THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT
image copyright: European Parliament
By Drakoulis Goudis
With a 41 votes majority (401 votes in favour out of 719 MEPs), the European Parliament re-elected Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission on the afternoon of July 18th. The result of the vote marked the end of one of the most discussed European election-related sagas and found von der Leyen at the helm of the European Union’s executive body for 5 more years.
The 2nd term of the former Defence Minister of Germany was not at all ensured a few months ago. Parliamentary discontent about her modus operandi, a shifting political environment rearranging the balance of power between the European political groups, and conflicting interests between her own EPP and its coalition partners (social democrat S&D and liberal Renew) had cast doubts over whether she would have enough support to continue leading the Commission after the June elections.
Von der Leyen needed 3 conditions:
- The EPP to be the largest political group after the elections
- The European Council to nominate her for Commission President
- The European Parliament to approve her nomination with a 50% +1 majority
The 1st condition was the easiest to meet, since EPP emerged comfortably as the largest group of the 10th European Parliament, as was predicted by all the polls and surveys. Technically, the Commission President doesn’t need to come from the largest group, but realistically speaking, if the S&D or Renew became the largest group, they would claim the position for someone from their political family.
The 2nd condition was likely to be met, but not set in stone: the Council nomination requires a qualified majority, with the national leaders traditionally trying to achieve the broadest consensus possible for the nominee. The crucial factor in the Council was Emmanuel Macron’s position: the French President was the one who brought up von der Leyen’s name out of the blue in 2019 but was rumored to be considering other EPP-affiliated candidates like Mario Draghi. Without French support, it would be politically difficult for the Council to nominate her, but in the end, the result of the election in France found Macron politically weakened and focusing his attention domestically. The Council nominated von der Leyen with 25 votes in favour, 1 abstention (from bitter Giorgia Meloni who overplayed her hand the whole month) and 1 vote against (from the usual dissenter of everything, Viktor Orban).
The 3rd condition was the battleground, through which von der Leyen had to navigate to renew her term: the support of the European Parliament.
Von der Leyen’s relationship with the Parliament was tumultuous from day one. Not because of her politics or her personality, but because her 1st nomination in 2019 was the result of a power struggle between the European Union’s two legislative bodies: the Parliament and the European Council. The Parliament has been trying to wrestle control of the Commission President selection from the Council since 2014, when they put forward the Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate in German) system. According to this system, each European political party would nominate their candidate for Commission President prior to the elections and the Spitzenkandidat of the largest party (or the one able to secure the support of a majority coalition) would then be nominated by the European Council to the European Parliament for election to the Commission Presidency. The Council played along in 2014 and nominated the EPP Spitzenkandidat Jean-Claude Juncker, but in 2019 there was no consensus between the national leaders to appoint Manfred Weber, and EPP Prime Ministers were refusing to accept social democrat Frank Timmermans as well. Macron broke the deadlock by recommending von der Leyen, who was a more acceptable EPP candidate than Weber for the non-EPP Council members–but this also meant throwing the Spitzenkandidat system in the rubbish bin and the Council retaining control of the selection. The Parliament was not at all happy about this turn of events, but in the end von der Leyen secured her election by 9 votes (383 in favour with a threshold of 374) despite the coalition of EPP, S&D and Renew numbering 444 seats.
The rocky start to this relationship was succeeded by an even rockier term: according to a lot of MEPs, von der Leyen often disregarded the Parliament (she rarely bothered to show up) and acted at the interests of the Council in multiple occasions (such as delaying the reports on Italy’s media crackdown, ignoring Greece’s pushbacks and fast-track unfreezing Polish funds). From under the table deals to appease autocrat Viktor Orban to secrecy regarding the acquisition of Pfizer vaccines (which led to general distrust of the Commission and fueled rumors of extensive high-level corruption), unwillingness to comply with European Court of Justice verdicts and migration deals that 2 of the 3 parties disagreed with, her actions did not make her a particularly popular president in the Parliament. That’s not to say she had no support throughout her term: her strong and vocal support of Ukraine was applauded, and the Green Deal earned her friends among liberals, social democrats, but also opened the door of cooperation with the Greens.
The electoral math was changing though: the far-right was growing, and it was unclear if the EPP-S&D-Renew coalition would keep their majority. There was discontent within the EPP: the opinion that von der Leyen went too far to the left gained traction and her Green Deal was not popular among legislators of her own party. In this political climate, she backtracked from several aspects of the Green Deal and controversially opened the door to Giorgia Meloni and ECR, hoping that her support would make up for the projected shrinking of her coalition and potential defections from party lines. S&D and Renew were understandably furious and declared that any deal with ECR would be casus belli for their groups to withdraw their support.
Meloni overplayed her hand, made demands that would never be met, and in the end remained out of the EU’s ruling coalition, both formally and informally, and did not back von der Leyen’s re-election bid. Von der Leyen though still needed votes outside her 3-party coalition (which had held on to a 41-seats majority after the election), because there were defections: French LR who considered her “Macron’s candidate”, Irish FF who disagreed with her Gaza position, German FDP who didn’t like her green policies and several others, citing one or more of the aforementioned reasons.
Votes came from an unlikely source: the Greens. The Greens had taken a hit, dropping from 67 to 53 seats, and amidst a political climate strengthening right-wing voices, had a choice to make: support von der Leyen despite their disagreements in several issues and severe doubts on whether she would continue supporting green policies, or vote “no” and wither allow ECR to become kingmaker or force the Council to pick another EPP nominee who could be to the right of von der Leyen. The choice became harder since von der Leyen refrained from promising to further pursue a green agenda in order to appease EPP MEPs.
They chose to support her, and with 45 out of the 53 votes from the Greens/EFA group (with Spanish regionalist EFA members and the French Green party EELV being the 8 “no”s), she secured her re-election by 41 votes. In an ironical sequence of events, the Greens became kingmakers and entered the ruling coalition despite being one of the losing sides of the elections while media “winners” ECR and Patriots (the rebranded and expanded ID) remained outcasts.
What will this mean for the new Commission, its strategic goals, its policy priorities and its ideological orientation? The Greens are hoping that their last-moment support will steer the commission away from a rightwards turn. EPP, on the other hand, are testing the waters for informal blocking majorities with the extreme right, and point to the parliamentary strength of each group to push for a more conservative program. The Social Democrats and the Liberals are still necessary for a legislative majority in the Parliament and they have their own demands regarding rule of law, transparency and migration.
European politics are sometimes a delicate dance, sometimes a stubborn tug-of-war between clashing ideologies and powerful personalities. Von der Leyen’s gamble paid off, perhaps differently than she anticipated, and she will lead the EU’s executive until 2029. Whether the Greens won or capitulated remains to be seen, but the only sure outcome of Thursday is that the pro-democracy, pro-EU, pro-West majority held, and far-right actors (both the loud shameless ones like Viktor Orban and Marine Lepen and the ones masquerading as center-right like Giorgia Meloni who are even more dangerous) remain sidelined and without a say on governing matters of the EU.