EU Politics Decoded - Von der Leyen 2: A thin-stretched majority

By Nicoletta Ionta

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Welcome to EU Politics Decoded, brought to you by Nicoletta Ionta with reporting by Magnus Lund Nielsen. EU Politics Decoded is your essential guide for staying up-to-date with the Brussels bubble. Subscribe here.

In today’s edition

Lately, the European Parliament has been consumed with discussions about 'majorities'. From Venezuela to the Berlaymont, MEPs have been fixated on just how far-stretched – and how far-right – the potential majority backing the new von der Leyen Commission would be.

On my way to Strasbourg this week, every EPP source I spoke to had the same reassuring message: don’t worry, everything will be fine.

Then came Wednesday’s vote, and the calm confidence oozed by EPP MEPs began to fade as the backing for VdL 2 fell below expectations, with some 31 fewer votes than she received for her own confirmation back in July.

The new Commission was backed by a broad majority stretching from the Greens to the far-right ECR – a coalition carefully engineered by EPP leader Manfred Weber, that he went so far as to dub “my majority" on Tuesday.

But that breadth of support did not translate into depth. The new Commission secured just 370 votes in favour, the fewest since the Parliament gained the power to vote on the College with the Maastricht Treaty.

That did not stop von der Leyen celebrating. Just as she did after the populist right made gains in June’s EU elections, the President proclaimed that Wednesday’s vote showed once again that “the centre is holding”.

However, the centre seems to thin out as it stretches wider.

Managing an expanded centre

Weber and his EPP will have already realised through this month’s backroom dealings that being kingmaker doesn’t necessarily win you friends – if anything, the EPP managed to alienate one of its historical partners, the centre-left S&D group, along the way.

On the eve of the vote, the socialists scrambled to justify backing a Commission they once threatened to oppose, boasting of modest wins in a negotiation where the EPP dominated on all fronts.

Through appeals to honour the “historical majorities” and the pro-European legacy of the house that “built Europe,” S&D leader Iratxe García Pérez directly addressed von der Leyen and Weber, declaring that her group will not grant them a “blank cheque” over the next five years.

But such nostalgia for the old order was quickly dismissed as a “fetish” by senior ECR lawmaker Carlo Fidanza, head of the right-wing group’s largest delegation, in remarks to reporters on Wednesday.

The S&D managed to conjure up warm smiles during Wednesday’s vote. But it is clear that their trust in the EPP has been shattered, despite the flimsy two-page document meant to piece things back together.

One who might claim to have made some friends in recent weeks is the liberal Renew Europe leader Valérie Hayer. Despite losing seats in June, Renew has since positioned itself as the linchpin of the pro-European coalition, the glue between two partners who decline to see eye to eye.

But even from Renew, once again, the most telling talk has been of expanded majorities. While Hayer praised the pro-European coalition as the “only one possible”, she subsequently hinted at being open to working with specific national groups within the ECR, such as Belgium’s N-VA and Czechia’s ODS.

On the other hand, the Greens justified their slim support for the Commission by drawing a distinction between the two faces of the EPP – von der Leyen and Weber.

“We know the game he’s been playing,” co-leader Terry Reintke said of Weber on Tuesday, while von der Leyen “is willing to work with us”. Von der Leyen's long-anticipated appointment of former Greens leader Phillippe Lamberts as an adviser – and the very flattering wording in Monday’s formal announcement – perhaps shows that von der Leyen remains able to reach out on her left, while Weber casts his eyes firmly to the right.

However, much of the group remained sceptical, with 21 out of 53 Green lawmakers voting against the Commission on Wednesday.

If the road to the vote was long and winding, the path ahead will be even more so for the EPP. With the success of the hearings banked, the group will have to prove it has not overplayed its hand in needing to appease both the right and the left side of the political spectrum at times.

The “expanded centre” that Weber hailed as a “positive message of stability” could quickly become an unmanageable mess, particularly if his partners do not share his vision of what that majority should represent.

“There are no majority framework limits,” ECR leader Nicola Procaccini said after Wednesday’s vote. “We look at reality”.

And for the ECR, that reality is clear: “no fixed majorities,” but only case-by-case votes based “on content,” Procaccini said – hardly indicative of the stability Weber has espoused.

In politics, power and dominance always have a price, and EPP may soon learn it.

Iratxe not going anywhere: Talking to journalists at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the S&D’s leader Iratxe García Pérez brushed off speculation that her position may soon come under threat. Wednesday’s vote saw the end to a year of election campaigning, shaping a new parliament and negotiating a deal to pass the new Commission. None of these above turned out in the S&D’s favour – seeing their group shrink in June and getting steamrolled by Weber in recent weeks. Still, García Pérez says that support for her leadership is stronger than ever. "In the group debates, there was no criticism of my management in the negotiations. (...) My leadership role has never been questioned," she said.

Say yes to the mess, no to the Commission: After they showed a constructive side during the hearings, green-lighting the vast majority of commissioners, the ECR was largely expected to vote in favour of the collective Commission. But antipathy to the new executive surfaced during group meetings in Strasbourg this week, parliamentary sources told EU Politics Decoded. MEPs were disappointed at their party’s incoming commissioner, Raffaelle Fitto, did not back vocally enough the group’s political project during his hearing. Ultimately, only the group's Italian, Belgian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Czech delegations voted in favour of the Commission on Wednesday – less than half of their group.

Socialists take infighting online: After Italian S&D MEP Giorgio Gori posted a polished black-and-white Instagram photo of his fellow male delegation members captioned "Europeans at work" – with not a woman in sight – the women of the delegation posted their own riposte: "We European women work better". The exchange caused a small internal drama, S&D sources told EU Politics Decoded, in a week where the group really could have done without.

*Magnus Lund Nielsen contributed reporting.