Editor’s Take: The von der Leyen supremacy By most accounts, Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday (13 September), the last before next June’s European elections, was a success. Pointing to the EU’s Green Deal, a multi-billion euro financial rescue plan following the COVID pandemic, and response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission president made a sales pitch for a second term without resorting to crude electioneering. The Brussels bubble has been waiting months to learn whether von der Leyen would seek a second term or opt instead for pastures new, potentially as NATO secretary general. It is now 99% certain that she will seek another term. But the campaign for the Commission presidency next year may be over before it starts. A second term for von der Leyen might be good for continuity and stability in the EU executive. After a mandate dominated by the crafting of over 30 pieces of legislation on the Green Deal, von der Leyen mach two would be a technocrat administration implementing that programme. For those who want the battle for the EU top jobs to be more political and based on election results, a shoo-in for von der Leyen would be disappointing. The EPP and Socialist groups will select Spitzenkandidaten, though it is hard to imagine that they will do more than go through the motions. In Germany, the coalition agreement for the traffic light government led by the socialists has a provision that it will support a candidate from an opposition party if they are the Commission president. All roads point to another von der Leyen presidency. Shortly after von der Leyen’s speech, a group of MEPs gave a press conference about their plans for the Parliament to push member states to agree to a convention to reform EU treaties. However, the momentum towards treaty change that existed two years ago appears to have been completely extinguished as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given governments an excuse to kick the can. The most obvious treaty reform would be to expand the EU’s competences on cross-border health policy, learning one of the lessons from the COVID pandemic. More ambitious items on the wishlist would be to move to qualified majority voting on foreign policy – making it easier for the EU to impose sanctions, for example – and, even more ambitious, to create a eurozone treasury and finance minister. Relegating the debate on treaty reform to a couple of sentences near the end of her hour-long address, the Commission president poured a bucket of cold water over it. “If and when” treaty change is wanted, she would support it. Towards the end of her speech, von der Leyen looked up from her script, addressing “Honourable Member States” rather than the “Honourable Members (MEPs)” in front of her. It was a Freudian slip and a telling one. The results of the European Parliament elections will now probably not determine the Commission’s presidency. That might be good for the machinery of EU governance but not necessarily for the institutions’ democratic deficit. | 