Analysis Nawab Khan
BRUSSELS, July 17 (KUNA) -- Members of the European Parliament on Tuesday elected Germany's Ursula von der Leyen as the new President of the European Commission with a narrow majority.
She is set to take office on November 1 for a five-year term as the first woman to head the European Unionآ’s executive body.
There were 733 votes cast, one of which was not valid. A total of 383 members voted in favour, 327 against and 22 abstained.
The European Parliament has 751 members but 747 ones were present at the voting, so the threshold needed to be elected was 374 votes. She only won by the thin majority of nine votes.
This means that half of the European Parliament did not vote for her and the House remains fragmented over her nomination making her task difficult to pass legislations through the House.
Von der Leyen got the full support of her own centre-right European Peopleآ’s Party, the Socialists Group and the Liberals now known as "Renew Europe." "The confidence you placed in me is confidence you placed in Europe," she said after the result was announced.
"The task ahead humbles me," she said. "My work starts now. Let us work together constructively." The Greens, the Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) voted against her.
However, since the vote was secret nobody can really know who voted for and against.
"Itآ’s not a good result, and implies she has her work cut out for her in building a stable majority and a Commission for the next five years," commented the Brussels-based news portal POLITICO.
The Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger doubted that Ursula von der Leyen will be able to deliver.
"The problem is the fragmentation and polarisation of the political landscape. The rifts are apparent in all the political families. Ursula von der Leyen will be in demand as a bridge builder, but the days when the EU was controlled by an informally large coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats are over," it noted.
Many MEPs are disgruntled that EU leaders nominated the former German defence minister for the top post and ignored the Spitzenkandidat process that was introduced by the European Parliament.
The spitzenkandidat, in German the lead candidate, is the one who can secure a majority governing coalition in the European Parliament and becomes European Commission President if nominated by the European Council (Heads of EU national governments and states).
"Ursula von der Leyen was not a lead candidate and that is a problem. The lead candidate system has been a step forward for European democracy. Candidates should present themselves and their programme in the election campaign - this should be the norm. We didnآ’t hear any proposals about how this should be remedied," said the Greens in their reaction.
In 2014, the outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude was a Spitzenkandidat and hence was able to pass through his agenda in the parliament easily.
The Left group maintained "that von der Leyen is the candidate of the status quo, chosen in an obscure backroom deal and supported by some of Europeآ’s most far-right governments." ECR Group co-chairs Raffaele Fitto and Ryszard Legutko said "we did not support von der Leyen for a number of reasons. Her programme for more and more centralisation will further erode Member Statesآ’ capacity to act independently. This is unacceptable and offers little to voters who have genuine concerns over the speed and depth of EU integration." Analysts, however, note that Germany is the economic power of Europe and a German at the helm of the European Commission is an advantage to push forward her political agenda.
The Huffington Post Italia website noted that "her international profile makes her the perfect president of the European Commission. Ursula von der Leyen is a member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum and she has repeatedly spoken at the Munich Security Conference." "She will guarantee that Europe defends the rule of law without yielding a single centimetre and without being intimidated by the more or less authoritarian leaders," it opined.
The Brussels-born 60-year-old von der Leyen has been a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (end) nk.rk