{"id":394197,"date":"2024-10-02T13:04:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T11:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/10\/02\/itre-stoa-voto-verdi-destre-sinistra\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T20:17:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T18:17:03","slug":"rift-in-the-majority-in-the-european-parliament-the-greens-vote-along-with-the-radical-right-and-left-but-go-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/10\/02\/rift-in-the-majority-in-the-european-parliament-the-greens-vote-along-with-the-radical-right-and-left-but-go-under\/","title":{"rendered":"Rift in the majority in the European Parliament: the Greens vote along with the radical right and left (but go under)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels -Not even a month went by since\u00a0the European Parliament formally resumed its work after the summer recess, and there has already been\u00a0the first clash between the political forces that supported Ursula von der Leyen’s re-election <\/strong>to the head of the Commission. The environmentalis<\/strong>ts<\/strong>, who were\u00a0instrumental in securing a second term for the popular German, were excluded from the distribution of some of the positions in the hemicycle<\/strong> that they allegedly had been promised by the majority (of which they are not formally part). In protest, they joined forces with the ultra-right and the radical left<\/strong> to try –unsuccessfully — to obstruct the appointments in question, causing quite a bit of\u00a0attrition among the respective parliamentary groups.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July,<\/a>\u00a0when the Greens (Greens\/EFA)<\/strong> decided to endorse from the outside the reappointment of von der Leyen<\/strong> to the head of the\u00a0Berlaymont building\u00a0without formally entering the majority agreement<\/strong> signed by Populars (EPP)<\/strong>, Socialists (S&D),<\/strong> and liberals (Renew)<\/strong>, they probably should have imagined that such a choice could have backfired.<\/p>\n

Instead, the cold shower<\/strong>\u00a0came shortly after the start of the new legislature, when the three parliamentary groups that make up the centrist majority<\/strong> split among themselves some roles in the House,\u00a0including the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) panel<\/strong>, an “implementation body<\/a>” of the hemicycle that studies scientific-technical issues faced by lawmakers and brings together 27 members from 11 parliamentary committees<\/strong>, including the one on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE)<\/strong>\u00a0where\u00a0the controversy unfolded.\u00a0According to pre-established agreements with their pro-European partners, the\u00a0environmentalists were supposed to receive a slice of the pie but were left high and dry. And they did not take it well.<\/p>\n

Thus, on Monday (Sept. 30), the ITRE Committee\u00a0voted<\/a> on a motion<\/strong>, presented\u00a0by the radical right-wing of the\u00a0Conservatives and Reformists (ECR),<\/strong> to block the agreement<\/strong> the EPP, S&D, and Renew reached a couple of weeks earlier (Sept. 12)\u00a0concerning\u00a0the division of these posts. In\u00a0retaliation against being left out of the game, the Greens MEPs voted together with the ECR<\/strong>, the far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE),<\/strong> the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN),<\/strong> and the extreme left (Left)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although the motion did not pass<\/strong> (the majority won<\/a> with 48 votes to 32 and one abstention), the move by the\u00a0Greens<\/em> produced a political shakeup<\/strong> among the forces\u00a0supposed to be allies in Strasbourg. From the Populars<\/strong> came immediate accusations about the formation of “ new, unprecedented alliances of the extreme fringes with the Greens<\/strong>,” from which “only Euroskeptic parties benefit.” These were the words of German Christian Ehler<\/strong>, who called the attitude of environmentalists “extremely surprising.”<\/p>\n

The environmentalists wasted no time in responding: “This arrogance of power<\/strong> is remarkable,” said Michael Bloss<\/strong>, Ehler’s compatriot, adding that “anyone who now believes that the Greens are sitting at the cat’s table and are voting cattle has got it all wrong,” a colorful expression to emphasize that Christian Democrats cannot expect support from environmentalists without offering them anything in return<\/strong>. “Green votes are cast when the rules of procedure are observed and when we are involved in decisions, otherwise not,” he added.<\/p>\n

It was hardly\u00a0an exemplary demonstration of mutual trust<\/strong> among the partners in the enlarged majority governing the European Parliament. Yet trust will be crucial in the coming weeks\u00a0as\u00a0the parliamentary hearings of the commissioners-designate of\u00a0<\/strong>the 27 member states come into full swing: in this\u00a0stage, the political groups in the hemicycle’s various committees will have to\u00a0decide which candidates to approve\u00a0and which to reject<\/strong>, and from this challenging process, the outline\u00a0of the new von der Leyen College will emerge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0at least six commissioners-designates will have\u00a0to pass<\/a>\u00a0through ITRE: Finland’s Henna Virkkunen<\/strong> (executive vice-president designate for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy), France’s St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9<\/strong> (executive vice-president designate for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy), the Netherlands’ Wopke Hoekstra<\/strong> (commissioner designate for Climate Carbon Neutrality and Clean Growth), Lithuania’s Andrius Kubilius<\/strong> (commissioner-designate for Defense and Space), Denmark’s Dan J\u00f8rgensen<\/strong> (commissioner-designate for Energy and Housing), and Bulgaria’s Ekaterina Zaharieva<\/strong> (commissioner-designate for Startups, Research and Innovation).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crucial to Ursula von der Leyen’s reappointment, the environmentalists were left out of the distribution of certain positions in the House’s 10th term. Out of spite, they joined forces with the extremes of the political spectrum against their pro-European partners but failed to block the appointments at the center of the clash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":394164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[28455,25822,26643,29206,28347,28353,28379,26680],"class_list":["post-394197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-europe-of-nations-sovereign-en","tag-parliament-en","tag-party-popular-european-en","tag-itre-committee","tag-patrioti-per-leuropa-en","tag-patriots-for-europepatriots-for-europe","tag-la-sinistra-en","tag-value-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394197"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394637,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394197\/revisions\/394637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}