EPP, S&D, Liberals, and Greens confirm Ursula von der Leyen President of the EU Commission for another five years

From the correspondent in Strasbourg – Ursula von der Leyen does not fail the European Parliament vote test. She will be the President of the European Commission for another five years, equaling the record of the French socialist Jacques Delors (1985-1995) and the popular José Barroso (2004-2014) in leading the Union’s executive for two consecutive terms. After the European Council appointment last June 27 to succeed herself, the outgoing President of the European Commission found confirmation at today’s (July 18) decisive vote at the plenary session of the Strasbourg Chamber, which with 401 votes in favour (284 against, 15 abstentions) gave the green light for von der Leyen’s continued stay at the Berlaymont.

After von der Leyen’s keynote address outlined in nearly an hour-long speech this morning before the 720 MEPs, in the corridors of the Strasbourg headquarters of the EU Parliament a certain optimism had already begun to emerge about the chances of confirmation of the outgoing European Commission number one, a candidate from the political family of the Populars, to carry on her leadership that began in 2019. Particularly given the voting statements – expressed before the polls opened at 1 p.m. – not only of the centrist groups that have supported the majority over the past five years (European People’s Party, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe), but also of the Greens/Ale group, which with its 53 members secured the EU Parliament’s support for von der Leyen.

With no openings to the right wing of the European Conservatives and Reformists, which reassured Social Democrats and Liberals, the only unknown that held with bated breath until the last second revolved around a possible haemorrhage of votes from the rightmost wing of its own populars. But the tally of those against (284) and abstaining (15)—excluding the 84 from Patriots for Europe, the 46 from the Left, the 25 from Europe of Sovereign Nations, and the 33 non-attached (mostly not in favour), as well as an undefined number of the 78 members of the conservative right (in no particular order)—shows that the number of turncoats stopped at 53 MEPs from the centrist-Green majority. The confirmation would have come with 454 votes if all four groups had voted compactly. Still, the minimum threshold set today at 360 (out of 719 installed, only the Catalan independentist Antoni Comín is missing from the roll call) was nevertheless well exceeded, with only 53 defections and, data in hand, in the irrelevance of the dissenting vote (which came at the last) of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s party for von der Leyen’s confirmation as President of the European Commission.

“I do not know how to express how grateful I am for the trust of all the MEPs who voted for me”, were the first words to the press of the re-elected Commission President, still emotional after the long applause reserved for her by the majority of the Strasbourg Chamber. “Last time I had eight votes above the majority, this time 41; it also sends a message of confidence and testifies to the work we have done together with the Parliament“, is the vindication of what has been achieved in the last five years at the Berlaymont. “I will work as intensively and as best as I can with those who supported me; in fact, they are all pro-EU, pro-Ukraine and pro-rule of law parties,” i.e. the EPP-S&D-Renew Europe platform plus the Greens, whom the re-elected president explicitly wanted to thank: “We had intense exchanges on all topics, and I am very grateful that in the end, they decided to support me”.

At this point, with her confirmation to the presidency, von der Leyen is already looking forward to the hard work that still awaits her in view of the formation of her new team of commissioners: “In the coming weeks, I will ask the member states to propose the candidate commissioners, one man and one woman“. After that, “I will listen to them in mid-August,” with already some certainties on the standards for the formation of the new Commission: “I want to choose the best ones who share the European commitment, and there will be parity [of gender, ed.] in terms of numbers,” von der Leyen anticipated at the end of her first (new) day as President of the EU executive.