Top job on top jobs? Von der Leyen’s difficult week – UK in a changing Europe

With Ursula von der Leyen facing a vote in the European Parliament this week to secure a second term as President of the Commission, Simon Usherwood explores the implications and why it is proving such a difficult balancing act.

One of the regular features in the life of the European Union (EU) is the allocation of key leadership roles. Every five years, on the back of European Parliament (EP) elections, prime ministers and presidents from the member states gather to decide who gets what top job in the Commission, the European Council, and the EU’s External Action Service. The people they select become the faces of the EU as well as putting their own stamp on politics and policies.

Another feature of this process is that it never runs smoothly. And so it is proving again now.

On Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen faces a vote in the European Parliament to secure a second term as President of the Commission.  She already has the backing of member states – alongside Antonio Costa as President of the European Council and Kaja Kallas as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – but unlike them she also has to get the support of a majority of MEPs. This vote has been part of the appointment process since the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and is a prelude to the Parliament’s approval of the College of Commissioners as a whole, including the High Representative.

The difficulties for von der Leyen were already apparent at last month’s discussions between member states. The three names had emerged early on as an appropriate balance and spread of political groups and geographies, the result of a small negotiating circle of six member state leaders (including Olaf Scholz and Emanuel Macron) themselves from the political centre. However, the results of the EP elections threw a spanner in the works. The relative success of the radical right, their exclusion from the earlier negotiations, and the poor performance of government parties in France and Germany led to demands from  some – led by Italy’s Georgia Meloni – for a reworking of the package.

While those demands ultimately failed as the blocking minority wasn’t big enough, Meloni’s non-endorsement of the deal has been an important factor in complicating von der Leyen’s vote.

Back in 2019, von der Leyen built a coalition of support in the Parliament from the political centre: the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP; of which she is a member), the Socialists & Democrats and the smaller liberal Renew group. This was just enough to get her across the line, with a majority of nine votes.

^{Source: Simon Hix}

The poor performance of the liberals in last month’s election – especially in France – make that coalition numerically more difficult, even before von der Leyen’s record in office is taken into account. And her pursuit of more restrictive policies on migration and asylum, as well as backtracking on green issues have been a particular source of tension with those on the left.

Already, some national delegations within each of the three groups have indicated they will not vote for von der Leyen this time, a development recently reinforced by her discussions with the more right wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). While there are various areas of policy  overlap between the EPP and the ECR, the other groups that previously supported von der Leyen want to prevent the ECR getting a say on such a key decision, since several of its members openly question the rule of law and the EU itself.

Von der Leyen therefore faces a difficult balancing act of trying to pick up some support from ECR members, without losing votes from the Socialists, even as she also courts Green MEPs while not imperilling more environmentally-sceptical elements within her own EPP.

The tightness of the vote has encouraged all groups to press for more of their agendas to be taken on board by the Commission that she might lead. And since that Commission also needs the approval of Parliament, there is a powerful mechanism for everyone to ensure she sticks to her word.

The absence of a clear alternative candidate and the consequential shove from national leaders not to unpick the broader top jobs package means that von der Leyen is likely to find her way through the vote, but it does raise questions about the process itself.

Ten years ago, the Parliament tried to regain the upper hand by first proposing and then following through on the Spitzenkandidaten system. Each Parliament group nominated a lead candidate in the elections, on the understanding the groups would support the candidate of the group with the most seats as the Commission President. It was on this basis that Jean-Claude Juncker was duly installed.

But while the relative unity of 2014 forced member states to follow the Parliament’s lead, it also meant that five years later, they pushed back, imposing von der Leyen as an external candidate. This was partly justified as a way through a broader blockage of job allocations. But there were also concerns that the nominal parliamentary Spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber, wasn’t of a suitable calibre for such a high-profile job.

This time around, the Spitzenkandidaten model has been even weaker, with von der Leyen parachuting into the slot as the EPP’s ‘candidate’ with nothing more than some cursory campaigning.

At a time when the EU claims to be putting more effort into connecting with citizens and trying to demonstrate its accountability – a big driver of the Conference on the Future of Europe held in 2020-3 – this backwards step on the link between the outcome of the elections and who’s in the Commission driving seat looks rather perverse. It does, however, reflect the extent to which the EU remains an organisation where member states continue to hold the ultimate levers of power, at both a constitutional and political level.

This said, even if von der Leyen is returned to her Brussels office, the fallout from this process is likely to follow her for the next five years. With questions still hanging over her interactions with Pfizer over Covid vaccine purchases and her release of EU funding to Hungary, she might find the coming year to become politically challenging even without the hearings for new Commissioners in the autumn.

As the key representative of the EU’s collective interest, the Commission President has to be both involved in party politics and above it, something that von der Leyen has tested at times, especially in her handling of migration and green issues. It remains to be seen whether the groups in the European Parliament are more comfortable upsetting the top jobs deal or handling the most overtly political Commission President in the EU’s history for another five years.

By Simon Usherwood, Professor of Politics and International Studies at The Open University, and Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.