It was all smiles and applause – well, not everything, almost everything – last Thursday in the large circular room of Romexpo, in Bucharest, where the delegates of the European People’s Party (EPP) had just elected the German Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen as candidate to repeat the position of president of the European Commission after the elections to the European Parliament on June 6-9. Von der Leyen won – she also had no rival – by 400 votes to 89. Among those who voted against, and did not show a smile, were the delegates of the French party The Republicans, something unimaginable at the time of the political honeymoon between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Sample of the swell that stirs the waters of the European right.
The one who did smile – he had no other choice – was the leader of the EPP, the Bavarian Christian Socialist Manfred Weber, high priest of the event. But it is not difficult to intuit that inside the smile must have been petrified by ice. In November 2018 in Helsinki, Weber had been chosen, acclaimed by his peers throughout Europe. And after the victory of the Popular Party in the 2019 European elections, he already saw himself occupying the presidency of the community executive in Brussels. That was the spirit, at least, of the figure of the spitzenkandidat (in German, main candidate), with which the aim was to offer – or to appear to offer – a more democratic mechanism in the configuration of the European government. But the French president, Emmanuel Macron, vetoed his name and ended up agreeing with Merkel on the appointment of Von der Leyen.
The mutual sympathy between Weber and Von der Leyen – who belong to different but historically allied parties – is perfectly describable. But the most important thing about this strange cohabitation in Bucharest is not the personal quarrels, but rather their political differences. Von der Leyen, a woman supported at the time by Angela Merkel, is part of the most moderate wing of the CDU – and her management in Brussels has only corroborated this – while Weber has printed a conservative bias and strongly leans towards the right in the EPP. To the point of openly flirting, in recent times, with breaking the traditional European bloc that dominates the European Parliament – made up of popular, social democrats, liberals and greens – and exploring an alliance with the European Conservatives and Reformists (CRE) group, where the party of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni – the post-fascist Brothers of Italy – is with the Poles of Law and Justice and the Spanish Vox.
Weber-Von der Leyen cohabitation seems complicated. The German will more than likely be re-elected president of the European Commission – the popular ones will certainly be the most voted in June and her candidacy has the favor of important European leaders – but, at least on paper, she will take office this time with a much more conservative program than five years ago. In Bucharest, the EPP approved a manifesto in which it proposes toughening migration policy, introducing among others the controversial measure of referring asylum seekers to third countries – as the United Kingdom intends to do with Rwanda -, and opening a “new phase ” in the application of the Green Deal for Europe – the Green deal personally promoted by Von der Leyen – that places economic growth at the center, with special attention to the problems of European farmers.
In her acceptance speech, Von der Leyen made an effort to assume this new line – “We have a fantastic manifesto and we are united in the messages,” she declared. But he marked his own red lines in terms of alliances: no pacts with pro-Russian parties, that question aid to Ukraine, or anti-European ones. For the rest, Von der Leyen will not only have to balance with his own party and the European Parliament resulting from the elections, but also with the leaders of the main European countries. And it does not seem that neither Olaf Scholz in Germany, nor Emmanuel Macron in France nor Pedro Sánchez in Spain are going to swallow the Weber recipe book without further ado.
The drift of the PPE does not respond, however, exclusively to a man. It is a reflection of the shift that many European conservative parties have been experiencing for some time, which, feeling the breath of the extreme right on their necks, have launched as if there were no tomorrow to adopt a large part of the discourse of the ultras, particularly on immigration. and national identity. What you are doing is nothing more than giving wings to your competitors. The French republicans have been settled in this right-wing drift for some time – which is leading them to irrelevance – and, although they connect with Weber’s theses, they do not trust Von der Leyen: too pro-European, too left-wing, too friendly to Macron… That’s why they voted against.
Faced with this fluid scenario, the main European far-right parties are looking for a way to reposition themselves and put themselves in the best position for an eventual pact with the right. The French Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Regroupment (RN), whose candidacy the polls predict victory in the European elections with 29% of the votes, is looking for a way to distance herself, if not break, with Alternative for Germany ( AfD), with whom he shares a seat in the Identity and Democracy (ID) group. The cause of the rupture would be the participation of AfD members in a meeting with neo-Nazi groups in which a plan to deport all foreigners and German citizens of immigrant origin who were not sufficiently integrated was discussed. Which raised an impressive protest movement in Germany.
The controversial proposal of a “remigration” plan – according to the jargon in use – not only clashes with Le Pen’s years of work to dediabolize the image of her party and make it respectable, but also connects with the theses of her main internal competitor. , the Reconquista party of Éric Zemmour, whose candidate in the European elections is none other than his own niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (married, by the way, to an Italian fratelli, the MEP Vincenzo Sofo). For Marine Le Pen, Reconquista is a thorn in the side, which also hinders her objective of getting closer to Giorgia Meloni, to whom she has sent several cables in recent times and who has her own internal problems with Matteo Salvini’s League (integrated today for today in Le Pen’s group). If the Italian and the French changed allies and united in Strasbourg and Brussels, the European political landscape could be radically transformed.
