Last Thursday, 18 July, the European Parliament re-elected Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission. She will serve a second five-year term (assuming, of course, that the parliament does not dismiss her by a vote of no confidence in the commission at some point during its term of office).
She secured 401 votes, well above the 360 votes she needed to be elected. The coalition that elected her was based on a cross-centre majority, comprising the moderate conservative EPP (whose candidate she was for president), the socialists, the liberals and the greens. It was secured after she made a number of pledges regarding the programme and priorities of the next European Commission.
Her victory also came as part of a package negotiated by the political parties on other posts to be appointed, such as the president of the European Council (the regular ‘summit’ meetings of the prime ministers or presidents of the member states), which will go to the socialist former prime minister of Portugal, Alberto Costa.
Far-right isolated
This vote illustrated that the much-hyped surge of the far-right in the European Parliament elections did not mean a breakthrough in terms of its influence, at least at a European level. The far-right did disturbingly well in France (provoking early national elections) and in Germany, but its overall numbers did not increase significantly across Europe as a whole (and in some countries declined).
Furthermore, it is actually quite divided, with major differences among far-right parties on economic policy, rights, climate change, and Ukraine. The one thing these ultranationalist parties seem to have in common is that they hate foreigners, which makes it difficult to work in an international group! As a result, they have not managed to constitute a united political group in the European Parliament, instead fragmenting into three rival groups and are effectively marginalised.
Thus, even if the EPP wanted to (which it didn’t), it could not negotiate a coherent majority for von der Leyen with the various parties to its right. It had to negotiate with the centre-left to secure a majority. Von der Leyen had several meetings with the socialists (S&D), the liberals (Renew) and the green groups in the parliament and made a number of commitments in her ‘political guidelines’ document and in her speech before the vote.
She notably promised to stick to the targets of the European Green Deal (which the far-right and some in her own EPP had challenged). She reaffirmed the need to respect fundamental rights as a condition for receiving EU funds (a reference in particular to Hungary under Orbán), and gave assurances on collective bargaining, women’s rights, an EU-wide inquiry to examine the impact of social media on the wellbeing of young people, and a radical overhaul of the EU’s budget. She excoriated Viktor Orbán for his controversial ’peace mission’, to Moscow, saying it was nothing but an “appeasement mission”.
With this, the centre-left in the parliament were satisfied enough to vote for her. As Politico magazine commented: “The Socialists are weak at the European Council because they only lead five governments, mostly in fragile coalitions. But in the EU Parliament, they remain strong and have even managed to set the parameters for [what] von der Leyen committed to.
Intriguing process
If this all sounds like coalition-making in hung parliaments in a national context, that’s because it is.
Under the EU treaty, a new commission is appointed after each set of European Parliament elections. The first stage is the election of the president of the commission. For this, the European Council (the heads of government of the member states) must propose a candidate in light of the election results. They have to look at who can secure a parliamentary majority. The parliament then votes, with the support of a majority of its membership needed to elect the president (so, abstentions count against).
As this is virtually the first vote of the newly elected parliament, the choice of president has not surprisingly become an issue in election campaigns, with European political parties (the federations of like-minded national parties: socialists, liberals, greens, conservatives, etc) each announcing their candidate ahead of the elections, and with televised debates among those candidates. (This time, the front runners were the EPP’s von der Leyen and the socialists’ Nicolas Schmit.)
In the second phase the president-elect, together with each national government, chooses the other members of the commission – one from each country. The president allocates the portfolios (commissioners for transport, agriculture, trade, etc). Then, each nominee has to appear before the European Parliament committee that corresponds to their portfolio for a three-hour public hearing with MEPs cross-examining them on their views, experience and any conflicts of interest. This usually leads to one or more being replaced. (It would be interesting to see a similar procedure in Britain when ministers are appointed!). Finally, the parliament votes on the commission as a whole, which requires its confidence to take office.
All-powerful European Commission?
That does not give the commission a blank cheque to do whatever it wants. It is not the all-powerful body that some parts of the British media portray. It can make proposals for new EU legislation, but those proposals only become law if they are approved by both the EU Council (ministers from the elected governments of the member states) and the European Parliament (directly elected by citizens). They have the final say and both typically make amendments to its proposals before adopting them.
The EU system will remain one where give-and-take deliberations, involving explanation, persuasion and compromise, finding common solutions to common problems, is the predominant style of decision taking. Von der Leyen’s re-election, the political majority it is based on, and the failure of the far-right to break through, point to that remaining the case.
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