It is the European Christian-Democratic family facing new challenges that Poland’s Donald Tusk will be required to preside over for two and a half years. The 719 delegates of the European People's Party (EPP) entrusted him, on Wednesday 20 November in Zagreb, with the reins of the European political party.
The first challenge for the outgoing President of the European Council, who will take on this new role as soon as the results are announced: to win back the electorate while the EPP suffered losses in the May European elections, with the EPP group in the European Parliament having fallen from 217 to 182 elected representatives, and to position himself strongly on the environmental issue, an issue increasingly claimed by the Christian Democrats.
In Zagreb, Mr Tusk was very comfortably elected (there were 528 valid votes among 719 members with a voting right: 491 in favour, 37 against, that is 93% of favourables votes). Yes, he was the only candidate in the running, but he quickly established himself, without dispute, as the natural successor of France’s Joseph Daul, according to several members of the EPP parliamentary group present in Zagreb. Especially since his decision not to return to the Polish political arena.
In any case, the Pole was true to himself during his ‘candidate’ speech, promising that he did not intend to change his “frank and direct” style, “sometimes a little too frank”.
His presidency of the EPP party will not be a “generational revolution” compared to the Daul years. “After all, I've been with you for more than 25 years, you know my good and bad sides”, joked Mr Tusk. It was precisely Joseph Daul who “came to me more than a year ago with the suggestion” to become his successor, he revealed. The Alsatian cherished the thought that “I am the only candidate”.
To a large extent, Donald Tusk’s speech focused on security, a feeling that the EPP intends to provide, or return, to Europeans, by not allowing these issues to fall solely into the hands of the “populists”. Feeling safe is even “what Europeans ask for” above all, with “fear” now playing “the biggest role in politics”.
And it is possible to combine security with respect for “freedoms and rights”, added Donald Tusk. In a reference perhaps to Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, he further argued that “we will not sacrifice values such as civil liberties, the Rule of law or decency in public life on the altar of order and security, because there is simply no need to”.
This speech may have reassured some elected officials who feared that the EPP would turn towards the East. “He is not going to be the man of the East, his speech on the Rule of law is very clear”, one expert reassured.
Beyond that, the Pole was very quiet about his political agenda. For the most part, the need for renewal was instead expressed by Joseph Daul. He had insisted on the need to take ownership of the environmental issue as well, but without hysteria.
The Frenchman, who will end his role within the EPP on 21 November to take “a well-deserved retirement”, in his own words, felt that he could not sell the principle of “the electric car in rural areas” and that pragmatic solutions had to be found.
The EPP must, in general, “look at what works and what does not work” and how “society evolves”, the Frenchman added. In his view, the situation in Ukraine or the advent of the digital age are other challenges for the EU.
What about enlargement? For some delegations, such as the French Les Républicains, this could be the only dividing line with Donald Tusk. The Pole, like almost all of the EPP, is openly in favour of the enlargement and launch of EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, whose country will host a Western Balkans summit in May 2020, described the lack of consensus among the Twenty-Eight on the issue (see EUROPE 12352/2) as a “mistake”, inviting France to make the “distinction between the opening of negotiations and the ensuing process”, which can be very long. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)