The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the forward of the Spanish women’s soccer team Jenni Hermoso They appear on the list of the twenty-eight most influential people in Europe in 2024, prepared by the media ‘Politico’.
Puigdemont the second appears in the “disruptors” sectionwhile Hermoso is the ninth of the “dreamers.”
The list, headed by “the most powerful person on the continent”, who will be unveiled at an event tonight in Brussels, is divided into three categories – doers, disruptors and dreamers – each representing a different type of influence.
“In a nod to the current times of polarization, the list includes not one, but two secessionists,” explains the ‘Politico’ media.
This, he explains, is Puigdemont, “the Catalan who managed to secure an amnesty for an illegal independence vote in 2017 -and perhaps even another opportunity for secession- in exchange for propping up the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez”, and the Belgian Tom Van Grieken, “who wants to turn Flanders into a separatist state” and that appears sixth on the list of disruptors in Europe.
Behind Puigdemont, at number three on the list of disruptors is the Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orbán; followed by the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock; and the president of the European Popular Group in the European Parliament, the also German Manfred Weber, who is nicknamed “The murderer of the Green Pact”, in reference to the campaign he launched against the law of nature.
Among the nine main “dreamers” that ‘Politico’ selects for 2024 is forward Jenni Hermoso, who “started football’s #MeToo moment”, by starring in the non-consensual kiss that the then president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubialeshit him on the lips after winning the 2023 World Cup in Australia.
“As her claims wind their way through the Spanish courts next year, and with the world watching every move she makes, the 33-year-old world champion has a spotlight she never asked for. Given how outspoken she has been so far, it’s likely she will make the most of it,” predicts ‘Politico’.
The other leaders
Also on the list of “dreamers” are, among others, the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, nicknamed “the Mandela of Russia”; the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, for all the difficulties that she has faced since she took office and those that will affect her in 2024 the “mounds of mud” that the Eurosceptics will throw against the European Union due to the upcoming European elections in June.
This edition of the ranking of the 28 people with the most capacity to promote debate and direct decisions in Europe, according to ‘Politico’, has revolved around a central issue: Will the moderate forces in Europe manage to push back those who are on the margins and that threaten their control of power?
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Last year he was the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskythe most powerful elected personality in Europe.
And this year, although she does not top the list or any of the three categories, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, returns as the second most influential of those selected as “doers”, along with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the French far-right Marine Le Pen; the president of the European Central Bank, Cristine Lagarde; or the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoganamong others.