In the space of 5 years, Europe’s ecologists and regionalists have gone from opposing Ursula von der Leyen politically during the previous legislature to providing decisive support for her re-election by the European Parliament as President of the European Commission on Thursday 18 July (see EUROPE 13456/1).
In July 2019, the Co-Presidents of the Greens/EFA group, Germany’s Ska Keller and Belgium’s Philippe Lamberts, admittedly said they were positively surprised by the climate ambitions of the German Christian Democrat’s campaign speech in the chamber of the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12297/1). Foreshadowing what was to become the ‘European Green Deal’, the initial hallmark of the ‘von der Leyen’ Commission, the latter proposed increased targets for reducing CO2 emissions to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, a carbon tax at the EU’s borders, a European climate bank, a Just Transition Fund...
But Mr Lamberts criticised the silence of the candidate nominated by the European Council on biodiversity loss and the “disastrous impact” of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Before Mrs von der Leyen was first elected, the Parliament’s pro-European political groups, including the Greens/EFA group, had attempted to draw up their own strategic agenda to compete with that of the European Council and to exert pressure on the selection of senior European posts. They also criticised the fact that the choice of the former German minister by the EU27, at the instigation of French President Emmanuel Macron, shattered the principle of the leading candidate (‘Spitzenkandidat’).
In vain. These discussions failed to reach a consensus on common political priorities.
Buoyed by their electoral success, the ecologists wanted to capitalise on the importance of the climate issue in the 2019 election campaign and called for strong measures to be taken to rescue migrants at sea (see EUROPE 12291/1). Since the pro-European majority formed by the EPP, S&D and Renew Europe groups already had a comfortable absolute majority of MEPs (444 votes out of the 376 needed), they could afford to raise the bar in terms of content, knowing that their votes were not necessarily needed to ensure Ms von der Leyen’s election.
They therefore voted against the election of the German Christian Democrat. Elected by just nine votes, she owed her salvation to a few Conservative votes due to numerous defections from the pro-European camp.
Fast forward to July 2024 and the reversal in political positioning is striking.
Europe’s ecologists ensured the re-election of the Commission President-designate by giving her 45 votes out of a possible 53, with Ms von der Leyen winning by around 40 votes.
She described the result as “much better” than in 2019, and welcomed the adopted strategy of including the ecologists as far as possible in a “pro-European, pro-Ukraine, pro-rule of law” majority, without totally frustrating her own political family, some of whom blame the “European Green Deal” for all the ills suffered by businesses and citizens.
Commenting on the situation from Strasbourg, the Co-Chair of the ECR group, the Italian Nicola Procaccini, whose political family Fratelli d'Italia voted against Mrs von der Leyen, said that she had been “saved by the ecologists”, even though the latter, like the centre-right Renew Europe group, lost the European elections.
Six weeks ago, at the end of a campaign dominated by the climate-sceptic and anti-immigration positions of the extreme parties, the ecologists were in fact weakened. Their group in the European Parliament is losing around 20 MEPs.
On election night, their co-‘Spitzenkandidaten’ advocated for the union of progressive forces in the face of the rise of the radical right (see EUROPE 13427/6). They are calling on the winning parties not to backtrack on the ‘European Green Deal’ and to take a firmer line on respect for the rule of law, in reference to the controversial release of €10 billion in cohesion funds for Hungary in late 2023. Realistic about their relative weight in the new chamber, they insist on the urgency of blocking the far right by proving that a pro-European majority exists in Parliament.
The election of Mrs von der Leyen was the first political opportunity to verify this.
“If you ask me if this is a green programme, I’ll tell you ‘no’”, said the German Co-Chair of the Green Group, Terry Reintke, reacting to Mrs von der Leyen’s speech. However, she stressed the need for a “majority of pro-European democratic groups” to stand united against the far right.
Her compatriot Daniel Freund believes that Mrs von der Leyen has found “the right words” in assuring that she will do her utmost to ensure that the rule of law is respected, particularly in the use of European funds.
As for the leader of the pan-European Volt party in the European Parliament, the German Damian Boeselager, he is convinced that strengthening the Greens/EFA group, rather than joining Renew Europe, has contributed to Mrs von der Leyen seeking the support of the ecologists for her re-election. The Commission President-designate’s programme is “conservative, but acceptable”, despite the weakness of the discourse on social and migration issues, he felt.
The ecologists are therefore convinced that by being part of the pro-European majority in the European Parliament, even if it is informal, they will be better able to monitor the Commission’s actions and influence the Parliament’s decisions. In order to build on a stable foundation, the Christian Democrats need us, said Bas Eickhout.
And Mrs von der Leyen’s announcements on the proposal for a ‘Clean Industrial Deal’ as a means of putting climate objectives at the service of economic competitiveness more or less corresponds to the vision of a pragmatic ecology, as the Co-Presidency of the Greens/EFA group seems to be defending. Not to mention the fact that, according to European ecologists, Mrs von der Leyen is allowing the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ process to return with a vengeance.
Another interesting fact is that the Co-Chairs of the parliamentary group, Bas Eickhout and Terry Reintke, come from countries where coalition governments are common, even with the right. In Germany, Die Grünen are currently in power with the Social Democrats of the SPD and the Liberals of the FDP.
At the start of the tenth parliamentary term, this seems to be the political position of the Greens/EFA group, which is now largely dominated by the German delegation.
However, there is still a delegation of Gallic diehards within the parliamentary group. Having seen their ranks dwindle from 13 to five elected members, the French ecologists chose to vote against Mrs von der Leyen, as they did 5 years ago. “It did not seem possible to us (...) to be part of a majority that was less committed to social and climate justice and human rights than the previous one, in which we had refused to participate”, said their leader, David Cormand.
As Mounir Satouri, for example, described last week in Strasbourg, the French ecologists will therefore engage in “ideological resistance”, starting with the restrictive approach to migration advocated on the right of the chamber.
Mathieu Bion
(Original version in French)