It is the lesser evil for almost everyone, even for the European People’s Party (EPP) itself, but on Thursday she managed to get the European Parliament to re-elect her as president of the European Commission by a rather loose majority (401 votes out of 719). Without a doubt, she remains the most powerful woman in Europe and holds the reins of Brussels at a key moment for the future of the bloc. “The next five years of the EU will define its shape and its place in the world for the next fifty,” Von der Leyen said in her inauguration speech in the Eurochamber.
Commitment to Ukraine
The German conservative has firmly led the EU’s support for Ukraine and sanctions against Vladimir Putin since the first day of the invasion. So far, he has managed to ensure that at no time has the bloc’s aid to Kyiv really been in jeopardy, but the rise of the pro-Russian far-right, the weariness of a protracted war and a potential return of Donald Trump in the White House may derail this level of commitment.
He will have to continue dodging the hurdles of the Hungarian Viktor Orbán in the EU and count on large European parliamentary majorities to avoid any kind of blockade of the extreme right in the European Parliament. It also aims to increase the EU’s military capacity and stop depending on the United States and NATO for defense. The bloc wants to be able to defend itself and not stop sending weapons to Ukraine to curb Russian expansionism.
The balances of the green agenda
When the fight against climate change was a matter of unappealable consensus, Von der Leyen pushed an ambitious green agenda and rolled it out very quickly. Everything slowed down, however, when the extreme right and a part of his own party and the liberals joined the anti-environmental wave that is flooding the EU. Now he no longer defends it as before or claims it as one of his star measures, but he does not give it up for dead, not by a long shot.
In fact, commitment to the environmental plan is the Greens’ main condition in exchange for supporting it and it is likely that Von der Leyen will need them for the entire legislature if she does not want to depend on the extreme right. The social democrats, as opposed to the right and the ultra-right, also make the ecological struggle one of their battle horses and press it in the same direction. In other words, he will or will not have to keep the green agenda alive, but juggling to prevent the EPP and Meloni from turning their backs on it and further complicating the EU’s fragile governability.
Expansion and the area of influence of Putin
The war in Ukraine has once and for all accelerated the expansion into the Ukrainian country itself, the Western Balkans, Georgia and Moldova. They had been in the membership waiting room for many years, and it wasn’t until the EU feared that they would fall on the side of Moscow’s influence that the batteries started. However, beyond the doubts generated by possible pro-Russian and anti-democratic tendencies such as those seen in Georgia, the bloc believes that it must carry out a major structural reform before growing in the number of European partners in order to function efficiently.
Von der Leyen, however, has been caught between crisis and crisis during her first term, and has avoided opening the box of reform thrones. Each state has different interests and the negotiations are expected to be long and difficult. This means that, in turn, EU leaders like Von der Leyen can come out badly. In spite of everything, sooner or later he will have to face it. At the moment, he has only put on the table the master lines of a potential modification of the treaties. Among others, it raises the end of the condition of unanimity in some fields to approve laws and appoint a maximum of MEPs.
Salvar el ‘Made in Europe’
The EU increasingly finds itself sandwiched between the United States and China, but it does not intend to stand idly by. There is a strong consensus within the bloc to boost the competitiveness of European industry, and Von der Leyen promised a legislature of “big investments” in this regard. Brussels is also considering other measures to protect itself from strong competition from the United States and China, and has already increased tariffs on electric cars it imports from China, for example.
Immigration and the extreme right
The far right has achieved the best results in its history in a European election and is growing in almost all of the EU. As of now, they still have no power in the EU bloc, although they have long managed to influence the policies of Brussels, which has tightened the tone and measures against newcomers. The clearest example is the arrival of Meloni. Von der Leyen welcomed her with open arms and, far from resisting her, she has embraced the anti-immigration initiatives advocated by the Italian far-right.
In fact, it is not only Meloni who is asking him to be tougher on migrants and refugees. A large majority of states, including those governed by social democrats, are putting pressure on Von der Leyen in this regard, and for example have already urged him to outsource the management of the entry of newcomers to third countries, even if they do not guarantee the respect of human rights. Therefore, in the face of pressure from the far-right and the leaders of the member states, it is expected that Von der Leyen will continue to lean more and more to the right on the migration issue.
