Ursula von der Leyen will be the EPP candidate for President of the European Commission. The deadline for submitting nominations has passed and the People's Party family has pledged its support to the German head of state for a second mandate. The official investiture will not take place until the Bucharest Congress on March 6th and 7th, but is now complete. The outgoing president is already in the election campaign and wants to reiterate that her race must be clearly separated from the governing actions of the EU executive. The President of the Commission is elected by the European Parliament on a proposal from the European Council (ie the EU heads of state and government), taking into account the election results. Five years ago, von der Leyen, then a former EU defense minister, was pulled out of a hat by EU heads of state and government with an intuition from Emmanuel Macron without using the method (which was not foreseen in the treaties but was used in 2014). ). of the top candidate or the chairman of the winning faction, at that time Manfred Weber. His election – by secret ballot – was approved with just nine votes and the M5S patrol was decisive. Today, von der Leyen knows that he must win the votes of the new parliament, given the poor poll numbers of the Renew Liberals and some seat losses by the EPP and the Socialists. Will he ally with the right or ask the Greens for help? “It is impossible to work with opponents of the rule of law, and it is impossible with Putin’s friends,” said the German politician.
“For me it is important to work with pro-European, pro-NATO and pro-Ukrainian groups that clearly support our democratic values. So the most important question is: What is the content?” explains von der Leyen. So no to the “Identity and Democracy” group, which includes Le Pen's League and Rassemblement National as well as the German AfD and Geert Wilders' Dutch PVV, which was already attacked by der Leyen last Monday. The situation is different with Ecr, whose first party from June will be Fratelli d'Italia. “Every European election brings with it a change in the composition of the various political parties and factions. There must be a very clear positioning of the politicians and we do not know who will join the ECR after the elections, who will leave the ECR or who could join the EPP, that is also possible – emphasizes von der Leyen. But the dividing line is: Are you for democracy? Do you defend our values? Are you very pro-constitutional? Do you support Ukraine? Are you fighting against Putin's attempt to weaken and divide Europe? And these answers have to be very clear.” Weber also talks about current movements within the conservative group. In the ECR camp he emphasizes: “There are many problems, there are friends of Putin and there are those who have sworn against Putin, there is no common understanding about what to do.” What I can already see is the development of a quite interesting internal struggle.” And we saw this when Viktor Orban said after the elections that he wanted to join the ECR: “Immediately the Czech ECR delegation publicly stated that they did not want to be in the same camp as Orban, and did so “also the Swedish and Finnish populist parties,” explained the leader of the People’s Party. Regarding the Green Deal, the EPP explains that, despite paying attention to the social impacts, it does not want to take any steps backwards. “We are proud of what we are doing with the Green Deal, we are the party of the Green Deal.” “Ursula von der Leyen's proposals are ours and we are doing this in the interests of future generations,” emphasized Weber. The Hungarian Prime Minister is certainly on the popular blacklist. Viktor Orban “is the problem, he is in a sense Putin’s voice within the EU” and the appeal is to overcome the veto. At least when it came to sanctions, Hungary was not able to keep the EU in check for long this time. This morning the ambassadors of the 27 agreed on the 13th package of measures against Russia, to be adopted in time for the anniversary of the Russian invasion on the 24th. There are almost 200 people and companies on the sanctions list, including those from third countries who are accused of evasion, bringing the total to over 2,000. Delivery networks for drone components entering the Russian military complex are also being targeted.