The European People’s Party yesterday confirmed the turn to the right with the approval of the manifesto with which they will be presented in the next elections to the European Parliament, a document that in certain issues paradoxically represents a complete amendment to the policies promoted by one of the seus, the current president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who will today proclaim her candidate to preside over the institution for another four years.
Relations with her political family are not great, but being named head of the list heading into the campaign will be a cakewalk for Von der Leyen, who arrives at this stage of the process unopposed. The next stage will not be complicated either: the EPP will, barring a major surprise, be the party with the most votes in the elections to the European Parliament on June 9, and the German has enough support, beyond her own party, because the leaders of the Twenty-seven appointed her in June as the next president of the Community Executive.
But the next stage, the secret vote in the plenary of the European Parliament, promises to be much more complicated for Von der Leyen. Driven by its president, Manfred Weber, the approach of the EPP to the extreme right, in terms of program and potential political alliances after the elections, may take its toll and endanger the support of the progressive wing of the hemicycle Part of the socialists, liberals and greens supported her in 2019 (she was elected by a margin of just nine votes) and the German has taken advantage of it to form majorities and push forward the major legislative proposals.
However, now they don’t trust their plans and could leave in a hurry. According to the polls, in the next legislature the EPP could be protected by the conservatives and the far-right, which hopes to advance positions in June and offer an alternative alliance to Weber’s in the event that the left does not agree to slow down the energy transition or tighten the Community asylum policy.
On the first issue, the final text of the manifesto no longer talks about reversing the ban on selling cars with combustion engines after 2035, as the German CDU demanded, but it does call for “leaving room for private, local agents and industrialists can find appropriate technological solutions” to carry out the objectives, which is subject to the defense of economic interests.
With regard to the legislation on asylum, the popular Europeans bet to promote “a fundamental change”, to launch a kind of “Rwandan model”, like what has been discussed in the United Kingdom based on the concept of third countries ” safe” to manage the arrival of immigrants. According to his proposal, detailed in the manifesto approved yesterday by the delegates of 51 parties associated with the EPP, the EU would conclude agreements with these countries so that asylum seekers are transferred there and receive protection “in a civilized and safe manner” during the processing of requests. If it works, the Twenty-Seven could allow an annual “quota” for people in need of humanitarian protection. The EPP claims that its proposals are in accordance with international law and assures, using a term that is often heard of the ultra-right, that they would help put a stop to “uncontrolled immigration”. The Commission has been very critical of this formula in the past. To the Commissioner of the Interior, Ylva Johansson, it did not seem “humane or dignified”, but now she has assumed that the agreement that Giorgia Meloni’s Italy has signed with the Government of Albania by which it outsources to the Balkan country the management of the demands for protection simply “fall outside” of the Community legislation.
Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, is one of the formations to which the PPE and Von der Leyen are considering turning to get the German’s re-election. His only red line, he said, is that they are formations that defend democracy, support Ukraine and do not flirt with Vladimir Putin, conditions that leave out Marine Le Pen’s party and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, but which will allow him vote for European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR, group to which Vox belongs) or Identity and Democracy (far-right).
Von der Leyen will have to make serious balances. The vote of the Eurochamber is not scheduled until September, a calendar that does not favor it, because it gives scope to the organization of “guerrillas” in the different groups to try to negotiate concessions, admit sources of the PPE, who trust that the finally “the sense of responsibility” prevails.
