© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

After a week of watching in dismay as the Iran nuclear deal seemed to come to a final collapse, the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom made a gesture that was as expected as it was futile.

“We have expressed our deep concern at the actions taken by Iran in violation of its commitments since July 2019. These actions must be reversed,” Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and Boris Johnson said in a statement on January 12, urging Iran to return to full compliance with its commitments under the 2015 deal in which Tehran agreed to halt development of a nuclear weapon.

The statement was in response to Tehran’s announcement that it will cease to abide by the terms of the agreement following the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani earlier this month.

The deal had already been on thin ice since US President Donald Trump pulled out in 2018. Since then, the EU has been left desperately trying to salvage it by trying to continue rewarding Iran, by providing investment and facilitating trade, for the country’s sticking to the terms despite the US pulling out.

Brussels’ Main Focus: The Nuclear Deal

As the week’s dramatic events unfolded—with Tehran launching missiles against US airbases in Iraq in retaliation and accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane as a result—the unravelling of the nuclear deal has been something of an afterthought for the rest of the world. But for Brussels, it has been the main focus. It has left observers scratching their heads as to whether this represents a genuine belief in Europe that the nuclear deal’s preservation is the most pressing issue, or whether this focus is simply the result of preserving the nuclear deal being the only thing everyone can agree on.

After initial criticism for her slow response to the unfolding crisis, Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, gave a statement last week with the new EU High Representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, calling for restraint amid the escalation. But the statement from the Commission and the European Council seemed to go mostly unnoticed. The situation has once again shown how much the EU is left as a bystander during such military incidents.

That Brussels has stayed so focused on the nuclear deal even as the cycle of violence has spun out of control has struck some as odd. Borrell’s first reaction to the assassination of Soleimani was steadfastly neutral, which likely reflects member state divisions on the US decision to carry out the attack. While the UK and some Eastern European countries have expressed some support for the decision, the reaction in core Europe has been very different. Many were concerned by the lack of justification from Washington for why it carried out the strike, and even more were horrified by President Trump’s subsequent threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites.

NATO “Shares the US Concern”

Meanwhile, on the other side of Brussels, the reaction from NATO has been more clearly supportive of the US. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg held a special meeting to deal with the developments, after which he told reporters “the US provided the rationale behind the action against General Soleimani.” While stressing that “this is a US decision” and not a NATO one, he said NATO shares the US concern about Iran’s activities in the region.

Perhaps this is why Trump said after this meeting that he would like to see more NATO involvement in the Middle East, with the alliance even perhaps expanding into the area and being rebranded “NATOME”. The idea has been met with skepticism by Europe’s core powers, who see it as a shield for US withdrawal from its responsibilities in the region.

Meanwhile, an increased role for the EU in the region, in the short or longer term, has not been mentioned.

As protests escalate in Iran in response to the accidental downing of the passenger plane, the EU will continue to try to find its footing. It is a military conflict between two long-time enemies which does not directly involve European countries. But in a world in which the new commission president just two months ago pledged to make the EU a more relevant geopolitical actor, people will be expecting more from Brussels than it has delivered so far.

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© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

On Monday, at long last, the European Parliament agreed to confirm all of the people nominated for Ursula von der Leyen’s college of commissioners. This followed a month of high drama after MEPs rejected an unprecedented three nominees. This included, to everyone’s shock, the French nominee Sylvie Goulard. Three replacement nominees—the other two from Romania and Hungary—have now been confirmed.

Von der Leyen says she’s now ready to start work on December 1—but she is still not out of the woods. The extension to the Brexit deadline agreed last month means that the United Kingdom is still a member until at least January 31, 2020. Under EU rules, every EU country should have a commissioner. For domestic political reasons, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is refusing to nominate anyone until after the December 12 UK election. A ding-dong match with the commission during the campaign would help buttress Johnson’s image as the man who sticks it to Brussels.

Because of logistics, waiting for the UK nomination would mean von der Leyen cannot take office until 2020. But her lawyers say they have found a loophole and can get away with starting on December 1 with a team of only 27 commissioners. Doing so, however, would expose the new commission to legal challenges against any decisions it takes in those first weeks: complainants could argue that it has been illegally constituted. So just to be safe, the new commission will probably not make any decisions or proposals until 2020. In the meantime, von der Leyen is taking Johnson to court over his refusal to nominate.

The simpler solution would have been to change the rules. Technically, the rules were already changed by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, which would have shrunk the commission to 18 by letting the larger member states always have a commissioner, while the small ones would rotate having one. Smaller countries, predictably, didn’t like this. And after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a first referendum, a provision was added that allows national governments to delay implementation of this change. This, in theory, is what got the treaty over the line in the second Irish referendum.

So for a legally sound way forward, the European Council of 28 national governments could just change the rules to shrink the proscribed size of the commission. But Ireland and other small countries are refusing to do this, fearful that it will set a precedent for permanently shrinking the European Commission in the future.

An Absurd Situation

All of this comes after the Spitzenkandidat debacle in July, when the European heads of governments refused to go along with the European Parliament’s unofficial system of choosing the president from candidates who campaigned during the EU election—first used in 2014 to select Jean-Claude Juncker. MEPs had said they would not confirm anyone who was not a candidate—which von der Leyen, pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron, wasn’t. But after an intense stand-off, the European Parliament lost its nerve and confirmed her by just nine votes. The MEPs’ lingering resentment, however, caused them to lash out at Macron three months later by rejecting Goulard, his commissioner nominee.

The entire formation of the EU’s executive following May’s European election has been an embarrassment. First, voters were told their vote for an MEP would determine who becomes the next EU President—only to be denied later by national governments, albeit with good legal reason: according to the European treaties, it is the right of the European Council to pick the President of the European Commission.

Then, von der Leyen was unable to fulfill a promise of gender parity in the next college because men were forced upon her by national governments. What’s more, her start date was delayed because of political and institutional power games that have nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominees. And in perhaps the most absurd final twist, one member state that is planning to leave doesn’t want to have a commissioner in the college and is thus causing more insecurity, and possibly delay.

Not a Federation (Yet)

The EU is not a country and, strictly speaking, not (yet) a federation. But it is pretty close, which means comparisons are sometimes clarifying. So it’s worth asking, what other federal government would operate this way—forcing a president to assemble a cabinet of ministers that has a proscribed number from each of the constituent states? What system would refuse to allow a president or prime minister to choose their own cabinet?

The rules governing commissioner appointments are all the more absurd when you take into account that commissioners are explicitly not supposed to be representing their countries or their political parties while in the commission. The EU executive was not set up to be a representative body. Commissioners do not answer to voters or to their national governments, and that is by design. They are supposed to be free to take decisions in the European interest, and never show national favoritism—much as a cabinet minister should also not be only thinking about the interests of their own constituents. A national government cannot remove their commissioner once they are confirmed, which is why the politics of a commissioner don’t always match their national government, which may have changed parties in the meantime.

All this being said, everyone in Brussels knows this theoretical neutrality is not always the reality. Commissioners from the biggest member states tend to be leaned on heavily by national governments—the French and German commissioners in particular. This is why national governments fight so hard over which portfolio their nominee is assigned. However, the principle isn’t completely ignored. Commissioners from small member states tend to be the best at representing the European interest over their national interest. And most commissioners are from small member states.

Time for Treaty Change

This system of each country having a commissioner was invented in 1957, when there were only six EU countries. With 28, the situation has become unwieldy.

EU leaders know the system is broken; that’s why they tried to reform the college formation rules with the Lisbon Treaty. The most obvious problem is that there are far more commissioners than needed, resulting in some being given silly titles like “commissioner for multilingualism.” As a workaround, since 2014 the commission has been assigning multiple people to the same portfolios. There are two in charge of energy, digital, defense, and taxation—just to name a few.

The too-many-commissioners problem could be resolved with a simple vote by the European Council, if the objections of Ireland and others can be overcome. But that won’t be enough. For deeper reform, treaty change is needed.

Unfortunately, “treaty change” has become a term that makes European capitals shudder. They are still scarred from the traumatic European Constitution-Turned-Lisbon-Treaty experience that lasted from 2001 to 2009. The French and Dutch rejection of the constitution in 2005 nearly derailed the European project.

But treaty change is long overdue. Before Lisbon, the EU treaties had been changed roughly every eight years. The EU hasn’t adopted a new treaty in a decade—and the latest framework was first drafted in 2001. The Lisbon experience may make treaty change scary, but it doesn’t make it any less necessary.

The Right to Choose

Here is one potential solution to the Commission formation problems: What if the president could choose for themselves how many commissioners they want, like a national president or prime minister can choose the size of their cabinet? What if the president could choose those commissioners themselves with no nationality restrictions?

Given the sensitivities of a confederation like the EU, perhaps lifting all geographic restrictions isn’t realistic. But why should the restrictions be national? Why can’t they be regional, reflecting the North, South, East and West divisions that are still very pertinent in Europe today (perhaps more pertinent than national borders). The treaties could specify that there must be at least two commissioners each from Europe’s North, South, East, and West to ensure geographic balance. The remainder could be at the president’s discretion.

And if people wanted to be particularly democratically ambitious in this treaty change, they could finally establish the commission presidency as a directly elected post.

Could this be done before the next European election in 2024? There’s no reason to think it couldn’t. But it would take EU national leaders with real ambition and drive to get this done. Right now, the only leader who seems to have this is Macron. But he appears to be more interested in protecting French interests than in instituting real EU reform that might take power away from national capitals, as these reforms certainly would.

This has been the perpetual problem with the European project: ever-closer union requires national governments to surrender some powers. Only leaders who can think strategically and long-term have been able to do that in the past. And such leaders seem to be lacking today.

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Artwork © Claude Cadi

Emmanuel Macron is not known for selling himself short. At the moment he is openly relishing having won the EU top jobs game—the French President has dealt himself a promising hand for future poker rounds in Brussels.

In fact, this is not just a good hand but a royal flush.

The king card is Ursula von der Leyen. The President-elect of the European Commission is a proven pro-European who knows she owes her promotion to the Elysée Palace. The queen is Margrethe Vestager. The “US giant slayer” sits atop the competition portfolio and will keep up the pressure on monopolistic internet giants and corporations seeking undue tax advantages.

Paolo Gentiloni is the jack. The Italian is set for the economic policy portfolio and will supervise the application of the EU’s fiscal rules. This is crucial for France because at the height of the Yellow Vests protests, Macron boosted spending and dropped his goal of achieving a balanced budget by the end of his term in 2022. He can count on Gentiloni to show him some leniency here.

The ace is Sylvie Goulard. As internal market commissioner, Macron’s close ally will drive the EU’s industrial strategy offensive and regulate the digital economy. Moreover, she will also oversee the implementation of the European Defense Fund. So far, the fund is Macron’s only EU success with a potentially significant fiscal dimension. France’s aerospace and defense industry hopes to benefit. In Paris, there is a sense of awe at how Macron managed to include both the single market and defense in the Frenchwoman’s portfolio.

The French Influence

Taking a closer look at the mission letters von der Leyen sent to her commissioner candidates makes Macron’s influence appear even greater.

Take climate policy. Raising the targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, boosting Green spending, turning the European Investment Bank into a climate bank, introducing a EU carbon border tariff—the new commission’s agenda reads like a carbon copy of La République En Marche’s European election manifesto.

Moreover, von der Leyen’s policy program includes a series of French evergreens, such as a eurozone budget and an EU-wide tax for the likes of Google. She has ordered a strengthening of the EU’s trade defense measures and will insist on reciprocity when it comes to opening up Europe’s public procurement markets. The former German labor minister also vows to introduce a common minimum wage framework that could lead, à terme, to an EU-wide unemployment (re-)insurance scheme.

Work To Do in the Council

While the French President has clearly won the battle over the Commission’s future policy priorities, it may still turn out to be a hollow victory. Macron remains the only European head of state that has articulated a comprehensive vision for the EU in a series of speeches. That the notoriously pro-integrationist European Parliament and Brussels machinery are closely aligned with his vision of a “European Renaissance” is no surprise.

But to get any of his landmark projects over the line, Macron ultimately needs his counterparts in the European Council on board. So far, most leaders have preferred to let Macron speak and enjoy the limelight, rather than take the stage themselves and truly engage with him. Some of them have reservations about Macron’s ambitions.

Paris does hope, however, that the tide is turning. The political and the macroeconomic picture—above all in Germany—has changed and is opening avenues to French ideas.

First, climate change has risen to become the preeminent theme. For Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU and the SPD, the centrist parties governing in Berlin, the Green surge has become the primary electoral concern. However, addressing climate change ultimately requires greater state involvement in the economy and investment. For the German government, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify clinging to the Schwarze Null. To use late President Jacques Chirac’s metaphor: When the house is burning, firefighters don’t worry about running up the water bill. Paris follows the German debate about deficit spending with great attention. It has not gone unnoticed that some SPD leadership candidates and now even former CDU finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble are proposing to revise the debt brake.

Second, Germany is about to enter a recession. This is no good news for France, which exports more goods across the Rhine than to anywhere else. But it nourishes hopes in Paris that the slowdown might prompt Berlin to reconsider some of its traditional policy stances.

After years of resistance, German banks and the finance ministry are warming to the idea of Europeanizing the hitherto national bank deposit insurance schemes. With the country’s two largest banks in a fragile state, completing the banking union could play also to Germany’s advantage. Moreover, the reform would open the possibility of a European merger for Deutsche Bank or Commerzbank. Berlin prefers this to the idea of an American takeover.

Finally, Macron has another ace up his sleeve: Christine Lagarde. She guarantees a continuation of the European Central Bank’s ultra-lax monetary policy. As long as the eurozone’s fiscally conservative countries do not change course, Paris can at least rely on record-low interest rates and run profit-yielding deficits.

Playing the Cards Right

In 1986, the need to revive growth and the (neo-)liberal wave provided fertile ground in which the EU leaders could pass the Single European Act. It represented a giant leap of integration, truly transforming the union into one single market as discussed by the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek in a remarkable 1937 essay.

Today, with Europe once again looking for growth, the climate imperative may provide the springboard for the EU to take another leap forward. And this time in a fashion more closely aligned to France’s economic philosophy—one that favors investment over savings and a voluntarist over the night-watchman or ordoliberal state.

Above the Elysée, the stars seem to be aligning. A pro-EU government is back in power in Rome. Budapest and Warsaw are isolated, and their economies still very much depend on EU fiscal transfers. Macron wants to move fast. But in poker, when you have good cards, you maximize your win by slightly understating your hand. Macron has reason to be grinning again, but he should also practice his poker face.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

“The world needs more Europe, the world is calling for more Europe,” incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told journalists as she announced her new commission portfolio assignments. “Therefore, we have to stand up.”

With this she announced what is perhaps the most outward-looking portfolio organization in the commission’s 50-year history. It reflects a newly assertive Europe on the world stage, with the EU eager to take on rivals like China and a protector and ally, the United States, that Europeans no longer trust.

Three “executive vice presidents” will serve under von der Leyen: the Lithuanian Valdis Dombrovskis will be Vice President for the Economy, the Dutch Frans Timmermans will be Vice President for the Green Deal (while also serving as climate commissioner), and the Dane Margrethe Vestager will serve as Vice President for Digital Affairs (while also continuing to serve as competition commissioner).

“We need to work on our technical sovereignty,” von der Leyen said of the latter combination.

Alongside them the Greek Margaritis Schinas will serve as a regular vice president (non-executive) for “Protecting Our European Way of Life.” What exactly this will entail is still unclear, and some are already complaining about its creepy connotations after Schinas announced his portfolio will include migration. “Protection from what?” one journalist asked. Are migrants threatening the European way of life?

But the intention behind this title may have been something more consistent with the themes of European sovereignty that von der Leyen is stressing. In draft versions of the portfolios, Schinas’s title was going to be “Commissioner for Defense.” According to EU sources, this was changed after EU member states objected to the idea of the commission muscling in on a national competence.

All in all, the portfolios paint a picture of a commission that is going to aggressively defend European sovereignty in the face of increasing competition and commercial ownership from China and a less and less reliable military alliance with America.

Digital Competition

Vestager’s surprise double appointment drew gasps in the press room as it was announced. The combination signals a drastic politicization of the role of competition commissioner, a job that has until now been considered to be ring-fenced away from the Commission’s political functions.

In recent years there has been intense pressure, particularly from Paris and Berlin, for the EU’s competition policy to take into account political objectives, for instance by allowing the creation of “European champions” to take on global rivals. Vestager drew criticism for blocking a proposed merger of German Siemens and French Alstom, which could have created a “Trainbus” to see off competition from China. She responded that if they want such things to be taken into account, they need to change the defined remit of the competition commissioner.

By making Vestager both competition commissioner and vice president for digital—one of the areas which the EU has fought the United States most fiercely—von der Leyen is signaling that she is ready to change the remit. Vestager has already gone after the American tech giants—Google, Facebook, and Microsoft—and the logical conclusion of the combination is that these investigations will increase. Von der Leyen’s “technical sovereignty” comment also signals that she will push for the EU to develop alternatives to US technical products. She specifically mentioned GPS, owned by the US military, during her press conference. Europe is working on its own satellite alternative, Galileo.

European Defense

In the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on NATO, the European Union drew up plans last year for an “EU Defense Union” that would pool the military resources and know-how of member states. Long opposed by the United Kingdom as the dreaded “European Army,” the idea has only been made possible with the impending exit of the UK from the EU. Contrary to many portrayals of the idea, it does not involve a single EU military but rather national militaries pooling their resources in order to be more efficient.

Most significantly, the defense union is designed to be independent of the United States, unlike NATO, which relies on America. Von der Leyen, formerly German defense minister, was at pains to defend the plan against criticism that it is meant to be a competitor to NATO—concerns which have not only come from London but also from Warsaw and other Eastern European capitals. “The European Union will never be a military alliance,” she insisted. “NATO is our collective defense, and it is the strongest military force in the world.”

But she also said the purpose of the defense union is for common procurement of military equipment from European suppliers, something Washington has fiercely resisted, having been a big seller of military equipment to Europe for decades.

It remains to be seen how Schinas will interpret his remit as vice president. Already there is talk that the European Parliament may insist the name of his title be changed back to commissioner for defense or commissioner for security. Though much of the initial reaction took his title to be saying Europe is under attack from migrants, others have interpreted it as being protecting Europe from American cultural, commercial, and military influence (for instance, from chlorinated chicken). Josep Borrell, the Spaniard nominated to be the next EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, has had his title adjusted by von der Leyen to “Vice President for a Stronger Europe in the World.”

The defense commissioner was meant to head the new directorate-general for defence and space, a new department in the commission von der Leyen has created—alarming many national governments who see military matters as a national competence and worry it threatens NATO. Despite the commissioner name change, this department will still exist, and Schinas will be presiding over it.

Energy Independence?

Von der Leyen’s choice of the Estonian Kadri Simson as energy commissioner also maintains this emphasis on European sovereignty. Estonia is on the front line of concerns about Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, and the country has consistently urged drastic action to safeguard European energy security by diversifying supply.

Estonia, along with other Eastern European governments, has been fiercely against the controversial Nord Stream II pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany.

Her choice of trade commissioner—Ireland’s Phil Hogan—can also been seen as confrontational towards the UK in a post-Brexit world. He can be counted on to play hardball with London in negotiations over a future trade deal that will take place in the coming years. Currently serving as agriculture minister, Hogan has also wanted to play hard ball in free trade negotiations with Brazil, Argentina, and the United States, leaning toward provisions to protect European farmers from global competition.

Enter the Parliament

The 27 portfolio nominations must now be approved by the European Parliament after confirmation hearings that will take place over the next two months. Traditionally, the parliament likes to claim at least one scalp every five years, rejecting one nominee to demonstrate its power.

After the humiliation suffered by the parliament in having to accept the rejection of the Spitzenkandidat process in July, this year MEPs may want to claim two scalps, or maybe even three. In 2014 it was quite obvious who would get blocked–Slovenia’s Alenka Bratusek. But this time ,it’s more unclear.

There may already be targets on the backs of Hungarian commissioner nominee László Trócsányi, who has been put in charge of enlargement at a time when no enlargement is anticipated. Poland’s nominee Janusz Wojciechowki, put in charge of agriculture, may also face a rough ride.

If all goes smoothly, von der Leyen and her team will take office on November 1. But as the incoming president noted today, it’s not up to her whether the process will be done by then. “I’m not the one deciding on timelines. MEPs will decide when they’ve heard enough,” she said.

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© 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.

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