With only a week left until the confirmation vote in the European Parliament that is supposed to cement Ursula von der Leyen’s second term at the helm of the EU Commission, the president is now wrapping up coalition talks with nearly everyone to the left of her—completely disregarding the will of the European voters who favored the conservative blocs.
In separate meetings with the liberal Renew group and the European Greens on Wednesday, July 10th, von der Leyen assured the groups of her commitment not to collaborate with anyone on the Right in exchange for their support, as well as pledging to continue with disastrous EU policies, such as the Migration Pact and the Green Deal, despite those being utterly rejected by voters all around Europe.
“We made it very clear that we don’t accept any flirt with the far-right,” Renew President Valerie Hayer said after meeting with von der Leyen on Wednesday. “She gave us commitments. We will look at this very closely of course.”
The Parliament’s so-called ‘Ursula coalition,’ made up of von der Leyen’s centrist European People’s Party (EPP), the social democrat S&D, and the liberal Renew groups, has been dominating politics in Brussels for the past five years, but with Macron’s liberals significantly weakened after the EU elections (fallen from third to fifth place), they no longer have the numbers for the Commission chief to be sure of her re-election.
Together, the three groups have 400 seats between them; theoretically enough to put von der Leyen above the 361-vote threshold needed for re-election, but since it is done with a secret ballot and historical experience dictates a 10-15% defection rate, she also needs to look for votes outside of the coalition.
The choice, therefore, is whether to open for cooperation with the conservatives—specifically Giorgia Meloni’s more moderate European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), who are in fourth place with 78 seats—or to involve the Greens, who are only the sixth largest group with just 53 seats.
As we reported before, von der Leyen has been leaning towards the Left from the beginning, especially because of the internal pressure from her coalition partners who threatened to rebel if she tried to make any deals with the Right, including Meloni’s ECR.
“Our position is absolutely clear, from the Renew group. We should be in coalition with pro-European groups, which is clear. For us, ECR is not a pro-European group,” Hayer said, adding that von der Leyen promised “no structured cooperation” with the conservatives throughout her second mandate.
During the meeting with the Greens, the focus was not only on excluding conservatives but also on securing von der Leyen’s commitment to the Green Deal, the EU’s ever-growing flagship policy package which includes everything from overall climate goals down to the decarbonization of agriculture. In other words, one of the main factors that brought farmers out to the streets all around Europe last year and led to the Greens losing the biggest share of seats in the Parliament during the election.
“We are looking for a clear commitment on the not backtracking, but it’s also very clear that we need new discussions on implementation and that there will be new proposals,” the Greens’ co-president, Bas Eickhout said, adding that the meeting was an “important step” toward achieving their desired outcome.
In return, the Dutch MEP promised von der Leyen the full support of his group without defectors next Thursday, saying that the Greens prefer to vote “as a group.” That is, of course, if the conservatives remain on the sidelines. “We don’t want far-right forces to influence the agenda of the EU over the next years,” Terry Reintke, the group’s German co-president stated.
What this means, in effect, is that despite the European Parliament considerably shifting to the Right with conservative, sovereigntist forces now being the third (Patriots for Europe) and fourth (ECR) largest groups in Brussels, von der Leyen’s next coalition will be even more leftist than the last.
