.jpg)
Commission president, who is seeking another term,
took aim at group that includes AfD and National Rally in pre-election debate
Jennifer
Rankin in Brussels
Mon 29 Apr
2024 22.38 CEST
The
European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, has criticised the far
right as “Putin’s proxies”, while refusing to rule out working with other
rightwing nationalists, as campaigning began ahead of June’s European
elections.
Von der
Leyen is seeking a second five-year term leading the commission, in the looming
reshuffle of EU top jobs that follows the European elections.
At a debate
in Maastricht on Monday with rivals from across the political spectrum, von der
Leyen went on the attack against the far-right Identity and Democracy group in
the European parliament, which unites France’s National Rally, the Alternative
für Deutschland (AfD) and the Danish People’s party.
The ID
group is expected to make significant gains in the pan-European vote on 6-9
June and could even become the third largest force, threatening key EU policies
such as support for Ukraine, climate action and enlargement.
Addressing
the far-right representative Danish People’s party’s Anders Vistisen, von der
Leyen accused his allies in the AfD of being supporters of Russia’s president,
Vladimir Putin, saying their electoral programme echoed “the lies and
propaganda of Putin”.
“It is very
important that we should not be distracted from the real problem: and these are
the proxies of Putin who try to destroy from within with disinformation and
polarisation. And we see an example here tonight,” von der Leyen said,
gesturing to Vistisen.
But the
commission president was far more guarded about closing down alliances with the
hardline conservative European Conservatives and Reformists group, which unites
Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, Poland’s Law
and Justice party and Spain’s far-right Vox party. “It depends very much on how
the composition of the parliament is and who is in what group,” von der Leyen
said.
The ECR,
which did not send anyone to the Maastricht debate, has described the EU’s
green deal as sometimes “dogmatic, anti-economic and antisocial”.
Von der
Leyen’s centre-right European People’s party is forecast to remain the largest
force in the European parliament, followed by the Party of European Socialists
in an election where the centre-left and Greens are both expected to lose
ground.
While eight
candidates taking part in the debate have declared an interest in leading the
European Commission, von der Leyen is the only one with a serious shot at the
job.
During the
90-minute debate, she showed a more impassioned side than her usual scripted
public persona, especially when it came to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the
Israel-Gaza war.
She
criticised a suggestion from radical left candidate Walter Baier that the
Ukraine war could end if both sides negotiated. “I am getting tired of hearing
that,” she said, noting she had been seven times to Ukraine and had seen the
body bags at Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces.
“If you want to end this war Putin just has to stop fighting and then the war
is over.”
Turning to
the war in Gaza, where she faced criticism from the left over the EU’s stance
on Israel, she said Israel had the “right to defend itself within the limits of
humanitarian law and international law”, adding that it was “unbearable” and
“unacceptable” to see how many innocent civilians were dying, especially
children.
Defending
her record on the EU’s green deal, she also hit back at the Green’s lead
candidate, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout, who accused the commission of “lowering
green standards” after it withdrew a proposal to cut pesticide use and watered
down nature protection measures, following farmer protests.
“Instead of
pushing hard to polarise I would invite you to listen to this dialogue,” she
said to Eickhout, raising a question about how far she intends to court Green
MEPs for support.
EU leaders
will ultimately choose the next European Commission president, but that person
will need the support of a majority of MEPs. In an attempt to wrest control
over that appointment, the European parliament favours the so-called
spitzenkandidaten system, where Europe’s political parties present their
choices to lead the EU executive.
In 2019 at
the behest of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, EU leaders side-stepped the
spitzenkandidaten process, passing over the EPP’s victorious lead candidate
Manfred Weber, in favour of von der Leyen, who had not taken part in any of the
pre-election debates or even declared herself interested in the job.
She
subsequently became commission president, after winning support from a
coalition spanning the centre-right, centre-left, liberals and greens in the
European parliament.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário