EU Politics Decoded - The centrist dilemma: A powerful Europe for a conservative approach?

By Magnus Lund Nielsen

Welcome to EU Politics Decoded, your essential guide for staying up to date and receiving exclusive insights on the backroom dealings of the Brussels bubble. My name is Magnus Lund Nielsen, I am Euractiv’s new politics reporter, writing to you from sunny Strasbourg. Subscribe to EU Politics Decoded here.

In today’s edition

As Ursula von der Leyen got re-elected for another five years at the helm of the European Commission, centre-left political forces might get a more powerful Europe for the price of a more conservative approach.

In a welcome break from Brussels clouds, the sun shone brightly as 720 newly-elected members of the European parliament (MEPs), plus staff and journalists, descended on Strasbourg Tuesday 16 July, for the European Parliament’s inaugural session – to elect its own leadership, and more importantly, to vote on von der Leyen’s second term as head of the Commission.

Having settled in, and finding their way around the labyrinthine architecture of the Parliament’s Louse-Weiss building, MEPs gathered on Thursday for the showdown, after a month of deliberations over von der Leyen’s political fate.

Through von der Leyen’s first term, the former German defence minister tried navigating the bloc through a series of crises. She oversaw five tumultuous years where many a political taboo vanished as an EU approach to both defence and health policy, was no longer a fringe idea of the federalist part of the hemicycle.

Von der Leyen struck pragmatic tone ahead of vote

Ahead of today’s vote, von der Leyen presented her political priorities in a speech to the European Parliament.

Her political programme, also published online, sought to hit a sober tone, paying tribute to the wish lists of all the four parties expressing support for her re-election. These include the three groupings that supported her initial mandate, the centre-right EPP, socialist S&D, and centrist Renew Europe – as well as the Greens.

The pledge of notably the Greens to sit at the table and have four-way negotiations to form a ‘real’ coalition, never materialised. The initiative remained firmly in the hands of von der Leyen, who reached out personally to each group.

With von der Leyen reappointed, the work paid off. The guidelines she presented qualified as a package deal, struck between the centrist alliance plus the Greens, to ensure that ‘VDL’ gets well across the line, even with some MEPs in the coalition voting against her.

It remains, however, to be seen if the coalition behind her re-appointment will stick together beyond the final votes on Parliament’s leadership next week.

New political reality descends come September

It would be fair to expect a change of tone from von der Leyen after this week’s plenary.

Euractiv has noticed a disconnect between von der Leyen’s pragmatic centrist tone in the legislative chamber today, and other messaging from the Commission in recent months. Recently, Euractiv covered the apparent rapprochement of member states and the Commission on the question of externalisation of migration policies.

Furthermore, although von der Leyen made little mention of the controversial ban on combustion engines on Thursady, her political family, the EPP, has made no secret of the ambitions to revise the legislation.

Thursday’s vote is testament to the fact that the groupings backing von der Leyen are divided. Green sources told Euractiv that around 45 of the groups 53 members voted for her. As the centrist coalition boasts a combined 401 members, around 10% must have voted against to bring the tally to 401 in favour of von der Leyen’s re-election, including the Greens.

Although a package deal was reached between parties in the centrist alliance and the Greens, right-wing forces are poised to capitalise on political issues dividing the coalition parties.

Cordon sanitaire alive and kicking – somewhat

This week votes on parliament leadership have proven that the cordon sanitaire, the gentleman’s agreement among centrist parties not to include fringe forces on either end of the political spectrum – namely new far-right groupings Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations – is indeed still holding.

But sources within all the four coalition parties have also confirmed that Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right ECR group is not so firmly in the bad column as per the last mandate. Parts of ECR, including Nordic and Czech members are seen as acceptable to some centrist and left-wing forces.

With coalition parties divided and a cordon sanitaire fuzzier than ever, the truce between pro-European groupings could be short-lived, paving the way for a more powerful, yet more conservative, EU in the years to come.

Part-time commissioner, part-time bouncer: The Patriots for Europe group is floating the idea of an EU commissioner for remigration. Speaking to Euractiv, Anders Vistisen, newly appointed chief whip of the now third-largest group in the Parliament, said: “As we see it, there is a gaping hole in the migration pact – if you don’t touch the right to spontaneous asylum, it’s really difficult to stop human trafficking.”

Austrian idea, Danish push, Patriot line. The proposal to create a separate portfolio originally came from the Austrian far-right FPÖ. Now the Patriots collectively suggest to create a position to oversee that migrants without permission to stay in the EU, leave. Anders Vistisen, a Danish national, said: “The pact fails because it doesn’t use the tools that have proven to work in the Danish context – tough conditionality. In reality, the EU has some strong tools to use when dealing with these third countries. You have the whole visa system, we have a good amount of development aid that we can play with, and then we have other instruments – trade policy, for example. And if you’re not prepared to use these instruments, you’re not going to get very far with forced deportations to third countries. That’s why the EU needs a commissioner responsible.”

Left last-minute jab at von der Leyen. At the last minute, yesterday evening, the German far-left Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) urged the European parliament to postpone the election of the President of the EU Commission, in a letter seen by Euractiv. The party of six MEPs argued that Wednesday’s ruling of the General Court of the EU, criticising the restriction of access to COVID-19 vaccine purchase contracts, needed to be taken into account before voting. The election should be postponed “until the documents and information that have been unlawfully withheld to date have been disclosed,” the letter reads. In a similar, unsuccessful fashion, The Left group tabled a motion to postpone the vote, seeking “the assessment of the Parliament’s legal services on whether the vote tomorrow should be adjourned until the relevant documents have been disclosed by the European Commission.”

The initiative was met with applause from both the far-left and the far-right in the hemicycle, with 101 MEPs supporting the motion unsuccessfully.

Package deal unpacked. According to sources close to the negotiations, the deal between the political leaders of the centrist alliance and the Greens distributed several positions among the political families.

These included a vice-precidency of the Parliament for S&D, a questor for Renew, the chairmanship of the Culture and Education (CULT) committee for the Greens and one chairmanship of the Transport committee (TRAN) for EPP.

Next steps? Talking to journalists in the wake of the vote, co-president of the Greens, Bas Eickhout was reluctant to predict how commissioner candidates will fare in the Parliament. “Now we have to look at the Commissioners (…) we want to see that [the four party majority] is reflected in the college of commissioners. (…) It’s a super important step we have taken today, but there’s a lot of important work that needs to be done after the summer,” concluded Eickhout.

If you’d like to contact me for tips, comments, and/or feedback, drop me a line at magnus.lundnielsen@euractiv.com
[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/René Moerland/Zoran Radosavljevic/Rajnish Singh]