Populist surge or not in the recent elections, centrists still dominate the European Union and Merkel acolyte and arch-globalist Ursula von der Leyen is set up for another term at the top job despite having presided over a dramatic decline in economic welfare and the erosion of individual liberties.
Despite significant gains from conservatives and populists in the European Parliament elections earlier this month, neo-liberal and leftist factions within Brussels closed ranks to agree on the European Council nomination of German politician Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the president of the European Commission, the top post in the bloc.
The nomination came, POLITICO reports, as a result of an agreement between six negotiators, including Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk representing Von der Leyen’s globalist-centrist European People’s Party, the socialists, represented by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez, and the neo-liberals represented by French President Emmanuel Macron and outgoing Dutch PM Mark Rutte.
Despite Von der Leyen showing interest before the EU elections of potentially including the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) led by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni in a coalition, this was shot down by the socialists and liberals, who demanded that Meloni be barred from talks as a pre-requisite for supporting a second term for the EU chief.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slammed the closed-loop negotiations, saying on Tuesday that the deal backing Von der Leyen was “made with the leftists and the liberals runs against everything that the EU was based on.”
“Instead of inclusion, it sows the seeds of division. EU top officials should represent every member state, not just leftists and liberals!” the populist leader added.
While Von der Leyen appears to have passed the nomination threshold, it is still not a done deal, with the final decision being left to the European Parliament.
Although her alliance comprised of the European People’s Party, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and the Macron-led Renew (RE) group suffered significant losses in the elections earlier this month, they still have enough votes to pass through the nomination without the support of any other group.
However, the margin for error will be thin, with the three groups having 398 seats in the Parliament between them and 361 votes needed for approval. The margin was cut last week as Czech populist Andrej Babiš withdrew his seven MEPs from Macron’s Renew group, meaning the liberal group fell below Meloni’s conservatives into fourth place in terms of power in the legislature. All this means that Von der Leyen will need to limit the number of defections — which are all but guaranteed to occur — to get over the top.
“The simple math… makes this very tight for von der Leyen at the moment,” remarked Jacob Moroza-Rasmussen, the former secretary general of the liberal ALDE party which sits now with Macron’s group in the EU Parliament.
The position of EU Commission chief is hugely significant within the 27-nation bloc, with the head being responsible for leading a vast bureaucracy of around 32,000 Eurocrats, some of whom are responsible for crafting EU-wide legislation. Additionally, the Commission president also serves as the EU’s representative at all major international summits.
Von der Leyen, who was installed in her position in a back-room deal cut at the EU Council by Paris and Berlin in 2019, was in some ways essentially groomed for the position. The embodiment of the emergent pan-national EU aristocratic elite, her father served as one of the first civil servants for the European Commission which she now leads. Von der Leyen was also a product of being educated in the elite “European School” in Brussels for the children of international diplomats.
Yet, despite such a lofty background in which she would have supposedly been schooled in the art of governance, she was largely considered as having ‘failed up’ from a disappointing tenure as German Defence Secretary under Angela Merkel, in which she has been accused of having left the German military in “catastrophic” condition.
Her first term as Commission president has also left much to be desired, having presided over draconian lockdown measures during the Chinese coronavirus, spearheading the push for health passports and mass censorship of “disinformation”, for example. This was followed up by Europe being plunged into an energy crisis after being caught off guard by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ill-equipped to deal with cuts in Russian gas supplies after embarking on the green agenda favoured by Von der Leyen and her allies.
Her term has also been marked by increased attempts by Brussels to police — through monetary pressure — the domestic policies of member states, imposing financial penalties on conservative governments in Hungary and Poland for enacting conservative policies on migration and gender.
The decision to back a second term for Von der Leyen was not the only controversial back-room deal to be struck on Tuesday, with the leftist-liberal alliance also deciding to back Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa to replace Belgium’s Charles Michel as the next EU Council president, the other ‘top job’ in Brussels besides Commission chief. In November, Costa’s socialist government in Lisbon collapsed amid corruption allegations and he resigned from his post.
Meanwhile, Estonian PM Kaja Kallas was agreed upon by the globalist cohort to take over from Spanish socialist Josep Borrell and serve as the next bloc’s top diplomat, officially the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Kallas, like von der Leyen, comes from the EU aristocratic class, with her father, Siim Kallas — another former Estonian PM — having served as a European Commissioner from 2004 to 2014. Kallas has also faced scandals at home, with controversy erupting over her husband’s business dealings in Russia, which continued even after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.