The European party of social democrats (PES/S&D) in Brussels is complaining about losing power in the incoming second von der Leyen Commission, demanding the president’s center-right EPP either give up seats or grant them more influential portfolios to make up for the injustice. But the stunt will hardly make any difference apart from making them look ridiculous, because that is simply not how the EU works.
To add to the ridiculousness, just last month the socialists worked hard to strip the Parliament’s third-largest group, the right-wing Patriots for Europe, of all its committee chairmanships.
“It is important for our political family and the S&D group in the European Parliament to be well-represented in the next European Commission,” MEP Victor Negrescu, Romania’s commissioner nominee told Politico recently.
Out of the 27 members of the next College of Commissioners, 15 will be representing the EPP, and only four will come from countries governed by socialist parties. The remaining eight are divided between liberals, national conservatives, and non-aligned.
Because of this, Negrescu cried foul over what he described as a lack of “political balance,” and implied that von der Leyen would have a hard time getting S&D to cooperate unless she rectified it as soon as possible. “Without the full support of [the Socialists] it is difficult to reach a strong majority in a fragmented European Parliament,” he threatened von der Leyen and the EPP.
It is true that the S&D is still the second-largest group in the European Parliament with 136 MEPs, topped only by EPP’s 188. But there is nothing in the treaties that says this should therefore automatically be the case in the other EU institutions, whose composition is decided by completely different processes.
Unlike the Parliament, whose members are elected directly on a more-or-less proportional basis from the entire EU, the Council gathers the representatives (heads of state and ministers) of the 27 governments while the commissioners are also nominated directly by each European government.
Therefore, expecting a non-socialist government to nominate an opposition politician as its commissioner candidate sounds incredibly naïve—yet this is exactly what the S&D wants.
In particular, the socialists are offended that Luxembourg’s center-right government picked ex-MEP Cristophe Hansen instead of renewing the mandate of the current commissioner, Nicolas Schmit, who was nominated by the country’s previous social democrat government.
One reason for the socialists’ outrage could be that Germany—with its socialist-green-led coalition—has put its weight behind Ursula von der Leyen’s appointment for a second term as Commission president, effectively giving up what would otherwise be a socialist seat in the College. In return, it seems they foolishly expected von der Leyen to strongarm Luxembourg or another center-right government into nominating a socialist.
“The EPP’s behavior casts a deplorable cloud at the very beginning of von der Leyen’s second five-year mandate—in particular against the background that the [S&D] made an advanced political concession in voting for von der Leyen in July,” MEP René Repasi, head of the German socialist delegation said.
The socialists’ secretary-general, Giacomo Filibeck even added—clearly unaware of how undemocratic he sounds—that as Commission president, von der Leyen had every chance to “influence” the process, and that it is a shame she did not.
What’s more, by decrying this alleged lack of fair representation, the S&D has also forgotten what happened just over a month ago, when all the mainstream parties joined forces to undemocratically strip the third largest bloc—the national conservative Patriots for Europe (PfE)—from all of its pre-allocated top positions in the Parliament, including both its vice-presidencies and committee chairmanships.
Put simply, the socialists think a ‘cordon sanitaire’ that disenfranchises over fifty million voters is completely ethical if it’s against the Right, but if others don’t want to give up their seats for them, it is “deplorable” and warrants threatening to blow up the coalition. And then they wonder why they are called hypocrites.
