On Monday 15 July, The Left in the European Parliament held a hearing with Ursula von der Leyen, the candidate nominated by the European Council for the Presidency of the European Commission. Ahead of the vote scheduled for Thursday 18 July at 1pm at the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg, Ms von der Leyen tried to convince the radical left-wing group to support her.
However, The Left is expected to maintain its announced opposition to Ms von der Leyen’s re-election and vote against her candidacy on Thursday.
MEPs questioned her on workers’ rights, migration, housing, the environmental transition and the EU’s social initiatives.
Addressing the MEPs, Ms von der Leyen spoke of organising an “anti-poverty summit” to target the “necessary initiatives” on the social front, indicating that the lack of affordable housing would be one of the main areas of work for such a summit, without giving any further details.
Ms von der Leyen also stressed the importance of tackling the criminal networks that smuggle migrants, in order to promote “legal” and safe “access” to EU territory.
According to Li Andersson (The Left, Finnish), the suspension of the EU’s association agreement with Israel is also very important for The Left Group (see EUROPE 13417/1), in view of the current situation in the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, the President of the Commission will need to obtain an absolute majority in the European Parliament, i.e. 361 votes, to be re-elected. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)