Von der Leyen has been credited with steering the bloc through one of its most tumultuous terms, including a global pandemic, the Ukraine war and the energy crisis…reports Asian Lite News
The president of the European Commission needs an absolute majority of lawmakers to back her bid for a second term.
In 2019, Ursula von der Leyen secured the top job in Brussels by the skin of her teeth, when she was appointed to the Commission presidency by a margin of just nine votes in the European Parliament, the narrowest on record.
Five years on, the 65-year-old German is bidding for a second term – and there’s an ominous sense of déjà vu in the corridors of Strasbourg.
That’s because von der Leyen needs an absolute majority of votes in the 720-seat chamber on Thursday if she is to secure five more years at the executive’s helm.
While her own European People’s Party (EPP) is confident she has both the numbers and the mandate after the party’s commanding win in the June elections, the margin of the vote could be slim again this year.
Von der Leyen has been credited with steering the bloc through one of its most tumultuous terms, including a global pandemic, the Ukraine war and the energy crisis.
“I think all members of the European Parliament understand what’s at stake. It’s not only about the personality of Ursula von der Leyen, who has shown her leadership abilities (…) but also a question of the stability of the European Union,” EPP lawmaker and former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius said.
But she also divides opinion. Right-wing conservatives have slammed her once-unwavering commitment to making Europe the first climate-neutral continent in the world, while allies to her left have accused her of cosying up to the hard right and allowing them to dilute her green ambitions.
The Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberals of Renew Europe will likely back her after she vowed not to pursue a formal partnership with ultra-conservative forces such as the lawmakers of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy in the next legislature.
Together with the EPP, the three centrist groups hold a total of 401 seats, enough to see the candidate sail through. But it is well known that the mavericks among them are likely to vote her down, shielded by the secrecy of the ballot.
The French and Slovenian delegations in the EPP have already made it clear they would defy the consensus and vote against their party’s lead candidate. Among the Liberals, the Irish delegation is set to join the opposition in protest over her response to the Israel-Hamas war, while the Germans, Slovaks and Portuguese are on the fence.
The uncertainty has left von der Leyen with no option but to fish extra votes from the Greens and the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), exchanging policy pledges in return for support.
But with these two groups ideologically far apart – and the Greens making their support conditional on von der Leyen ruling out formal cooperation with the ECR – she has been forced to walk an impossible tightrope to secure their endorsements.
Speaking to reporters after a one-hour meeting with the ECR on Tuesday, von der Leyen described the session as “intense” and was accosted by a Polish member hailing from the Law and Justice (PiS) party as she left the room.
“She manipulated the procedure and we will not vote for her,” PiS MEP Arkadiusz Mularczyk told reporters. However, he admitted that some members of his group would end up lending their votes to von der Leyen, such as those belonging to Czechia’s Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and Belgium’s New Flemish Alliance (NVA).
It remains unclear how the lawmakers of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) will vote, after the premier, furious about being excluded from the deal-making process, abstained on von der Leyen’s reappointment in the European Council.
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