Trumpist echoes, top-of-the-line debates and some interesting revelations in the European electoral debate held yesterday in Maastricht with the theoretical candidates to preside over the next European Commission. In reality, only one of the participants, its current president and member of the European People’s Party, Ursula von der Leyen, has a chance of getting the position and from the first moment all her rivals tried to put the German against the ropes.
“Brussels has become a quagmire in which bureaucrats whom no one has elected will carry out their vision of creating a European super state,” shot the far-right Danish Anders Vistisen. “Our campaign promise is that we will fire 10,000 European civil servants and I would like to start with you, Ursula von der Leyen,” said the candidate of Identity and Democracy, one of the groups in which far-right parties are active in the chamber . About halfway through the debate, speaking about the war in Ukraine, Von der Leyen burst out saying she was “tired” of hearing his arguments and accused the parties that make up it, such as Alternative for Germany, of being “in Vladimir Putin’s pocket” and repeating “his propaganda and his lies”. “Clean your house before you come to criticize us”, the popular German told him, who wants to make his rejection of the “anti-European and pro-Putin” ultra-right, which includes Marine Le Pen’s party, the League Italian and Alternative for Germany, one of the axes of his campaign.
The cheers his response elicited quickly died down. The candidate of The Greens, the Dutch Bas Eickhout, took advantage of the agreement and forced Von der Leyen to clarify whether she would be willing to cooperate with European Reformists and Conservatives – ECR, the group to which Vox and the Brothers of Italy belong of Giorgia Meloni, with whom she maintains an excellent relationship, among others – in case the leaders of the Twenty-seven nominate her as a candidate to preside over the Commission for one more term and she needs their votes in the next Parliament. “It will depend on what its composition is and who is in each group”, finally answered the candidate of the PPE, a party in which some defend reaching agreements with this political group in order not to depend so much on social democrats and ecologists as in the legislature that now it ends
“This answer seemed a little strange to me. European values ??and rights cannot be defined based on political agreements. Either you can work with the far-right, because you need them, or you say clearly that no agreement is possible because they do not respect the fundamental rights for which the European Commission has fought”, the head of the list of the European Socialist Party, the Luxembourgish Nicolas, reproached him Schmidt. “In some countries where the ECR ultra-right governs, they do not respect them and are abolishing them”, criticized Schmit, current European Commissioner for Employment.
It was the only noteworthy intervention of the socialist candidate throughout the night, as he was noticeably absent, while the environmentalist Eickhout, who was playing at home, and the L’Esquerra candidate, Walter Baier, disputed complicity and the applause of the young audience at the debate, organized by Politico and the University of Maastricht, when he demanded a more demanding European position with Israel in the Gaza war, including sanctions, or demanding the continuation of the Green Agenda. “Climate policies and competitiveness can go together”, assured Von der Leyen, who must strike a balance on the second issue in order not to strain his relations with the EPP, which has turned its back on some of his proposals in this area, and at the same time not lose the support of social democrats and greens, whose votes he will need in the event that the Twenty-seven propose to him to lead the Commission for another term.
