Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and Estonia’s former prime minister, has been ranked 16th in Politico’s Class of 2026, the publication’s annual survey of the figures poised to wield the most influence over European politics in the year ahead.
This year’s list is topped, in an unprecedented twist, by Donald Trump – the first non-European to take the number one spot. His return to the White House has, Politico argues, recast the strategic landscape on the continent, with Washington’s decisions – and Trump’s unpredictability – now exerting more gravitational pull over Europe’s security, diplomacy and even domestic politics than any leader inside the EU.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz takes third place, while Vladimir Putin sits at fifth. Nigel Farage, the populist leader of Reform UK, comes in sixth, followed by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in seventh. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is ranked ninth; the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, tenth; Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, thirteenth; Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, fourteenth; and France’s Emmanuel Macron nineteenth – a striking shift for a leader once cast as Europe’s chief strategist.
Amid this constellation of power brokers, populists and wartime leaders, Kallas’s position at 16 underlines the extent to which her voice now shapes debate in Brussels and beyond.
Europe’s “unofficial truth-teller”
Politico casts Kallas as the EU’s “unofficial truth-teller”, a politician unafraid to confront allies and adversaries with blunt assessments that cut against the grain of the bloc’s more cautious diplomatic style.
Her plain speaking has become something of a trademark. When Trump claimed Europeans were lagging in support for Ukraine, Kallas publicly corrected him, stressing that the EU has collectively outspent the United States. She has also accused him of “appeasement” towards Vladimir Putin – language few European leaders have used so openly.
Kallas served three years as Estonia’s prime minister before taking up the EU foreign policy portfolio, emerging in that time as one of Europe’s clearest voices on Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Her forthright approach sometimes irritated larger member states, but it helped propel her onto the European stage, culminating in her appointment as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in 2024 – the first time an Estonian has held one of the EU’s top leadership posts.
Politico also notes the tensions built into her role. As foreign policy chief, she must articulate the collective position of 27 governments, including those inclined towards a more cautious line on Russia and wary of her confrontational tone. She has already sparred with Ursula von der Leyen’s team over senior appointments and brushed off criticisms from her predecessor, Josep Borrell, with characteristic directness.
