© REUTERS/Michael Kappeler/Pool

Ursula von der Leyen, the German defense minister nominated last week to become the next President of the European Commission, will face the most important vote of her life on Tuesday when members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg decide whether to confirm her. The day will start at 9 a.m. with her candidacy speech, followed by a morning of debate and then a vote in the evening.

A rough week of meetings with the broad spectrum of political groups in the parliament has shown just how uncertain this vote’s result is.

Because of the circumstances surrounding her appointment, she can count on the support of her own center-right European People’s Party (EPP) group. She can also likely count on the support of most of the new Renew Europe group made up of President Emmanuel Macron’s French MEPs and the Liberals, because Liberal Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has been appointed for the separate position of European Council President as part of the package.

But between the two of them those two groups can only deliver, at most, 290 votes—well short of the 376 votes needed for a majority in the parliament. This means the votes of other parties will be necessary, and those parties all reacted negatively to meetings this week in which von der Leyen tried to win their support.

Yesterday, the European Greens announced after meeting her that they cannot support von der Leyen, because she failed to deliver convincing answers on increasing the EU’s ambition on fighting climate change or cracking down on rule of law violations in Hungary and Poland. Today the far-left GUE group came to the same conclusion, for similar reasons. That leaves the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group as the only one that can save her nomination. They have 153 members.

The S&D say they will render their verdict on Monday—one day before the scheduled vote. But confirming her would be a bitter pill for these center-left MEPs to swallow.

Socialist Fury

That the S&D will be the determining vote is not good news for von der Leyen. The center-left MEPs are still furious over her appointment, both because she was not one of the Spitzenkandidaten(“lead candidates”) campaigning for the job ahead of the election, and because the center-left was given a slap in the facein the package of appointments, picking up no new positions.

At the start of last week’s marathon European Council talks on choosing the next commission president, a package was on the table that would have seen the S&D SpitzenkandidatFrans Timmermans getting the top job, with the EPP getting Council President and the Liberals High Representative for Foreign Affairs. But that package was fiercely resistedby Hungary and Poland because of Timmermans’ rule of law investigations against them, and they were backed by center-right leaders of countries including Ireland and Bulgaria who demanded that the presidency should stay in the hands of the EPP, which has held it for 15 years.

It was a solution which would have seen a long-awaited change in political direction at the top of the EU while at the same time honoring the new method of democratizing how the EU’s president is chosen. That it was shot down because of a combination of center-right political ambition and right-wing bullying has infuriated center-left MEPs, who now feel that they have two good reasons to reject von der Leyen regardless of her merits as a candidate.

Under the Spitzenkandidatsystem, advocated by the parliament but resisted by the European Council of 28 national leaders, the political groups put forward lead candidates for Commission President ahead of the election. Those candidates campaigned across Europe and held debates with each other. The idea was to give voters a choice, with the candidate who was able to garner a majority in the European Parliament getting the job. It was used for the first time in 2014 to appoint Jean-Claude Juncker, the EPP’s lead candidate.

The EPP, S&D, Greens, and GUE all said before the election they would reject anyone nominated by the council who was not a Spitzenkandidat during the campaign, and this threat was reaffirmed in statements from the main groups shortly after the election. The latter two have made good on this threat, while the EPP has retreated from it. What is not yet known is whether the S&D will also back down.

Euroskeptics Are Saying “No”

The right-wing euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group could be a wild card in this vote. The ECR is no friend of the Spitzenkandidatprocess, viewing it as an attempt to give the EU the trappings of a democratic state rather than a free trade zone. The ECR has also said it will not render its verdict until Monday, after a meeting in which Polish members pressed von der Leyen on whether she would pursue rule of law violations as aggressively as Timmermans has. Perhaps mindful of what happened to the Dutchman, her answer was, essentially, no.

Hard-right MEPs from Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) now make up the largest contingent of the ECR group. But despite her suggestion that she will go easy on Poland, the ECR MEPs are concerned about her past statements regarding federalism, in which she said she wants a “United States of Europe” and to pool EU militaries together.

Following the ECR’s meeting with von der Leyen on Tuesday, Polish MEP Zdzisław Krasnodębski suggested that his group would only vote for her if they received the committee chairmanships they wanted in votes on Wednesday. But thanks to a cordon sanitaire around the euroskeptics formed by the parliament’s mainstream parties, the ECR was blocked from receiving positions. This makes it highly unlikely they will vote for von der Leyen.

Even if they did vote for her, it would not be enough to save her nomination. The group has been greatly reduced since May’s European elections saw the decimation of the British Conservatives, who set up the group in 2009. The ECR now have only 62 members, short of the 86 votes needed to fill the gap.

The remaining 128 MEPs, made up of the far-right euroskeptic Identity and Democracy group of Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini as well as mostly euroskeptic unaffiliated MEPs such as the Brexit Party, are almost certain to vote against any nominee for Commission President.

In short, there are few avenues to victory for von der Leyen, and avenues are getting smaller in number by the day. If S&D decides to reject her, but the EPP, RE, and ECR groups all support her, and she can pick up 24 votes from rebel S&D MEPs or independent members, then she could squeak by.

Confirmation Delayed?

With the margins so tight and the uncertainty so high, what now seems more likely is that Tuesday’s vote will be delayed until September. Both MEPs and national leaders will want to be sure there is a potential Plan B candidate at the ready in the event of a parliament rejection, and right now there is no such person. Worryingly, any majority to defeat von der Leyen is reliant on the ”no” votes of the far-right euroskeptics. Given they will vote “no” on anyone, such a majority is not capable of voting for any alternative candidate.

A two-month delay, however, only increases the chances of von der Leyen’s eventual rejection. If MEPs know a plan B has been arranged, then they will have less reservations about throwing the EU into a potential constitutional crisis.

The post Von der Leyen Is in Trouble appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

The 28 national leaders in the European Council have made their choice for the next European Commission president: German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen. But she will still need to be approved by the European Parliament. And with MEPs angry over the Spitzenkandidat process being abandoned, this is very much in doubt.

The choice came after three straight days of protracted and tense negotiations. The process of appointing the EU’s top jobs for the next five-year term was made more complicated by the fractured result of May’s European Parliament election. For the first time, the main center-right and center-left political groups, the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES), did not win enough seats to form a majority between them. That complicated the usual division of the spoils between Europe’s two main blocs.

The conflict was not only political, it was also institutional. For the second time, the so-called “Spitzenkandidat process“ was used in this year’s European elections—a system by which the political groups put forward lead candidates for Commission President ahead of the election. Those candidates campaigned across Europe and held debates with each other. The idea was to give voters a choice, with the candidate who was able to garner a majority in the European Parliament getting the job.

But the European Council, the body of the EU’s 28 national leaders, has never been a fan of this system. It takes power away from them and hands it over to the European Parliament. When it was used for the first time in 2014, it was strongly opposed by British Prime Minister David Cameron. But given the UK’s lack of influence in the EU, Cameron’s vote against Juncker was simply ignored. This time around, it was French President Emmanuel Macron who came out strongly against the system. He was even able to convince the ALDE group of Liberals in the European Parliament to come out against it also, as a condition for him taking his En Marche MEPs into an alliance with them.

An Idle Threat?

A majority of MEPs in the European Parliament had threatened to reject anyone nominated by the council who was not a Spitzenkandidat during the campaign, and this threat was reaffirmed in statements from the main groups shortly after the election.

One of the elements that caused the delay in the council’s deliberations (this was in fact the third summit to discuss the issue held since the elections) was the question among EU leaders over whether the parliament would make good on its threat. For most of the negotiations on Sunday and Monday the leaders discussed a package devised by Merkel and Macron that would see Frans Timmermans, the candidate of the PES, become Commission President. But moderate EPP leaders such as Ireland’s Leo Varadkar opposed Timmermans—together with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, whose Fidesz party is presently suspended by the EPP, and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki—demanding that the position stay under EPP control. It is a sign of Merkel’s waning power that she was not able to contain this rebellion within her political family.

And so, the council moved on to other ideas. According to EU sources, it was Macron who first suggested Ursula von der Leyen as a compromise, an idea which was quickly embraced by Hungary and Poland. As part of the package, the Council Presidency will pass from the EPP to the Liberals with Belgium’s Charles Michel and Christine Lagarde, a center-right former French finance minister and current head of the International Monetary Fund, will become the new president of the European Central Bank.

Though the European Parliament President is usually the fifth job in the horse-trading mix, this year the council leaders announced they would graciously let MEPs decide for themselves who they would like to be their president. It was perhaps a gesture meant to mollify the anticipated anger of MEPs at having the Spitzenkandidat system killed.

But even this gesture was undermined when, during her press conference, Angela Merkel said she “advised” the parliament to choose a center-left MEP to give political balance. The parliament dutifully obliged today, with center-right and center-left MEPs voting to confirm Italian Social Democrat David Sassoli as Parliament President for the next half-term.

The outcome was a foregone conclusion from the start, because the EPP’s Commission President nominee Manfred Weber withdrew from the parliament race yesterday, leaving the EPP with no candidate. This is the same outcome as in 2014, when German Social Democrat Martin Schulz was made president for the first half of the last term.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, and the ball is now in the parliament’s court. Will it make good on its threats, or back down? The latter would result in a significant loss of its credibility as an institution. Why should anyone believe threats the parliamentarians make in the future?

EPP MEPs are sure to vote to confirm von der Leyen, along with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, dominated by the Polish. The Liberals are also likely to back the package. But that is not enough for a majority. If the PES teams with the far-left GUE group and the Greens to vote no, combined with the presumed no votes of the euroskeptic and far-right MEPs, this would be enough to reject von der Leyen.

Promises, Promises

Outgoing Council President Donald Tusk will travel to Strasbourg on Thursday, and he will be in damage control mode. He will have to offer a concession to MEPs in exchange for them swallowing their pride and conceding defeat on the Spitzenkandidat system. That could possibly be done by promising that a new system for democratically choosing the EU Commission President will be invented before the next EU elections in 2021.

Perhaps they will take up Macron’s idea of establishing trans-national lists, putting the presidential candidates on the ballots across Europe. The existing system mirrors parliamentary democracies, where a vote for the political group implies a vote for that group’s leader.

The confirmation vote is set to take place at the second parliament plenary session in Strasbourg in mid-July. There will be intensive talks among MEPs until then to discuss how to respond to this institutional insult.

The post Institutional War appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Virginia Mayo/Pool via REUTERS

At the start of Sunday’s extraordinary summit to choose the next European Commission President, it looked like Frans Timmermans was the man to beat.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had negotiated a compromise for the EU’s package of top jobs on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan days before. The plan, crafted with France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, would see Timmermans, the candidate of the center-left Party of European Socialists (PES), get the commission presidency.

The candidate of her center-right European Peoples Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, would be consigned to splitting the presidency of the European Parliament between himself and Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt. It would be a humiliating blow for him, given that the role is similar to the Speaker of the House in the United Kingdom, and has little political power.

As compensation, the EPP would get the presidency of the European Council. The High Representative for Foreign Affairs would be a liberal.

The result would have been a significant concession from the EPP, which has held the commission presidency for the last 15 years. But it was one that acknowledged that, though it came first in the European elections of May 26, the EPP has fallen a long way from its iron grip on power in Europe over the past two decades. As Macron had noted, it is time for a new direction in European leadership.

Revolt of the Prime Ministers

However, Merkel’s fellow leaders in the EPP didn’t agree. When the plan was presented to a pre-summit meeting of the EU’s eight EPP prime ministers, they revolted.

The most vociferous objection came from Viktor Orbán, as expected. His Fidesz government in Hungary—like the Law and Justice (PiS) government in Poland—has come in for sharp criticism from Timmermans for rule of law violations. As Vice President of the European Commission over the past five years, Timmermans has been in charge of infraction procedures against both countries. This has made him the object of vilification there.

Between them, Poland and Hungary could not have stopped the multilingual Dutch Social Democrat from becoming president, since the vote requires a qualified majority rather than unanimity. Even if they had been joined in their objections by their “Visegrád Four” allies Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and even with Italy voting against as well (Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has sharply criticized Timmermans), it would not have been enough to defeat him.

What ended up sinking Merkel’s “Osaka plan” was not the far-right in Hungary, Poland and Italy. It was instead the more centrist leaders of Ireland, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Latvia. They balked, saying such an arrangement made it seem as if the EPP had come third in the election, when they had in fact won. They would not countenance letting the commission presidency slip from the EPP’s grip.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was, surprisingly, the most vocal in his objections. “The vast majority of the EPP prime ministers don’t believe that we should give up the presidency of the commission quite so easily, without a fight,” he said upon entering the summit on Sunday night, following the contentious EPP pre-meeting. He went on to suggest sympathy for the positions of Hungary and Poland, saying that choosing Timmermans could exacerbate “divisions between East and West.”

“Everything Went Wrong”

The 28 leaders then dived into 15 straight hours of negotiations, before it became clear that the Osaka plan wasn’t going to work. At noon on Monday, Council President Donald Tusk abruptly adjourned the discussions, saying the leaders would reconvene at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, July 2.

The recalcitrance of Varadkar and the other EPP centrists rankled several of their fellow council members, notably Macron and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa. “Everything went wrong and obviously the result is very frustrating,” Costa fumed as he left the summit. He praised Merkel for working to find a compromise, and claimed her idea could have had majority support.

“Unfortunately, she did not find the necessary support in her own political family,” he said. In what seemed to be a reference to Irish Taoiseach, he said some leaders had been “captured by those who want to divide Europe, from the Visegrád group or from positions such as Mr. Salvini’s.”

Macron said that the summit had been a “failure” and that the behavior of some leaders was a humiliation for the European Council.

In what may have been another reference to Varadkar and his rumored ambitions to himself become council president, Macron said “hidden agendas” had prevented an agreement, and accused unnamed leaders of theatrics and letting tempers flare.

“Many individuals didn’t facilitate agreements because they have personal ambitions,” he told reporters. “What is missing around the table is the sentiment and the duty to defend the European public interest. We must all defend our countries but also rise to defend the European public interest. When there are too many hidden agendas, we don’t succeed.”

Movement by Tuesday?

However he added that there may be possibility for movement before 11 a.m. on Tuesday. “The next hours will allow movements that weren’t possible around the table because until the last moment, some thought an agreement was possible,” he said.

At this point it is anyone’s guess who might be appointed commission president tomorrow, or if any appointments will be made at all. But time is running out. The new European Parliament will hold its opening session in Strasbourg on Tuesday morning, just before the third day of the top jobs summit begins in Brussels.

On Wednesday morning the Parliament must elect its new president, and MEPs have warned that if the national leaders haven’t chosen the package of top jobs yet by that point, they will go ahead and choose their own president, taking the position out of the negotiating mix.

This would only further complicate matters, which is why Tusk, Merkel, and Macron are all determined to get an agreement by the end of the day on Tuesday.

The post Spoiled Victors appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Source: EuropeElects

With Germany’s political landscape in upheaval, observers of German politics may be excused for thinking that the world is caving in.

In late May, the troubled Social Democrats (SPD), one of the main political parties both in Germany and in Europe’s wider center-left, suffered a disastrous double blow that underscored the party’s existential crisis. The Social Democrats won only 15.8 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections, down from 27.3 percent in 2014, finishing behind the Greens for the first time ever in a national election. On the same day, the SPD failed to top the poll in Bremen, coming second to Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) in the northern state it has governed for more than seven decades. Shortly afterwards, party leader Andrea Nahles announced her resignation after just a year in office.

The SPD’s collapse has been accompanied by the rising fortunes of the German Greens, who won nearly 21 percent of the vote in the European elections—double their previous result. Crucially, the Greens won the youth vote. Among those under 25, the Greens attracted more voters than the combined tally for the SPD and the CDU, together with their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU). The success of the Greens and the losses of the governing parties were well predicted in the polls, but the results are still bewildering. Opinion polls conducted since have even seen the Greens pushing ahead of the CDU/CSU to 27 percent, making them the main center-left force and the most popular political party in Germany for the first time in history.

The “Greta Effect”

The crisis of the Social Democrats and the rise of the Greens are not unique to Germany, though both effects are particularly strong there. The overall European picture after the elections is marked by a curious divide: In several countries in the north and the center of Europe, the Greens have successfully taken votes away from Social Democratic parties; whereas in the southeast, the Social Democrats seem to be recovering, and the Greens have not done particularly well.

In a similar trend as in Germany, the British Labour Party, the Romanian PSD, and the Austrian SPÖ all suffered disappointing results. The French Socialists (PS), which secured 14 percent of the vote in the 2014 election, were nearly obliterated. In contrast, the French green party EELV surged to a surprising third place, scoring from 8.9 percent to 13.5 percent of the vote. The Greens also reached double figures in several other countries, coming in second in Finland and third in Luxembourg. In the United Kingdom, the Green Party finished ahead of the ruling Conservatives with a score of 11.8 percent. Ireland’s Green Party’s vote trebled in comparison with the 2014 elections, putting it in line to send representatives to the European Parliament for the first time in 20 years. Greens in Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands also did well in the wake of recent electoral successes in regional polls, as many young voters increasingly turn away from the center-left to vote for the environmentalist parties.

Only a couple of years back, opinion polls suggested that the Greens were going to see their support halved in the European Parliament. Instead, their total of seats has now gone from 52 to 75, pushing them into a position of influence. Analysts explain this “Green wave” with the “Greta effect,” referring to the teenage Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg. What is certain is that Green parties have benefited from the fact that it was climate change, rather than migration, that dominated the political agenda and the election campaign in many countries.

Europe’s Southeast is Different

Yet not all member states have been hit by the green wave. In fact, it was largely confined to countries in north-western Europe. The Greens’ gains there masked losses in Austria, Spain, and Sweden in the European elections, and the total wipeout of Green MEPs in Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovenia, leaving the Green group unrepresented in 12 out of 28 member states. Indeed, most Green parties across the EU failed to make significant gains compared with 2014.

With a few exceptions, Green parties have not been able to consolidate their presence in the south and east of the EU, “a political reality that even the latest wave of stunning European electoral success has not changed,” according to an analysis by the economic news service Eurointelligence. The Greens won no seats in Eastern Europe and only a handful in southern Europe, where a number of Social Democratic forces have co-opted environmental concerns into their platforms, and thus resisted the green trend, including the main center-left parties in Portugal, Spain, Malta, and Italy.

In Spain, a decisive win for the center-left PSOE, taking 33 percent of the vote, seems to provide evidence of a recovery. This result has made the PSOE the largest national delegation in the S&D group, with 20 MEPs, ahead of the Italian Democratic Party (PD), which is also starting to climb back up according to the latest polls. In Portugal and Malta, the governing parties of Prime Ministers António Costa and Joseph Muscat won by a landslide with 33.4 percent and 54.3 percent of the vote respectively. Polls predict an even bigger win for Portugal’s Costa when he stands for re-election in the fall. The Danish center-left Social Democrats also won the European elections and the subsequent general election held on June 5, though the party’s focus on a more restrictive immigration policy is probably not a model for Europe’s other Social Democrats in crisis. Nonetheless, their win is the third in less than a year for center-left parties in Nordic countries after successes in Sweden and Finland.

Environmentalism may primarily be a concern in north-western Europe, and the Social Democrats may yet experience a comeback in other countries and regions of the the EU. Nevertheless, it is likely that this moment will be remembered as a turning point for the Greens: for the first time, they have taken a place among the big players in the European Parliament.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron don’t fight often. But when they do, it’s a clash of the titans. Last night’s post-election EU summit, called to start a discussion over who will replace Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president, may have been the beginning of an almighty battle over the EU’s most powerful position.

The first conflict is a political one. Merkel is staunchly backing her center-right European People’s Party nominee to be the next president, Manfred Weber, saying the EPP should get the presidency because it won the most seats in the election. Macron says this is nonsense, pointing out that because both the EPP and the center-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D) lost many seats in the election, they no longer have a German-style “grand coalition” majority in the European Parliament. They will need the votes of the Liberal ALDE group (which Macron just joined) and possibly also the Greens.

Fractured Alliance

There is still lingering resentment against the EPP for using their dominance in the Council and Parliament in the last elections in 2014 and 2009 to take all the spoils for themselves. Currently the presidencies of all three of the EU’s lawmaking institutions are held by EPP members. The commission presidency has been in EPP hands for 15 years. The council presidency has been held by the center-right since it was created in 2009. Pedro Sanchez, the newly emboldened Spanish prime minister who is now the unofficial leader of the center-left in Europe, says it’s time for the Socialists to get a turn. He backs the S&D candidate Frans Timmermans.

Not so fast, say the Liberals. It was, after all, the Socialists that put the EPP in power all these years through their “dirty deal” in propping up the grand coalition. Margrethe Vestager, the Liberal candidate, told journalists Sunday night that the voters have rejected this EPP-S&D alliance and gave “a signal for change.” Unlike the grand coalition, the Liberals gave gained seats in the parliament. And currently they have nine of the 28 seats in the European Council—a far cry from the three they had in 2014.

The numbers matter because the Commission president nominee will need the support of a qualified majority vote in the Council—with each country’s vote weighted based on its population. The EPP is currently tied with the Liberals with nine seats, while the S&D has five.

Institutional Battle

The fault lines aren’t only political. There is also a larger battle over the use of the Spitzenkandidat system for choosing the Commission president.

The EU treaties stipulate that the president is to be chosen by a qualified majority vote in the council, “taking into account the results of the European elections.” In 2014, the European Parliament decided to take an ambitious interpretation of this and design a system where each political group would nominate a presidential candidate ahead of the elections. The candidate of the group that gets a majority of public votes, or failing that, can command a majority of votes in the parliament through a coalition, becomes president. The idea is to make the EU executive more democratically accountable.

The system was partly designed by Martin Selmayr, now secretary general of the European Commission (but at the time chief of cabinet for Luxembourg’s commissioner Viviane Reding). And it was, critics say, always a Machiavellian plot to get his candidate Jean-Claude Juncker automatically appointed.

The national leaders in the council, including Merkel, opposed the process during the 2014 campaign and said it would be up to them and them alone to determine the commission president. But following the election, they lost their nerve. Merkel in particular was subject to a barrage of pressure from the German media to “honor the democratic will of the people” and vote for Juncker. Critics pointed to the fact that Selmayr has deep connections in the German media as the likely source of the pressure campaign.

In the end only Viktor Orbán and David Cameron, who had been warning the leaders during the campaign that they were sleepwalking into a trap to surrender their presidential appointment power, voted against Juncker.

By the EPP, For the EPP?

This time around, Macron has been the loudest voice against the system. That might seem odd, given that he has called for more democracy in the EU. But he opposes the methods of this Spitzenkandidaten system, which he says was designed by the EPP for the EPP. He says the system can only work if transnational lists are created, so voters can actually see the names of the “lead candidates” on their ballots. The EPP blocked an attempt to create this system last year.

If few people are aware that their votes for local parties in these European elections translate to a vote for a particular candidate for commission president, then the exercise isn’t really democratic, Macron says. He has said he would like to see Michel Barnier, currently the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator for, become the next commission president. Barnier is from the EPP, but he is also French. For Macron, it would appear the former trumps the latter (more on this below).

But a strong majority of political groups in the European Parliament have said they will only back someone who was running as a Spitzenkandidat, which Barnier was not. He was, however, running a kind of stealth campaign in the past month, giving speeches across Europe and behaving as a candidate even if the official nominee of his party was Weber. Barnier could not actually run for the EPP’s nomination last year because he was busy with the Brexit negotiations. He had run in the EPP’s primary for the 2014 election, but lost to Juncker.

If the council were to nominate a non-Spitzenkandidat such as Barnier, it would set up an institutional showdown with the parliament. If nobody blinks, the stalemate could last for months—during which time Juncker would continue as caretaker president.

National Rivalries

That Macron is so willing to shed his political objections to the EPP maintaining a lock on power for the prospect of a Frenchman becoming president reveals that nationality may still be the most important factor here. The horse-trading over top jobs has always been as much about countries as it is about political affiliation.

The last two presidents—Juncker from Luxembourg and José Manuel Barroso from Portugal—were from small countries and therefore seen as a compromise between France and Germany. Before them was Romano Prodi from Italy—not exactly a power player on the European stage. The last president from France or Germany was Jacques Delors 30 years ago.

A lot has changed since then, and smaller countries are wary of having a president from the two dominant countries. This may rule out both Weber and Barnier. Timmermans, from the Netherlands, could be reassuring for them. Vestager, from Denmark, may be even more reassuring. Denmark is not in the eurozone, which may make her an attractive prospect to other non-eurozone countries who think she would safeguard their interests and make sure they are not relegated to an outer tier of decision-making. On the other hand, there will be plenty in the eurozone who say it would be inappropriate for a president to be from a country that does not use the common currency.

With three intersecting planes of power conflict, this does not look like it will be an easy riddle to solve. And yet the leaders said Tuesday night that they want to nominate a president at the next European Council on June 21. That would be before the new parliament meets for the first time in early July. They have tasked Council President Donald Tusk with working with the parliament over the next weeks to determine by then who can survive a majority vote. But that may be difficult to ascertain before the MEPs have even arrived in Brussels and the new political group alignments are clear.

Tusk told journalists that if the parliament hasn’t chosen a candidate they can support by June 21, the council will go ahead with its vote anyway. If that were to be the case, it can be assumed they would feel no pressure to appoint one of the Spitzenkandidaten.

At the 2014 June council, Tusk was appointed as council president alongside Juncker’s nomination. He no doubt is hoping for a similarly speedy process this year. But 2019 is looking like a very different sort of top jobs contest.

The post Complex Political Dogfight appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Annegret Hilse

For Germany, the European elections on May 26 offer three particular insights: First, in this rapidly ageing country, politics are becoming generational, pitting the young against the old. Second, the rise of the Greens and the decline of the Social Democrats, the country’s oldest democratic party, is happening faster and faster. Third, given the sharp losses incurred by Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc, the GroKo—the country’s grand coalition (Grosse Koalition) of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats—is in for times of high tension and uncertainty.

In today’s Germany, the Greens at 20.8 percent have become the second largest party, leaving the SPD far behind. In comparison to the last federal elections in 2017, a total of 1.5 million Social Democratic and 1.2 million conservative voters went over the Greens, setting historic records all around. The most important aspect, however, of this shift is the generational divide that is opening up: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats are for old people; the Greens attract the young. Among 18- to 24-year olds, every third voter opted for them on Sunday; informal polls in schools give them an even higher percentage with teenagers.

Shifting Political Grounds

The fear of climate change and worsening damage to the global environment is the biggest single reason for this shift. 2018 was an extremely hot and dry year in Germany, bringing the reality of climate change home. Merkel, who was once known as the Klimakanzlerin (climate chancellor), has had to admit that Germany will not reach the emissions goals her government has set. Reports about the extinction of ever more species on earth and about plastic trash found in the deepest parts of the ocean and on the most remote islands have added to the shock.

Add to this the powerful effect of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement. The political drive started by the 16-year old Swede brings tens of thousands of school children to the streets every Friday to call for action on climate change. Rarely has a political issue so explicitly set the young against the old. Germany’s established parties have painfully learnt that their paternalistic first reaction—a pat on the back for young people getting engaged in politics—did not go over all that well.

Catering to the Old

It’s not just about climate change, either. Both the Social and Christian Democrats are old parties, with an age average of members of 60 years, and GroKo policies cater largely to this public, delivering benefits worth tens of billions of euros to pensioners. Whereas pensioners have seen their income rise by more than ten percent since the financial crisis of 2007, young people’s income has mostly stagnated. Low earnings and uncertain jobs translate into a much higher risk of poverty for the young. Yet Merkel’s coalition continues to squabble over how to dole out more money to the old.

It’s not just content, its’s packaging, too. It became painfully obvious just how out of tune the Christian Democrats are with digitalization and social media when, in the run-up to the election, a YouTuber called Rezo got millions of people to watch him ranting against the CDU. Merkel’s successor at the helm of the party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, didn’t quite seem up to modern times when she responded with an eleven-page PDF (!) document.

No Spring Chickens

The Greens aren’t exactly spring chickens, either; the average age of their members is 50. But not only do they manage to come across as hip and successful—a group you would like to join—but their competence, the environment, has made a huge comeback. The Greens also have a clear-cut, positive message about EU integration and about immigration, which gave them a forceful European message for the election campaign. This has translated into enormous credibility: a staggering 57 percent of all voters in Germany, according to pollsters infrastest dimap, say that the values that are important are represented by the Greens.

Interestingly enough, the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) had a similarly clear if euroskeptic message which gained them a solid 11 percent of the votes overall, but with much stronger results in the formerly communist east, where resentment and xenophobia run high. But overall, Manfred Güllner from polling institute Forsa said, the AfD was likely to have reached the limits of its potential with voters susceptible to extreme right-wing ideas.

Anything But Stable

Yet even with the AfD plateauing, German politics will be far from stable over the coming months. The CDU, badly shaken by registering a result below 30 percent, may be feeling the pressure to replace Merkel as chancellor sooner rather than later–possibly not even with Kramp-Karrenbauer, who has lost a lot of her initial glow. Still, in comparison to Merkel’s junior partner in government, the Social Democrats, Merkel and Kramp-Karrenbauer are all laughs.

For the SPD, the European elections represent a terrifying realization: they still haven’t hit rock bottom. From 27.3 percent five years ago, they have fallen to 15.8 percent, which means that they have lost their position as runner-up to the chancellery and power broker to the Greens. Even more humiliating was the result in Bremen, Germany’s smallest federal state, which on the day of the European elections also voted for a new state parliament. For the first time since World War II, the SPD came in second, leaving the lead to the CDU candidate, a blunt entrepreneur with little political experience.

Such a defeat would under most circumstances make changes at the top of the party inevitable—were it not for the fact that the SPD has been using up leaders at alarming speed anyway. Current head Andrea Nahles is the eight party leader to try to get the better of Merkel’s CDU. Any potential successors may also find it convenient to keep Nahles in place until the fall, so that she can take the blame if the SPD gets battered in another round of regional elections.

Losers may try to cling together to avoid collapse; or they can trample each other in the scramble to reach firmer land. In the immediate aftermath of the European elections, Angela Merkel’s grand coalition appears to be choosing the former. But as the SPD gets more and more desperate, and as the CDU’s fear grows that it may be entering a similar downhill path, all bets are off. It will be interesting times for German politics.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

It’s the end of an era, Liberal lead candidate Margrethe Vestager told journalists at the European Parliament last night. Voters in this year’s European election have given “a signal for change,” she said.

That signal was not, as some had predicted, a vote for anti-EU populist parties. In the end, their share of seats in the European Parliament—about one third—will remain roughly unchanged from their share in the previous term, although they did see a surge in Italy. The signal, however, was the end of the lock on power enjoyed by the two main parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, in the remaining two thirds of the parliament that is pro-EU.

The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and center-left Party of European Socialists (S&D) were dealt a punishing blow by voters, each losing around 40 seats. That means that for the first time in the history of the European Parliament, their combined seats will not together be enough for a majority.

The implications of this are less severe than in national elections, where that majority determines who forms the government. But it will have a big impact on how the parliament works over the next five years, and in the short term its biggest impact will be on the appointment of the new European Commission president.

Frans Timmermans, the Socialists’ candidate to become the next president, said last night that he wants to form a “progressive alliance” with the Liberals and Greens, both of whom had a successful election and have increased their seats. The Greens had a particularly good night—the only European political family that defied expectations and came higher than polls had predicted.

What concessions either of these parties will ask for from potential coalition partners will become clear in the coming days. But they will have to act fast in order to flex the parliament’s muscle in the presidential selection process, which will begin tomorrow night at a summit in Brussels where national leaders will discuss who should be given the EU’s top jobs over the next term.

Boosted Turnout

For the first time in 20 years, turnout in the European Parliament election has surpassed 50 percent. That’s up almost 10 percentage points from the last election in 2014. Given that turnout has decreased in every election since they started in 1979, it signals that recent crises such as Brexit, asylum and migration, and threats from US President Donald Trump have made people aware of the importance of the EU to their lives. Even if they don’t like what the EU is doing, the increased turnout shows a greater willingness to engage with the EU’s democratic process.

That fact will be used by the parliament over the coming days to insist that EU national leaders stick to the Spitzenkandidat system—only selecting one of people put forward as lead candidates for European Commission president by the six political groups. Meanwhile, internally, there is already political jostling in the parliament to determine who “won” the election and will triumph in Europe’s game of thrones.

Manfred Weber, the EPP’s candidate, is already claiming that he is the winner because, even though it is greatly diminished from its previous dominance, his party still won the most seats. “As the biggest group, we have the right to take leadership,” he told journalists on Sunday night.

But the other groups have scoffed at this, with PES candidate Frans Timmermans pointing out that his group is close behind the EPP—much closer than in the previous term. The liberal ALDE group, which it was announced yesterday will include Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche MEPs, has issued a statement pointing out that no candidate has achieved a majority. “We would be extremely vigilant about any attempt to bypass the necessary negotiations between the democratically elected stakeholders, as it would be extremely harmful to the transparency and accountability of the European democratic process,” they said.

The leaders of all the parliament’s groups are set to meet on Tuesday, ahead of the national leaders’ summit later that night, to agree on next steps. They hope to issue a joint statement that will put pressure on national leaders to only nominate one of the Spitzenkandidaten.

That will be a big ask because many national capitals reject the process. French President Emmanuel Macron is particularly opposed, as he believes the right to nominate a president should be the exclusive domain of the European Council of 28 national leaders. But national leaders backed down and surrendered to the new process in the last election when it was used for the first time in 2014, so they very well may back down again.

The next days will be crucial in determining not only the EU’s top jobs, but also the future power dynamics of the parliament.

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© REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

At best, Angela Merkel sounds lukewarm when she praises her party’s Spitzenkandidat, or lead candidate, for the European Parliament elections.

“Manfred Weber will be a good president of the European Commission because he stands for a people’s Europe in which national and European identity aren’t in contradiction,” Merkel said at a campaign rally in Zagreb on May 18—one of only two appearances that Germany’s chancellor was willing to put in for Weber.

Still, until election day, Weber can be certain of Merkel’s support. Even when the polls will have closed on May 26, she will stand by him. Crunch time won’t come until two days later, when the EU’s heads of state and government assemble in Brussels to decide who they want to nominate for the presidency of the next European Commission and other EU top jobs.

Regaining the Upper Hand

With this early meeting, national leaders hope to regain the upper hand of nominating the commission president. The European Parliament, which has insisted that it will accept only a successful Spitzenkandidat, will simply lack the time to build effective alliances.

“I call a special #EUCO on 28 May to start the process to nominate the next leaders of the EU institutions,” Donald Tusk, the current president of the European Council, announced by tweet in early May. “This should be swift, effective and in accordance with our Treaties. If consensus proves difficult, I will not shy away from putting these decisions to a vote in June.”

Despite Tusk’s words, the May summit promises to be long and intense, an interplay of front-stage drama and backroom negotiations, with plenty of arm-twisting thrown in. Up for grabs are four Brussels top jobs: the presidents of the European Commission, of the European Council, and the European Parliament as well as the EU’s top diplomat’s slot. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, the European Central Bank (ECB) also needs a new president—arguably the most powerful post of them all.

Merkel likes Weber as a person; she appreciates his calm and conciliatory attitude as well as the expertise in EU power games he has gained over 15 years in the European Parliament. At only 46, Weber has succeeded to get himself nominated as Spitzenkandidat of the European People’s Party, the oldest and largest group in the European Parliament that brings together Christian Democrats and conservatives from across the EU. And Merkel has publicly stated that as a good member of the EPP, she will stand up for Weber.

Yet EU arithmetic says that no country can aspire to more than one top job at a time. Nationality counts first, but geographic balance also needs to be respected between east and west, south and north, and at least one position has to be filled with a woman. Merkel could decide to really push Weber as the first German president of the European Commission in over 50 years. Alternatively, she could go for the ECB presidency, which comes with an alluringly long eight-years term.

Succeeding Super Mario

It’s a post that Germany has coveted since the inception of the euro and never got, despite being the eurozone’s largest economy. In 2011, then head of the Bundesbank Axel Weber was tripped up by the Greek crisis. In came Mario Draghi, later nicknamed Super Mario, who kept Greece in the eurozone and saved the common currency by promising to do “whatever it takes.”

Eight years on, Jens Weidmann, the current president of the Bundesbank, is warming up to succeed Draghi. Weidmann, 51, has conspicuously softened his stance on monetary support policy for weaker eurozone economies. Where he once opposed instruments like quantitative easing or the purchase of sovereign bonds and harshly criticized the ECB’s low interest rates, Weidmann now points to continuing downward pressure on prices to justify loose monetary policy, at least for now.

Recently, the head of the Bundesbank was endorsed by outgoing Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said that as “a convinced European and experienced central banker,” Weidmann was suitable for the office of ECB president. Italy, once a fierce and powerful opponent of Weidmann, also seems to be coming around. Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said in early 2019 that there was no reason to focus too much on earlier positions as both the world and people changed over time.

Most importantly, Weidmann is close to Merkel—prior to the Bundesbank, he spent five years in the chancellery as her economic adviser. It is conspicuous, too, that her government has not nominated any German candidates to important European banking jobs recently. Clearly, Berlin did not want to jeopardize Weidmann’s chances at the ECB.

Uncertain Outcome

Germany has no obvious candidates for the presidencies of the European Parliament, the European Council (Merkel has strongly denied any personal ambitions), or the EU’s foreign affairs representative. But even with only two German candidates competing for jobs, the outcome of the coming EU summit is highly uncertain.

Weber has annoyed Merkel with his opposition to the Nordstream 2 pipeline and to the accession talks with Turkey, so how far will she be willing to go to push for his nomination? There is also the fact that France’s President Emmanuel Macron is fiercely opposed to the Spitzenkandidat system and may be willing to trade his support for Weidmann at the ECB against Merkel’s help to get French Commissioner Michel Barnier appointed as president of the Commission.

Then again, even without the United Kingdom, there are still 25 other national leaders who will demand their say, creating some impossible-to-predict summit dynamics. It’s conceivable that neither German will get anything, or that there is no agreement and that Tusk will have to call another summit.

Only one thing seems reasonably certain, and that is a political paradox: the more is talked about Merkel shifting her support from Weber to Weidmann, the less she can afford to do so—and so the less it is likely to happen.

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© REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The European Union usually plays only a subordinate role in the American debates on Europe. But recently, interest in the European Parliament elections has picked up markedly—focused mainly on the current upswing, real or imagined, of conservative or far right populist parties. And there is certainly someone who would welcome a strong result for these nationalist forces: US President Donald Trump.

After a troubled decade most US observers see the EU as a weakened organization. This perceived weakness hasn’t softened Trump’s ire, however. While frequently criticizing those governments that support further European integration, Trump lavishes attention on the nationalist governments in Warsaw and Budapest. Following Trump’s speech in Poland in 2017, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Budapest and Warsaw this February; a Berlin visit, planned for earlier this months, was canceled on short notice. And last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was a guest at the White House, allowing Trump to clearly indicate which political forces he is routing for in the European elections.

Prior to the Trump-Orbán meeting, both Republican and Democrat senators had called on the US president to address the Orbán government’s increasingly repressive actions against civil society and independent media organizations in Hungary. Instead, Trump praised Orbán (“respected all over Europe”) for his stance on immigration and that he had been “great with respect to Christian communities.” In other words, the president sided clearly with Europe’s nationalist, euroskeptic, and anti-liberal forces. For Orbán, whose Fidesz party has been suspended from the center-right EPP parliamentary group and whose government is in dispute with the EU, Trump’s support could not have come at a more favorable time.

Good and Bad Allies

Trump’s EU-critical stance has been reinforced by his National Security Advisor John Bolton, who openly opposes the supranational EU and sees in it an anti-American organization that deprives its member states of their national sovereignty. Like Trump, Bolton supports Brexit and has promised the United Kingdom special trade relations with the US after it leaves the EU. In addition, the Trump administration—similar to some members of the government of George W. Bush—seems to distinguish between EU members that are considered good and those that are considered bad partners for the US. The present aversion against the EU was also at play in the small, but symbolic step taken by the State Department at the end of 2018 to downgrade the diplomatic status of the EU delegation in Washington, DC. (It reversed the decision after protests.)

Meanwhile, similar to politics, the US news media, conservative and liberal, is particularly interested in the surge of the right-wing populists and nationalists in Europe. Fox News, whose commentators often share Trump’s EU-critical stance, argued that the election could become a tipping point in post-war European politics. Others zoomed in on the strong poll ratings for the Brexit Party in the UK and Nigel Farage’s announcement that his fight against the “globalist project that seeks to replace national democracies with unelected bureaucracies” would be continued after the election.

Breitbart News, the website once run by the one-time White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, also mostly focused on the UK campaign, reporting on Tony Blair’s “desperate” calls on the British not to vote for the Brexit Party. It also pointed to strong poll results for the French Rassemblement National and on Marine Le Pen’s call on Macron to step down if his party La République en Marche won’t come top in France in the European elections.

The Washington Post focused on the strength of Farage, Le Pen, and Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, but also reported on the difficulties the latter had to bring together all right-wing populist parties. The populist parties can only agree on a few topics beyond advocating for strong national borders, rejecting immigration, and combating Islamic terrorism, The Atlantic concludes.

A Trump-like Triumph?

The great interest among US observers in the right-wing populist movements can be partly explained by the fact that many see parallels to the developments in the US, and some wonder whether nationalist politics will continue to gain ground. Polls across Europe showed that “the forces that fueled President Trump’s rise are gaining, not losing, strength,” argued the conservative Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen. Since Trumpism would outlast Trump, the mainstream parties would need to adapt and offer real, effective responses to drive down populist discontent, Olsen wrote.

With Bannon eager to pave the way for a global revolution, US observers have also shown much interest in his efforts to bring together the right-wing populist parties in Europe. However, Bannon has been largely unsuccessful so far, as far-right leaders like Le Pen have rejected his advice, pointing to Bannon’s lack of understanding Europe, The New Yorker reported.

This may make gratifying reading for Bannon’s critics. But the queasy feeling that European right-wing populists could achieve a surprise success next Sunday remains—just like Donald Trump did it in 2016.

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© REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Back in the summer of 2016, the winds of change were sweeping across Europe. In their shock over the Brexit referendum, European Union leaders promised deep reform: the EU would make such a leap in efficiency, democracy, and cohesion that no other country would ever be tempted to leave. “We got the message!” they told the public.

Almost three years on and, at least in Germany, voters are facing one of the dullest European Parliament election campaigns ever. No big plan for the EU’s future has emerged that politicians or citizens could passionately debate; no controversies over major policy decisions; not even a heated battle over who will lead the EU in the future. Only the Greens and the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are even talking about policies on their campaign posters.

Just take a look at the parties currently governing in Angela Merkel’s grand coalition, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). “Peace can’t be taken for granted” is one of the uninspiring CDU election slogans; “Prosperity can’t be taken for granted” another. Merkel herself, having stepped down as party leader in December 2018, initially refused to even take part in the campaign. In the end, she grudgingly agreed to two appearances (although one of them is in Croatia rather than Germany).

Domestic Faces Prevail

Not that you would guess it, but Germany’s conservatives actually have a big stake in this election. Their top candidate Manfred Weber stands a reasonable chance to become the next president of the European Commission. That would make him the first German to lead the Commission since Walter Hallstein was appointed in 1958.

Weber was nominated as Spitzenkandidat by the European People’s Party, which will likely remain the largest group in the new European Parliament. While this does not oblige the heads of government to nominate Weber, a good election result would translate into considerable political pressure to do so.

Weber works hard on the campaign trail, crisscrossing Germany and the EU for numerous appearances and speeches. Having spent 15 years as an MEP, he is also extremely well versed in the ins and outs of Brussels. Weber is smart, decent, and personable. But one thing he is not: a person who can inspire people to believe in Europe. His party seems to be aware of his lack of charisma: even in his homeland Germany, the Spitzenkandidat rates only small-format campaign posters. “For Germany’s Future. Our Europe,” the slogan says.

The second Spitzenkandidat who has a realistic chance of becoming European Commission president, is Frans Timmermans, current vice-president of the Commission and former Dutch foreign minister, who is standing for the center-left Party of European Socialists, the European Parliament’s second-largest group. Timmermans is far more passionate and eloquent than Weber, but Germany’s Social Democrats haven’t even put him on a poster. While they back his nomination in Brussels, in Germany they only show German candidates.

EU Reform Is Dead

It’s not just the faces on the posters that seem curiously lacking a European flavor. There seems to be very little debate over the big European issues as well. Little mention is made of Brexit, the reform ideas of France’s President Emmanuel Macron, the rift between eastern and western Europe, the risk of another eurocrisis, or the uncertainty surrounding transatlantic relations. Indeed, after the first shock, the Brexit saga seems to have actually contributed to the stagnation.

So little has come of the pledges made in the wake of the Brexit vote in 2016. The EU summit in the Romanian city of Sibiu on May 9, originally scheduled to take place after Brexit, was supposed to provide the opportunity to EU leaders to open a new chapter in European integration. In reality, however, EU reform is dead for now, while the United Kingdom has still not managed to leave the union.

The miserable spectacle of Britain’s political elite mismanaging Brexit in fact let the EU of the hook: in most countries, approval rates for “Europe” have risen through no particular merit of the EU leaders, but because nobody wants to be caught in the same situation as the British. Even right-wing populists who used to be rabidly anti-European have stopped calling for an exit the EU. Instead, they now plan to join forces in Brussels to weaken the EU from the inside—a project that, given their continued rise in popularity, could prove just as dangerous to Europe’s future as a crumbling membership.

European leaders clearly share responsibility for not seizing the chance for reform that arose after 2016. But nobody is more to blame than Angela Merkel who let every opportunity to embrace change slip by. It seems fitting, then, that the most interesting issue that has emerged from the European election campaign is one that at first sight has nothing to do with EU politics: when will Merkel finally leave office?

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