Europe’s Christian Democrats announced that Manfred Weber had been elected as group leader without a dissenting vote. But the MPs had no opportunity to vote against the CSU politician.
It sounded like evidence of great unity: last week, the CSU MEP Manfred Weber was re-elected as chairman of the EPP, the group of European Christian Democrats: with 162 votes for him, eleven abstentions and no votes against, as the group announced. But now it turns out that it was not possible for the 178 MPs to vote against Weber. In the digital election via the Internet, the parliamentarians could only click on “Manfred Weber” or on “Abstention”. To decline was not an option.
One EPP MEP calls this approach “adventurous”, and there is certainly dissatisfaction with it in the group. A spokesman for the group said on Thursday that Weber’s election in 2019 was the same. However, it was a mistake that the organizers of the election – not Weber – had announced when the result was announced that it had been confirmed without a dissenting vote. The parliamentary group then disseminated the result in precisely this form. In the meantime, this publication and the minutes of the meeting have been corrected, said the spokesman.
The EPP chairmanship is to follow the group chairmanship
In April Weber wants to take on a second important post at the European People’s Party (EPP): He would like to be elected as the successor to Donald Tusk as party chairman – then the leadership of the party and parliamentary group would be united in one hand. Instead, the Lower Bavarian decided not to run as President of the European Parliament. So far, the Italian Social Democrat David Sassoli has headed the parliament, but an agreement between the parties says that an EPP member should hold the post in the second half of the electoral term, i.e. from 2022 onwards. Weber was planned here, but after much deliberation in September he decided to seek the EPP presidency and leave the more representative post at the head of Parliament to a colleague in the group.
Weber had been the EPP’s top candidate in the 2019 European elections, and since his party performed best, he was able to lay claim to the office of Commission President. In the end, however, the heads of state and government decided in favor of Ursula von der Leyen, although the CDU politician did not even run in the European elections.