Von der Leyen crowned EPP lead candidate, switches to campaign mode

Delegates at the European People’s Party’s (EPP) congress in Bucharest officially elected EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday (7 March) to become the party’s lead candidate for June’s European election.

Von der Leyen, who launched her bid for a second mandate at the Commission’s helm on 19 February, ran unopposed. Although 801 EPP delegates from across Europe were eligible to vote, only 499 voted, out of whom 89 were against her. Large abstention showcases that her election was widely anticipated.

The French delegation, Les Republicains, had announced they would vote against von der Leyen.

A Les Républicains official told Euractiv they were not alone in their opposition, as “many colleagues, and a substantial number in fact, including German colleagues, (…) have thanked us for being the spokesperson for their own reservations.”

The sitting Commission president was announced as the contest winner at 12:25 today.

With the EPP projected to remain the largest party group in the European Parliament and several European leaders known to be positive about her, von der Leyen is all but certain to clench a second mandate, barring a last-minute surprise.

The Commission president immediately switched to campaign mode, outlining the key cues for the upcoming campaign and a second mandate.

“The signal of Bucharest today is that the EPP is standing for Europe; (…) we stand democratic and united, pro-EU, pro-Ukraine, pro-rule-of-law,” von der Leyen told delegates ahead of the vote.

Alongside known talking points such as supporting Ukraine and boosting European defence, she notably highlighted the EPP’s pet subjects of fighting illegal migration, strengthening competitiveness and protecting farmers across the bloc.

The speech was another sign that von der Leyen would move closer to the EPP’s line as a crowned party candidate.

“All the programmatic positions of the European People’s Party are covered [supported] also by Ursula von der Leyen,” EPP President Manfred Weber told the press.

Some of the more radical points of the EPP’s manifesto that deviate from von der Leyen’s more moderate tone from her first mandate had raised eyebrows at the congress.

For example, the manifesto promises a crackdown on migration by endorsing the UK’s controversial Rwanda model to send migrants to third countries while processing asylum applications. The UK’s scheme with Rwanda, announced by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, was deemed to conflict with international law by the UK’s Supreme Court.

In addition, the centre-right also seeks to triple the staff of the EU border agency Frontex to 30,000, despite the agency’s repeated controversies and probes launched by the EU’s watchdog to investigate its operations.

On the Green Deal, the manifesto affirms the EPP will lead its “next phase” of “implementation” by placing technological solutions and economic growth at the centre of policy choices and climate neutrality, as opposed to governing with “ideology.”

The EPP is firm in keeping the leadership of the Commission’s Green portfolio, which the Socialists want to lead after the EU elections: “The Green Deal is in very good hands, in the hands of the EPP,” the party’s secretary-general Thanasis Bakolas told Euractiv in a recent interview.

Recently, the EPP has been under fire for backtracking on key green legislation the von der Leyen Commission put forward, such as the nature restoration law.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]