European People’s Party: CSU politician Weber elected EPP boss

The European People’s Party has a new boss: The CSU politician Weber was elected unopposed chairman at an EPP congress. His goal: to lead the Christian Democratic party alliance to more unity.

The Christian Democratic European People’s Party (EPP) has elected the CSU politician Manfred Weber as its new chairman. The 49-year-old was the only candidate for the post and received 89 percent of the delegate votes at the two-day EPP congress in Rotterdam.

Weber follows the former EU Council President and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who wants to focus more on national politics again. Weber thanked his predecessor for his commitment in a tweet. Tusk was a “fighter for freedom”, a “great European” and a “great friend”.

Loss to von der Leyen

Weber has been a member of the European Parliament since 2004, and in 2014 he became Chairman of the EPP Group there. The alliance has a total of 81 member parties, including the CDU and CSU. The EPP holds around a quarter of all seats in the EU Parliament.

In 2019 he ran as an EPP candidate for the presidency of the EU Commission. The alliance was the strongest force, but ultimately the former Federal Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen prevailed as head of the commission.

Banger view of the 2024 European elections

After his election, Weber thanked him for the trust he had placed in him. He now faces the challenge of creating more unity within the EPP, especially with a view to the upcoming European elections in 2024. The Christian Democrats had recently suffered serious defeats – for example in the federal elections in Germany or the presidential elections in France.

In his speech, Weber described the EPP as the newly elected chairman as the rule-of-law party in Europe. He urged Ukraine to be granted accession to the EU as quickly as possible and also sharply criticized the traffic light coalition governing Germany. He accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz of having “no will, no determination, no leadership”.