Every vote counts for Ursula von der Leyen. The German conservative faces a decisive vote in the European Parliament on Thursday to repeat as president of the European Commission and needs 361 votes. Her traditional moderate alliance – popular, social democrats and liberals – adds up, but there may be desertions and the German also wants to have a lot of votes. That is why she is working hard with the Greens, who could be key and who, in addition, have shown themselves very receptive to supporting her. In the last few hours, after meeting with the political groups, the conservative has been calling the MEPs whose support she considers doubtful, parliamentary sources say. In addition, she has sent letters to several political groups in which she promises to work on some points that they have requested.
Thursday’s session in Parliament will start with controversy. The Left group will demand that the vote on Von der Leyen be postponed after the EU General Court ruled that the president of the European Commission did not give citizens sufficient access to contracts for the purchase of coronavirus vaccines in the midst of the pandemic. A blow to the German on the eve of her confirmation vote.
EU leaders proposed re-electing von der Leyen at the end of June following an agreement by the three main political families, which are also those of her moderate alliance (or platform, as she calls it). And the leaders have given their delegations a mandate to support her if she heeds the groups’ demands for the legislature. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Germany’s Olaf Scholz have moved to prop her up, as have the leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Christian Democrat’s political family.
On Tuesday, the Portuguese socialist António Costa, elected to preside over the European Council in December in the same package of appointments as Von der Leyen —and the liberal Kaja Kallas, as head of European diplomacy—, met with the social democratic delegation in Strasbourg, where he clearly expressed his support for the German’s re-election. “I hope that everything goes well so that we can have a majority that works in the service of citizens and Europe,” Costa told the Portuguese news agency Lusa.
But the groups want Von der Leyen to commit in writing to promoting the priorities they have put forward to her. In the letter sent to S&D late on Wednesday afternoon, Von der Leyen assures that she has taken note of the demands, although she does not make any concrete promises. “I will make sure that we work together on social justice, well-paid jobs, housing, public and private investments and a reinforced long-term budget in line with the multiannual financial framework, on security and defence, the double green and digital transition and protecting our democracy in Europe, even against foreign interference,” says the President of the Commission in the letter, to which Morning Express has had access.
Promises for the roadmap
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In recent weeks, Von der Leyen has promised the moderate groups to include several crucial elements in her guidelines for the legislature, such as the creation of a Housing Commissioner, which is being demanded by the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), who have placed great emphasis on socio-economic policies, and maintaining the ambitious environmental objectives deployed during the previous term. The support of the Social Democrats is not “a blank cheque”, said the group’s president, Iratxe García.
The Greens, for their part, are placing great emphasis on the need for no turning back on these environmental objectives, something that is being fought for by some of the PP, Von der Leyen’s group, and the entire far right. Meanwhile, the Liberals are putting the emphasis on defending the state. “We want a clear commitment not to turn back on the green agenda, but it is also very clear that we need new debates on implementation and that there will be new proposals,” says the co-president of the Green group, Bas Eickhout.
They also want Von der Leyen to draw up a strict cordon sanitaire against the far right. However, for the German, this cordon is flexible and she continues to flirt with part of the far right that she considers acceptablesuch as the political family of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with whom she is not proposing a pact, but rather alliances for specific moments and to whom she has promised measures to “de-bureaucratize” the EU and more plans to support farmers, say sources from the conservative delegation.
Trying to formalise collaboration with ECR – the current advocated by the president of the European Popular Party, Manfred Weber, and the Italian Antonio Tajani, who prefer this extreme right to the Greens – means that many of the parliamentarians of the three forces who do not come from the EPP will distance themselves from this potential majority that now totals 454 deputies and, therefore, will cease to have stability.
The conservative is trying to show that there is no choice: it is her or chaos; and she is presenting herself as the card of experience and stability at a particularly turbulent time for Europe, with Russia’s war against Ukraine dragging on, Israel’s war in Gaza and the prospect of the return of Republican Donald Trump to the White House, which would bring even more protectionist measures and could leave the Union alone in its support for kyiv against Moscow.
Several parliamentary sources interpret the vote to elect the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and the 14 vice-presidencies of the Chamber as showing that there is a potential “stable and pro-European” majority that “is being built”. It would be made up of the populars, the social democrats, the liberals and the greens, precisely the political groups that achieved representation among the vice-presidents of the European Parliament in the first round of voting – there are two – which has been interpreted as a step in the right direction by the two minority families (greens and liberals) as signs that the negotiation between groups would go in the right direction.
The fact that the four pro-European forces add up to considerably more than the 361 parliamentarians required by Von der Leyen does not mean that if she presents a programme to the liking of the quartet she will automatically win their votes. The vote is secret and all have disaffections in their ranks: the Socialists and the Greens for the position maintained by the German on the war in Gaza and the unconditional support for Israel in the early stages of the conflict; the Liberals for having authorized the delivery of structural funds to Hungary at the end of 2023 when, in their opinion, Viktor Orbán had not done enough to deserve them; and among their own coreligionists there are already announced defections from the French MEPs of Les Républiques and the Slovenian conservatives.
