For the first time ever, the European Union has chosen a woman for its leader.
Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to confirm Ursula von der Leyen for a five-year term as European Commission President, the EU’s top job. Von der Leyen, or VDL as the European press calls her, previously served as Germany’s Defense Minister in Angela Merkel’s cabinet.
VDL emerged from relative obscurity two weeks ago after intense wrangling among European leaders that began with the EU Parliament elections in May, continued through the G20 meeting in Osaka, and wound up with a contentious three-day summit in Brussels.
Along the way, Manfred Weber, the initial frontrunner and German leader of the center-Right EPP group, was dumped. because he had been too cozy with the Right-wing authoritarian governments that have been cited for rule of law violations in Hungary and Poland.
At the G20 In Osaka, Merkel and Emmanuel Macron privately agreed to scrap the entire selection process in favor of a gender, ideological, and regional balance across the EU’s four top jobs.
For a moment, it seemed that Frans Timmermans of the Dutch Labor Party (in the Socialists and Democrats Group) would be picked for Commission President but the four Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia) as well as Italy wanted none of him.
VDL was named as part of a compromise deal that includes:
- Charles Michel, the former Belgian Prime Minister to succeed Donald Tusk as the European Council President. (He comes from the Reformist Movement which is part of the centrist Renew Europe Group (formerly ALDE.)
- Josep Borrell, Spain’s Foreign Minister, and a member of the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (Socialists & Democrats Group), to succeed Federica Mogherini as the EU’s Foreign Minister.
- Christine Lagarde, Director of the International Monetary Fund, and a member of the French Les Republicains (EPP group), to succeed Mario Draghi as President of the European Central Bank. Lagarde is known in the US for her memorable, but brief, appearance with Ivanka Trump in a recent viral video.
That’s how gender balance was achieved – with a distinct ideological lean to the center-Right and without Eastern Europe represented in any of the top slots.
The EU Parliament MEPs pulled the balance a bit Leftward by electing David Sassoli, the former TV news anchor and Italian Democrat (Socialists & Democrats Group) as their President.
The Parliament also elected members of the three center groups (S&D, Renew Europe and EPP) to fill 17 of 21 Committee chairs, with 12 out of 21 chairs going to members from Germany, France, and Belgium. Eastern Europe is represented by a total of one committee chair which went to a member from Romania.
In addition, the MEPs quarantined members of the UK’s Brexit Party (29 seats,) Italy’s Lega Nord (28 seats,) Poland’s Law and Justice (26 seats,), and France’s Rassemblement National (formerly Front National, 22 seats) to prevent them from attaining positions of power.
These arrangements resulted in much dissatisfaction across the political spectrum. The Greens, who did much better than expected in the May elections, were only given two committee chairs and threatened to vote against VDL’s confirmation. The United European Left (GUE/NGL) opposed VDL as well as Lagarde because of her own record at the IMF and also said they would oppose confirmation.
Some members of the Socialists and Democrats Group said they would oppose confirmation because the selection process orchestrated by Merkel and Macron was undemocratic. Even members of the SPD, which is in a coalition in Germany with the CDU grumbled and said they would oppose VDL.
However, In the end, VDL prevailed with 383 votes, just nine more than the number needed for confirmation.
(The European Parliament includes members from 180 different national parties. For organization and to collectivize their power, they affiliate with each other into seven political groups. The chart below illustrates the groupings and their relative size.)