Von der Leyen to face tight vote for second term after EU leaders seal top jobs deal

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 3 - The European Parliament is currently scheduled to vote on the appointment of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for a second term on July 18. At a summit in Brussels last week, EU leaders reached a final agreement on the three top EU posts - but negotiations ran into opposition from Italy and Hungary.
    Good people.
    Ursula von der Leyen has navigated back-to-back crises from the Covid-19 pandemic to Russia's war against Ukraine as head of the European Commission, and stands on the verge of a no-less tumultuous second term - provided she can lock in support from EU lawmakers.
    At a summit last week, EU leaders gave their green light to nominate the German conservative and former defence minister for a second term as president of the Commission. But their endorsement does not mean that von der Leyen's second term is confirmed just yet.
    At the summit, the liberal Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was nominated for EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Both von der Leyen and Kallas will need to lock in majority support in the European Parliament.
    The socialist former Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa was elected as President of the European Council for a two-and-a-half year term, taking office on December 1, 2024. His appointment does not require the approval of the European Parliament. He was directly elected by the members of the institution, the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member states, for which a qualified majority was needed.
    "They are good people who guarantee good work and who will also ensure that Europe, in the coming years, in such difficult times, is well positioned," said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, negotiator for the social democratic party family.
    "I believe these experienced politicians will lead the European Union in these turbulent times with much sound judgement, wisdom and optimism," Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said after the European Council meeting. Golob is affiliated with the liberal Renew Europe group.
    However, the final deal was passed without consensus. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni abstained in the vote on the nomination of von der Leyen, while voting against the election of Costa and the nomination of Kallas. As Meloni's ally, nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also voted against von der Leyen, but in favour of Costa, while abstaining on Kallas.
    The European Parliament will be von der Leyen's next stop, since she will have to find a majority of 361 MEPs in the 720-seat hemicycle. The vote is currently scheduled to take place on July 18.
    In 2019, she secured the European Parliament's backing by just nine votes.
    Von der Leyen's troubled path to a second term.
    EU leaders are hoping a coalition of three political groups will secure her confirmation, reflecting mainly the group affiliations of the prime ministers and presidents who backed her in the European Council.
    The three groups are von der Leyen's own centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew Europe group. The informal alliance theoretically has a comfortable majority of around 400 of the 720 votes.
    Scholz expressed optimism that the European Parliament will back von der Leyen's nomination for a second term at the helm of the EU's executive. "The president has a very good reputation in parliament after all," he said.
    However, it is considered possible that some MEPs will deviate from the party line in the secret ballot and not vote for the German. From now until mid-July von der Leyen will have to negotiate and gather support from the groups as well as individual parliamentary delegations.
    She has already met with the Greens. "We had a very constructive meeting with Ursula von der Leyen in which we talked about the goal of a stable, reliable majority," said the group's co-chair, Terry Reintke. "We made it clear that we will not be part of a majority that negotiates with or relies on the extreme right, including the ECR." Von der Leyen and her EPP party family had not ruled out working with the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group during the election campaign.
    Meloni has pushed hard, but unsuccessfully, for one of the top jobs to be given to a member of the soft-eurosceptic ECR group, which includes her far-right Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and came third in the European Parliament elections.
    Meloni and Orbán put up a fight.
    Meloni said the exclusion of the ECR from the top jobs' allocation was "above all a lack of respect towards the citizens of Europe" as the nominations did not account for the increase in support for the right in the elections.
    Her argument was that the election success of her hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping, set to be the European Parliament's third-largest force, as well as Italy's standing as the bloc's third-biggest economy, should be reflected in the EU leadership. The EPP and the S&D respectively came first and second in the elections, but Renew came fourth, behind the ECR.
    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who negotiated last week's deal for the EPP, sent a strong signal to Meloni at the summit.
    "There is no Europe without Italy, and there's no decision without Prime Minister Meloni," he told reporters, with similar conciliatory sounds coming from Greece and Cyprus and Austria.
    Afterwards, Meloni said it would be "shameful" if the European establishment penalised Italy because of her choice to abstain on von der Leyen and vote against the other two top job nominations. "I don't agree that a contrary vote puts our position in the EU at risk," she said.
    Orbán had also denounced the top jobs deal as a stitch-up, saying "European voters have been deceived", though his opposition was not enough to derail the final agreement.
    Far-right stir trouble ahead of plenary vote.
    As von der Leyen's last but least trouble-free step to secure her second term as head of the European Commission - the vote in the European Parliament - approaches, recent political developments could pose additional obstacles to her re-election.
    While needing the support of the groups, such as the Greens, as well as of Meloni, far-right movements less likely to support her appointment are set to further complicate the process.
    In France, the potential victory of Marine Le Pen's nationalist and right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN) party in the French elections looms. Also, Hungary started its presidency of the Council of the EU and the prospect of a far-right alliance in the European Parliament emerged.
    In the first round of snap elections on June 30 in France, RN came out on top with about 33 percent of the votes, with President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) alliance in third place with about 20 percent.
    On Sunday, Orbán announced an alliance with populist parties from Austria and the Czech Republic at the EU level, dubbed Patriots for Europe, to form a new far-right group in the European Parliament.
    The Patriots for Europe grouping draws in Orbán's Fidesz party, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Czech Republic's Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, commonly known as ANO (Yes). It should soon gain more members and become the "largest group of right-wing forces in Europe", the Fidesz leader said.
    (The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, dpa, EFE, Lusa, STA). (ANSA).