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President of the EU Commission
Fatal flirtation with the right? Ursula von der Leyen outrages the SPD and FDP
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
© Jean-Francois Badias/AP/DPA
“Bad news for Europe”: Katarina Barley and Marie-Agnes Strack Zimmermann, the top candidates of the SPD and FDP for the European elections, accuse the EU Commission President of moving to the right.
The top candidates from the SPD and FDP in the European elections are harshly criticizing the President of the EU Commission. Von der Leyen had not ruled out cooperation with the right-wing conservative group of European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) for a possible second term in office. “This is a big mistake,” said Katarina Barley from the SPD star. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the FDP announced: “We cannot support a Commission President who relies on such partners.”
The EKR parliamentary group includes, among others, the ultra-right party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Fratelli d’Italia, and the national-conservative Polish government party PiS. “We see in the member states what these parties are doing,” said SPD top candidate Barley. Social benefits would be canceled via text message, the judiciary and media would be brought into line with the party, minorities would be harassed and women’s rights would be curtailed. “It’s frightening to see that this doesn’t seem to be enough of an exclusion criterion for the conservatives.”
The liberal Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann also considers von der Leyen’s signal to be “deeply worrying”. The fact that the Commission President did not expressly rule out cooperation with the political fringe, even on the far right of the Union, “which includes real post-fascists”, is “bad news for Europe”. Strack-Zimmermann said this star further: “We must prevent the creeping normalization of right-wing extremism in Europe and protect our liberal European democracy.”
Von der Leyen had not ruled out cooperation with the right-wing conservative group of the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) for a possible second term as Commission President. “It depends very much on how the parliament is composed and who sits in which group,” she said on Monday evening at a first meeting of top representatives of the major European party families before the European elections in June. Von der Leyen clearly ruled out collaboration with the AfD, which is part of the Identity and Democracy faction, at the debate organized by the “Politico” portal in Maastricht.
If von der Leyen wants to be at the head of the Brussels authority again, she must be confirmed by the EU Parliament after the European elections in the summer. Although it is initially the task of the heads of state and government to make a proposal for the President of the Commission, Parliament can reject this. The EU Commission has the sole right to propose concrete EU legal acts, which are then negotiated by Parliament and the EU states.