The EU Is About to Have Its First President From an Ethnic Minority

When António Costa takes office as president of the European Council on Dec. 1, he will become the first person from an ethnic minority to head one of the European Union’s most important institutions.

In his first interview with POLITICO since he was tapped for the post in June, the former Portuguese prime minister, who is of Goan-Mozambican descent, said he was keen to use his Indian heritage to redefine Europe’s often unequal relationship with Asia, Africa and South America.

While the EU has historically had good relations with the United States, its complicated colonial history has sometimes hindered its ability to forge strong ties with the rest of the world.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for example, the EU has struggled to wrangle support from African, Asian and Latin American countries in international forums like the United Nations.

As president of the Council, Costa can facilitate negotiations between the EU’s national leaders and represent the bloc — along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas — on the international stage.

Speaking in a conference room in the headquarters of the Council in central Brussels, Costa said he was eager to change the status quo with what he described as a “multipolar world.”

“We need to have closer relations with different regions and countries that are relevant in a world that is much more than the G7 or the G20,” he said. “This is a world composed of 195 countries.”

Costa boasted that on a visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally given him an overseas citizen card that grants him indefinite residency and work privileges — and said that his “cultural closeness, knowledge and sometimes even linguistic skills … obviously help, and I hope to use them in the service of the EU.”

The incoming Council president’s paternal grandfather was from Goa, an Indian state that ceased to be part of the fading Portuguese empire just months after Costa’s birth. His paternal grandmother, meanwhile, was French-Mozambican.

Costa’s background distinguishes him from the previous holders of top EU posts, most of whom have a hard time connecting with continents where Europe’s representatives are sometimes dismissed as condescending interlopers.

During his eight years as Portuguese prime minister, Costa built up close relationships with overseas leaders, especially those from the African, Asian and South American countries that are part of the Lusophone Community of Portuguese-speaking countries. His personal charisma, and Portugal’s status as a small, unthreatening country, helped forge strong economic ties and even a free-movement agreement with former colonies.

“I think there are clear signs that Europe wants to have a 360[-degree] vision of the world, not a unidirectional one,” Costa added.

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