[NEWS #Alert] Ursula von der Leyen is elected European Commission president! – #Loganspace AI

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[NEWS #Alert] Ursula von der Leyen is elected European Commission president! – #Loganspace AI


“GEWÄHLT ist gewählt und Mehrheit ist Mehrheit,” goes a announcing in German politics coined by Gerhard Schröder, the feeble chancellor: “elected is elected and a majority is a majority”. The term would possibly maybe maybe change into Ursula von der Leyen’s fresh mantra. On the evening of July 16th the German defence minister used to be elected the fresh president of the European Commission by the European Parliament. She won 383 of the 733 votes solid, clearing the margin for an absolute majority by merely nine votes, and will thus change into the first ever lady president of the EU’s govt when Jean-Claude Juncker steps down on the tip of October.

It used to be a magnificent narrower victory than many had anticipated. Mrs von der Leyen began the day with a loyal and policy-prosperous speech aimed namely on the centre and centre-left of the parliament, which is starting up build its fresh term after the European election in Also can merely. She wooed liberals with talk of an artificial-intelligence method and the completion of the EU’s capital-markets union, socialists with a commitment to unemployment reinsurance and minimum wages, and greens with pledges of a Green Deal and more courageous targets to decrease greenhouse-gasoline emissions. There were diversified proposals appealing across the respectable-European centre, for folk that can merely need disregarded her as a dry, back-room baby-kisser: a merely of legislative initiative for the European Parliament (that merely rests within the rate), accelerated improvements on border controls, a shift far off from unanimity requirements on foreign policy and a fresh mechanism for tackling rule-of-regulations infringements. The goal used to be sure: Mrs von der Leyen desired to be elected with an incredible “broad coalition” of the political mainstream. That must were easy. Her have centre-merely block, the liberals, the socialists and the greens together serve 518 of the parliament’s 751 seats.

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Nonetheless it undoubtedly used to be no longer. The centre-merely EPP neighborhood and the liberals were, it is lawful, broadly supportive. Below a deal performed by national leaders in a marathon European Council summit culminating on July 2nd, Mrs von der Leyen would be nominated for the rate, Charles Michel, a liberal, to the European Council’s have presidency and Josep Borrell, a socialist, to the role of high handbook for foreign policy—with Christine Lagarde, the French head of the IMF, taking price on the European Central Bank. Nonetheless so much of greens and socialists (led by contingents from Germany itself) objected that this used to be a stitch-up, that it used to be unfair on the left and that it contravened a put up-2014 conference whereby a event-political “lead candidate” would possibly maybe maybe procure to grab a mandate on the European election to change into rate president. That raised the spectre of Mrs von der Leyen owing her majority to merely-flee populists from outside the mainstream, a number of of whom backed her to terminate far off from getting Frans Timmermans, the socialists’ most in fashion substitute.

Clearly Mrs von der Leyen desired to terminate far off from that . Her speech this morning used to be her final effort to complete so. The vote used to be secret. Nonetheless its narrowness suggests that with out the votes of, impart, Poland’s merely-populist Regulations and Justice (PiS) MPs or those of Hungary’s authoritarian Fidesz, she must not procure won. One rumour, impressed by sources in Warsaw, has it that Angela Merkel known as PiS leaders to receive their beef up for her compatriot and ally (maybe in change for German beef up to serve EU regional funds flowing to sorrowful Polish regions). In distinction none of Germany’s 16 Social Democrat MEPs claims to procure voted for her and virtually no individuals of the parliament’s Green section did. So the incoming rate president will take hold of space of job with her authority already dented. Some distance from commanding a centrist majority within the parliament, she faces prices of being in hock to just a few the more sinful and unpredictable parts of the European merely.

Quiet, powerful of the media hyperventilation that greeted the shut result used to be unwarranted. The is the made of many components: divisions within the European Council, the failure of the “lead candidate” doctrine to make a choice out on, the parliament’s incapacity to unite round another candidate, some MEPs’ resentment of national leaders for imposing their substitute, the identity disaster on the European centre-left and the insincere strategic feints of populist rightists. Regulations and Justice, like Fidesz, had and has no lawful reason to imagine that Mrs von der Leyen is basically sympathetic to their world-see—certainly it used to be they she appeared as if it will procure within the sights of her proposed rule-of-regulations mechanism. Nonetheless it undoubtedly did desire to be considered to back the “winning” candidate, which is no doubt why it is gleefully spreading phrase of Mrs Merkel’s supposed mobile telephone name. Loads desire to be considered as queenmakers, nevertheless actually messier.

A majority is a majority. And whatever the scale of her majority, Mrs von der Leyen would procure faced a worrying legislative image every within the parliament and within the European Council, irrespective of the margin of her vote. Every are more fragmented and fractious than earlier than. Even had her allure offensive been more winning and more gives been struck, and had she won a thumping victory of 430 votes, impart, that can merely procure masked the fractures. This kind of coalition would procure spanned this kind of tremendous vary of views, from greens to merely-flee nationalists, that its size would procure belied the legislative traces to method back, merely because it will procure below a explicit candidate for the rate presidency. An illustration of the deceptiveness of the headline number comes within the responses to Mrs von der Leyen’s election: the incoming rate president has been showered with warm phrases and congratulations from greens, who didn’t vote for her, nevertheless criticised for her left-leaning speech by PiS figures, who did. The centre is splintering, politics is more plural and vitality battles are raging; in this kind of Europe down is most regularly up, and up is most regularly down.

The pressing ask now, then, is the identical one which would procure arisen had her majority been powerful bigger: can Mrs von der Leyen way bridges? The associated rate proposes EU regulations, which in most areas is handed by the European Council and the parliament. The 2 are more internally split than earlier than and more hostile towards one another. Crafting measures that acknowledge to the myriad requires of a turbulent world and can allure across these fractures will take hold of a knack for diplomacy, deal-making and persuasion. Mrs von der Leyen, a multilingual moderate, confirmed today that she has on the least some expertise for this—though the many German critics of her shy spell as defence minister beg to differ. Her first take a look at would possibly maybe be striking together a rate and insisting on candidates (nominated by national governments) that develop a succesful overall group and fulfil her commitment to a gender balance. Elected is elected. Now Mrs von der Leyen need to lead.

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