The German incumbent won a relatively narrow victory in her bid for a second mandate as European Commission President – and her support has all but vanished from countries such as France.
Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen has won a second term in office, after a Wednesday vote at the European Parliament.
Her team of 27 Commissioners are now set to start work as of Sunday, 1 December — running Brussels’ most powerful institution, and proposing and implementing EU laws for the next five years.
Here’s three things to know about her win today.
1. It was a narrow victory
With 370 votes in favour, and 282 votes against, the new EU executive has, in historical terms, just scraped in.
It’s lower than the 401 votes she mustered in July, in a secret ballot intended to confirm her as Commission President, and lower support than incoming chiefs gained in 2010, 2014 or her own first term in 2019.
In legal terms, all that matters is that she won the majority of votes cast. Including those who didn’t bother to show up, only 51.3% of the chamber voted for her, but that’s still enough to guarantee the new Commission will take office this Sunday, 1 December.
In part that reflects a more fragmented chamber, after June elections saw a rise in support for the eurosceptic right.
But it also foreshadows a tricky five-year term, in which individual pieces of legislation will need to seek majorities on an ad hoc basis, including from MEPs who didn’t vote for her.
2. A centrist coalition remains, with increasing polarisation
Von der Leyen has said she’s happy to cooperate with any party that’s pro-European, pro-Ukraine and pro-rule of law.
In practice, she still enjoys solid support from three main centrist parties.
A boycott by centre-right MEPs from Spain and Slovenia – in protest at the pick of socialists Teresa Ribera and Marta Kos as Commissioners – meant her support was actually proportionally stronger in liberal Renew coalition than her own European People’s Party.
But the chamber has also seen increased polarisation of late.
Issues that previously drew consensus, such as the green deal, are now highly divisive, as seen in a recent controversial vote that saw the EPP and parties further right voting to delay and water down EU anti-deforestation laws.
Since July, von der Leyen has seen support crumble from the Greens, just over half of whom have now voted for her.
But that’s been partly compensated by backing from the right-wing Conservatives and Reformists, ECR, where she has unanimous support from the national delegation of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
ADVERTISEMENT3. Support varies wildly across Europe
Some countries’ MEPs are wild about von der Leyen – others are distinctly lukewarm.
She commands broad support from MEPs in the Nordics, Baltics, Netherlands, Italy and Portugal, and a narrower majority from Poland and her native Germany.
But in France, just 18 out of 81 MEPs – all from her own EPP or President Emmanuel Macron’s Renew — supported her, the lowest proportion for any member state; her backing is also low in Belgium and Hungary.
Some MEPs have pointed to the relatively light portfolio handed to France’s Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné as a reason for that negativity.
ADVERTISEMENTBut it may also reflect the particularly fractious state of Parisian politics at the moment. June elections saw a significant rise for parties on the far-right, and where socialists are currently protesting the fragile minority government led by Michel Barnier.
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