Written by Martin Banks
In what some have called a “pivotal moment” for the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen has been re-elected as the President of the European Commission.
With 401 votes in favor, von der Leyen (VDL) will serve once more as the head of the EU’s executive.
She was re-elected by MEPs in Strasbourg a secret ballot on 18 July.
Image credit: CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2019 – Source: EP”. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
A majority of MEPs at the parliamentary plenary in France voted for her in the four mainstream groups: the EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens.
This will be von der Leyen’s second term as Commission President. She was first elected by MEPs in July 2019.Parliament is currently composed of 719 MEPs, so the necessary majority was 360 votes.
However, some 284 voted against her getting re-elected, and 22 cast blank or invalid votes.
Just ahead of the vote, von der Leyen presented her political priorities for the next five years during a debate with deputies. The next step will be to confirm the 26 Commissioners and their portfolios.
All must appear at confirmation hearings with MEPs in the coming weeks.
The Greens said the vote “confirms a four-group democratic majority in the House and prevents the far-right from driving the agenda of the EU over the next five years.”
A large number of MEPs from the Right were elected to the EU Parliament in the recent EU elections.
The Greens, in a statement, said, “The four group majority is holding firm and is vital for defending our democracy against the far-right. We want to build on this majority to deliver for citizens.”
It said, “We welcome the commitments she has taken to build on the success of the Green Deal, to develop a climate-neutral industrial policy and boost just transition funding.”
It warned, “We will carefully scruitinise whether the new Commission as a whole will live up to our demands.”
Further reaction to the vote came from the EPP leader Manfred Weber, a German MEP, who said he considers von der Leyen’s election “to be a victory for democracy and a united Europe.”
He added,”Europeans want a democratic Europe, not a radical one. With the election of Ursula von der Leyen, we are strengthening a democratic Europe.The vote was also a vote for clear priorities: prosperity, security, and stopping migration. The next Commission will embody the EPP spirit.”
The S&D Group, the 2nd biggest after the EPP in the parliament, also voted to back the former German defence minister for another term in office.
Its leader Iratxe Garcia Perez said, “We have made the Commission’s Political Guidelines the most social and the greenest ever. With our demands, we shaped the chapter on the social dimension and we achieved a clear commitment not to cooperate with the far right, on the fight against climate change, and on a just transition.
“For the first time, the EU will have a European strategy against poverty and we will finally address the problem of housing, with a Commissioner for housing. And this will happen because we asked for it.”
However, there was severe criticism of von der Leyen from some quarters including the ECR group who voted against.
In a speech on Thursday, ECR Co-Chairman Joachim Brudziński (Law and Justice party) told von der Leyen,she had been “a very poor president, perhaps the worst.”
He added, “As ECR, we unenthusiastically supported your candidacy five years ago. We made this decision, choosing the lesser evil.”
He went on, “Your management style was terrible. Decision-making in a narrow group of German advisors, arrogance, hypocrisy, lack of cooperation with commissioners, exuberant ambitions and passionate concerns about your own image.This was your work style.”
Some in the world of NGOs were also highly critical, with Vicky Cann, Corporate Europe Observatory researcher and campaigner, saying von der Leyen’s “priorities have drastically changed compared to her first mandate.”
“Five years ago, she promised a transformative Green Deal but is now openly embracing corporate lobbyists and their deregulation agenda.”
Cann added, “At the beginning of her first mandate, von der Leyen lauded the Green Deal as a tool to reconcile the economy with our planet, a strategy that “gives more back than it takes away.” Despite her warm words, her first term as EU Commission president saw strong political, financial, and regulatory support for corporate power.
“By reappointing von der Leyen, the European Parliament has given corporate power a green light to keep on pushing its damaging pro-business and anti-regulation agenda.
“This is an agenda that is already well heard in VDL’s Commission and which does not bode well for ambitious action to tackle the cost of living crisis, nor the use of fossil fuels, harmful chemicals, and pesticides,” she claimed.
However, the EU wide body representing the electricity sector, Eurelectric, said it “welcomed” her renewed mandate.
Eurelectric’s Secretary General, Kristian Ruby noted, “Von der Leyen set out a pragmatic, yet ambitious agenda for the next five years to address the new challenge landscape the EU is facing with geopolitical tensions, sharpened industrial competition, on top of the impacts from increasingly extreme weather.”
“In particular, Eurelectric welcomes VDL’s announcement of a new Clean Industrial Deal to keep industry competitive while decarbonising. We support the call for implementing the Green Deal and positively note the reference to scaling-up investments in low-carbon green infrastructure as well as the creation of a Savings and Investment Union to back this vision with the necessary financial means.”
More comment on Friday came from Chiara Martinelli, Director at Climate Action Network Europe,who said, “Von der Leyen’s commitment only to 90 percent emission cuts is a step in the right direction but a missed opportunity to align EU’s ambition with science and equity by achieving climate neutrality by 2040 at the latest. She could at least have supported the EU’s scientific advisory board’s and the upper end of her own Commission’s Impact Assessment’s 95 percent reductions.”
Petri Salminen, the president of SMEunited, the EU wide body representing SMEs, said, “Small businesses emphasised the need to finally make policy on the basis of the 99,8% companies in Europe, instead of for the 0,2% and called for focus on implementation in this new mandate. We welcome that von der Leyen in her Political Guidelines states that future legislation must be designed with small businesses in mind. However, we have seen SME washing before, and therefore call to act according to this statement now.
“The 24.3 million entrepreneurs, craftswomen and -men and small business in Europe appreciate the recognition given by von der Leyen, when she refers to ‘we all know there is no Europe’ without SMEs.”
About the author
Martin Banks is an international freelance journalist with 44 years experience covering national and international stories.