Reactions to the new von der Leyen College: ECR exults, progressives wait in the wings

Brussels – Some are pleased and some are less so, with the composition of the next European Commission, presented this morning (Sept. 17) by President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg. Socialists and Liberals, majority partners of the People’s Party, reiterated that they would watch over the auditions of the candidates, saying they were partially satisfied with the delegations obtained by their representatives. The Greens​ and the Left were more critical, while Italian Conservatives were in raptures over Raffaele Fitto‘s conferral of the much-coveted executive vice-presidency (with delegations to Cohesion and Reform).

Even before the composition of the new College, many found fault with the move by the German lady of the Populars who, instead of explaining the list of commissioner candidates to the Conference of Presidents (the EU Parliament body that brings together the group leaders and the president of the Parliament), merely indicated there the division of the various portfolios and then revealed the identity of the 26 members of the next EU executive in front of journalists gathered in the hemicycle press room. A procedure that “aroused anger among colleagues,” in the piquant words spoken in the heat of the moment by the Left’s co-leader Martin Schirdewan co-leader, who, speaking of a “democratic deficit,” echoed her counterpart Manon Aubry who said she was “surprised and angry” at the “total disdain for the European Parliament” shown by the (re)elected president. 

However, beyond this colourful note, what held court was the affaire Fitto that has monopolised (or almost so) the attention in Brussels for weeks. On the one hand, Melonian MEPs who are part of the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) have claimed victory: “We express great satisfaction with the appointment of Raffaele Fitto, my predecessor as president of the ECR group, as European commissioner and executive vice-president of the European Commission,” said co-group leader Nicola Procaccini, adding that this appointment “makes us proud” because “Italy did not have a vice-president (of the EU executive, ed.) in the last legislature.” “This means a big responsibility, and I hope that colleagues of other political visions can also converge in supporting a candidacy (…) that is not just a conservative or Fratelli d’Italia candidacy, it is an Italian candidacy,” the FdI deputy added.

On the other hand, all groups to the left of the Populars (EPP) expressed varying degrees of concern over offering an executive vice-presidency (out of the total six) to a member of the radical right, which would thus be normalised. It was Procaccini himself, moreover, who pointed out the political node: “The executive vice presidents are expressions of political forces that do not suffer any cordon sanitaire. So they are considered politically viable, legitimised in their daily lives by political action,” he commented, claiming that “we have our political vision, but it is not an anti-European vision.”

Nothing new, considering von der Leyen’s flirtations with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during last June’s European election campaign. But enough to trigger comments from progressive political forces. For Iratxe García Pérez, group leader of the Social Democrats (S&D), the team presented this morning crystallised “issues of fundamental importance to us”—such as climate and fair and green transition, competition and social rights—but it also has several downsides. Such as “an executive vice presidency in the hands of an ECR commissioner,” who “is not part of the parties that supported von der Leyen’s nomination.”

A “political problem,” in the Spanish leader’s words that will merit “a lot of attention” from her group at the time of the parliamentary hearings, which could slip to early November. Pressed on the possibility of a structural collaboration of the ECR with the pro-European majority, Pérez lashed out at the Christian Democrats: “The cordon sanitaire (against the extreme right, ed.) works as long as the groups make it work: so far it has worked with other groups, evidently with the ECR it has not held up because the EPP did not want to apply it.” In short, the game is postponed until the fall. Otherwise, the Social Democrats said they were satisfied to be represented by four commissioners out of 27, including two executive vice presidents (Spain’s Teresa Ribera and Romania’s Roxana Mînzatu).

In terms of political balance, the liberals of Renew Europe fared better and will be represented in the second von der Leyen College by five commissioners, including two executive vice-presidents (High Representative Kaja Kallas and Stéphane Séjourné, nominated just yesterday as a replacement for the resigning Thierry Breton). “We do not cooperate with populists” of the left and right, said the group leader Valérie Hayer, claiming that at the hearing stage, candidates will be “screened” to assess their “European commitment, independence from member states, and adherence to the guidelines” that formed the political platform to which von der Leyen owes her reappointment. “I deplore this political choice,” the French deputy then said of Fitto’s appointment as executive vice president, assuring the “maximum vigilance” on Renew’s part.

On the executive vice-presidency to Fitto, the Greens’ group leaders were also clear: “We were not surprised,” admitted Terry Reintke, who lamented a decisive shift to the right of the majority (of which the ecologists feel part, having supported von der Leyen’s reelection), also criticising ECR’s co-optation. “We will prepare the hearings very well,” she assured, adding that “it will be complicated” to reach the two-thirds threshold in the parliamentary committee. Her group has “many reservations about her candidacy” and hopes for “some kind of reshuffle with a redistribution of portfolios” in the next College.

The German MEP also pointed out that the new Commission “is not gender-balanced” (the ratio of women to men is 40-60) but said she was satisfied that “a compartmentalisation of the Green Deal” had been avoided and appears to have remained central in several portfolios. Her Bas Eickhout counterpart echoed her by promising that “the issue of climate change will not disappear” from the European agenda, even though “the crisis of our natural systems” was not sufficiently considered in Mario Draghi’s report (which, evidently, will influence very much the agenda of the coming years). For the Dutch MEP, however, a false opposition “between Green Deal and competitiveness should not be fueled because they are two sides of the same coin.”

Finally, complaining about the “most right-wing European Commission in history” was the Left’s co-chairwoman, Aubry, who joined in the criticism of the first time of an ECR executive vice-president: a choice that “sheds light on the political orientation” of the next College, which she said “is based on the support of the extreme right.” According to Schirdewan, offering an executive vice-presidency to Fitto was a “strategic decision by von der Leyen” through which she “secured power” for another five years in a political landscape where interest for jobs and rights has been replaced by interest in defence—as shown by the appointments of Andrius Kubilius and Kaja Kallas, two anti-Russian Baltic hawks, who foreshadow, according to the German MP, a “tightening” of the Twenty-Seven’s stance toward Moscow.