only increase — along with what’s at stake if he can’t.