Von der Leyen faces Socialist revolt over her
far-right flirtation with Meloni
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social
Democratic Party are warning they could torpedo a second von der Leyen term.
High-ranking Socialists are threatening to scuttle
Urusla von der Leyen's candidacy if she accepts the backing of Giorgia Meloni
and the hard right. |
MAY 27,
2024 12:39 PM CET
BY GORDON
REPINSKI, JAKOB HANKE VELA, ŠEJLA AHMATOVIĆ, JULIUS BRINKMANN AND JÜRGEN
KLÖCKNER
Europe’s
Socialists have warned Ursula von der Leyen they won’t back her for a second
term as European Commission president if she continues to suggest she could
work with hard-right MEPs aligned with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Perhaps
most crucially — just as French President Emmanuel Macron visits Germany to try
to forge Franco-German consensus on Europe’s political landscape after the June
6 to 9 election — even Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democratic Party
are signaling that they are willing to torpedo a second term for von der Leyen.
Some even
have a replacement in mind: former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. And
that’s a choice that will go down well in Paris.
In multiple
comments over recent days, high-ranking Socialists including Scholz and the SPD
lead candidate for next month’s EU election Katarina Barley threatened to
scuttle von der Leyen’s candidacy if she accepts the backing of the hard right
to secure a majority in the European Parliament.
“We will
not work with the far right,” Barley said on the Berlin Playbook podcast,
reiterating the pledge made by the Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe, the
Greens and the Left to “never cooperate nor form a coalition with the far right
and radical parties at any level.”
The comment
was the latest sign of the left-leaning parties’ alarm at von der Leyen’s
stance on Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which belongs to the right-wing
European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament.
Von der
Leyen, who hails from the center-right European People’s Party, has indicated
that if she fails to secure a majority with the backing of center-left and
liberal lawmakers after the EU election, she could work with the ECR.
On Friday,
Scholz warned von der Leyen against such a move, saying: “When the next
Commission is formed, it must not be based on a majority that also needs the
support of the far right.” He added that “the only way to establish a
Commission presidency will be to base it on the traditional parties.”
Putting the
boot in further, Nicolas Schmit, the Socialists’ lead candidate for the EU
election, said in an interview published Sunday: “Von der Leyen wants us to
believe that there are good right-wing extremists and bad ones.”
Meloni is
“politically extremely right wing” and her vision is “certainly not a strong,
integrated Europe,” Schmit said. “For Ms. von der Leyen, however, she is
probably a conservative.”
The
questions now are whether Scholz and his German Socialists would actually
kibosh a second term for fellow German von der Leyen — and who they might have
in mind to replace her.
One
potential challenger to the incumbent is Draghi, the former European Central
Bank chief.
Just last
week, Draghi received the backing of one of Emmanuel Macron’s closest allies,
Pascal Canfin, an MEP from the French president’s liberal Renaissance party who
is known to have a direct line to the Élysée.
Asked by
POLITICO whether France supports von der Leyen’s reelection bid, Canfin said:
“France and everyone in the presidential ecosystem would like Draghi to play a
role.”
Macron has
long been rumored to be maneuvering to put Draghi at the head of the EU
executive — and now he appears to have allies in Berlin.
Markus
Töns, a German MP from the Social Democrats, told POLITICO’s Brussels Decoded:
“Draghi has experience at the European level and knows the current challenges.
I would have no problem seeing him in this position — he might even be better
than Ursula von der Leyen.”
Ralf
Stegner, an influential SPD member of the Bundestag, on Friday said: “If
Emmanuel Macron is critical of another term for Ursula von der Leyen, who lacks
sufficient clarity regarding alliances with the right-wing bloc, I have every
sympathy for him.”
With both
Paris and Berlin expressing dissatisfaction with her stance on working with the
ECR, von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as Commission chief faces a serious
challenge.
While von
der Leyen is the EPP’s lead candidate going into the EU election, in theory
making her a shoo-in for the post, she will require support from European
leaders like Scholz, Macron and Meloni to secure it.
The
electoral arithmetic is difficult as she will need 361 votes in an approval
vote in the European Parliament, and the EPP is on course only for some 176
seats. The Socialists and Democrats are expected to win 144 and von der Leyen’s
prospects will be in severe trouble if the center-left MEPs do not support her.
If they do
decide to forgo EPP lead candidate von der Leyen in favor of a curveball, it
wouldn’t be the first time: That was precisely the way von der Leyen herself
got the job after the 2019 EU election, installed after leaders shunned the
EPP’s Manfred Weber.
Macron is
currently in Germany for the first state visit with full ceremonial honors by a
French president in 24 years. Macron will meet Scholz in Berlin on Tuesday.
It’s hard
to believe there won’t be any mention of the electoral mathematics — and of
Meloni and Draghi.
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