By Kate Abnett and Marta Fiorin
STRASBOURG (Reuters) – Ursula von der Leyen’s political fate will be decided on Thursday, when the European Parliament chooses whether to elect or reject her for another five-year term as president of the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive body.
The vote will determine if there is continuity in the European Union’s key institution at a time of external and internal challenges – including mounting support for far-right and eurosceptic political parties across the 27-nation bloc.
With no obvious alternative candidate, von der Leyen’s supporters have framed the vote as a choice between stability and chaos, as her rejection would create political deadlock.
“It would be seen to be rolling out the carpet for the far-right,” said Sean Kelly, an EU lawmaker from von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party group, of the possibility that the parliament rejects her.
Von der Leyen, 65, will set out her plans for a second term in a speech on Thursday morning, building on a first mandate in which she oversaw the world’s biggest package of climate change policies, an 800-billion-euro ($875 billion) EU response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 14 rounds of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Even among critics, there is little appetite to create a leadership vacuum in Europe months ahead of November’s U.S. Presidential election, where a victory for Republican Donald Trump could upend western unity on supporting Ukraine.
But the numbers remain tight.
Von der Leyen, a mother of seven and the first woman to head the Commission, needs support from at least 361 lawmakers in the 720-member EU Parliament.
The three centrist groups expected to support her have a total of 401 lawmakers. But some are expected to defect and oppose her in the secret ballot.
To pass comfortably, she may need support from parts of the 78-strong European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) or the Greens’ 53 lawmakers.
“We need that message that we are building on the current Green Deal and that there’s no backtracking,” Bas Eickhout, co-chair of the Green lawmaker group said, of its conditions for supporting her.
Von der Leyen’s speech will reveal what concessions lawmakers have squeezed out of her during weeks of intense negotiations. Neither the Green nor ECR groups have yet confirmed they will back her.
ECR lawmaker Dominik Tarczyński said the group’s 18 Polish members would vote “no”.
“She made decisions which are terrible for the European Union: migration, Green Deal, trade with China,” he told Reuters.
EU lawmakers cast their ballots at 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) in Strasbourg, France.
If von der Leyen fails, EU country leaders will have one month to suggest another candidate – likely delaying the launch of the new European Commission, which is responsible for proposing new EU policies, until 2025.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
