Germany, what is said and whispered in the CDU about von der Leyen’s encore in Brussels
The CDU is supporting Ursula von der Leyen's candidacy for the European Commission more out of interest than love: here's why. Pierluigi Mennitti's article from Berlin
Behind the scenes it's a whole different story. And that harmony shown in front of the cameras by Friedrich Merz, the president of the CDU, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission who has just been launched by her own party to win the second mandate, is rather deceptive.
AN ALLIANCE OF CONVENIENCE
It is an alliance of interest rather than affinity and Merz had to resort to all his political experience to manage his party's and probably also his personal discontent towards Angela Merkel's former pupil. Ultimately, von der Leyen is the only card in the CDU's hands to keep a German exponent and expression of the popular area in Brussels – and at the top of the Commission. If the CDU had not lined up united and convinced behind her, the centre-left government in Berlin would have identified another representative for the Commission: in one fell swoop the Christian Democrats would have lost one of their members and Germany the presidency. Furthermore, the right to present proposals would probably belong to the Greens. “And before a Green becomes German commissioner, we would be careful not to torpedo von der Leyen,” an influential member of the CDU in Brussels had told the Handelsblatt in recent days.
MACRON ALSO SUPPORTS VON DER LEYEN
Pragmatism therefore. Especially since von der Leyen has become a figure of reference in Europe, enjoys the heavy support of Emmanuel Macron, guarantees Franco-German balances that no one on either side of the Rhine intends to call into question in this delicate phase of European politics.
THE CDU DOESN'T LIKE THE GREEN DEAL
However, the president of the CDU will try to direct the president's second mandate according to slightly different guidelines from those of her first five years. Merz did not hold back on the EU's excessive desire for regulation. In the CDU it is above all the Green Deal that arouses dissatisfaction. The climate package consists of more than 30 bills with which Europe should achieve its climate goals, but many Christian Democrats see it as a “bureaucratic monster” that is stifling growth in Europe. The poisonous joke circulating among the "popular" Germans is that their commissioner has put into practice a social-ecological program.
Merz has made this widespread aversion in the party his own. On the one hand he praised the president's leadership role in managing the two serious crises during his administration, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, on the other "he indicated an economic turning point in von der Leyen's list of tasks for a second term ”, observed the Handelsblatt, which in recent weeks had given ample space to the intolerance of a large part of the CDU, in particular of those sectors closest to the business world. The next European Commission must ensure that the economy becomes more competitive on a global level again, asked Merz, and a concession to these concerns can be found in von der Leyen's own declaration that she believes that "European economic policy must be oriented even more than before to the competitiveness of the industry".
It is certainly excessive to share the title of Welt 's comment, according to which with the investiture received in Berlin, full of conditions for her next programmatic agenda, Merz keeps von der Leyen on a short leash, but certainly for the EU commissioner the probable second term will follow slightly different tracks from the one that is just ending.
On the other hand, pragmatism is not lacking in von der Leyen either, a characteristic inherited from Angela Merkel. According to what was reported by the German news agency dpa, the focus of the election campaign will in fact be on the competitiveness of the EU. To his credit, von der Leyen presents the initiation of the procedure that could be used to take action against heavily subsidized Chinese electric cars. And faced with the security challenge, probably the most urgent of the coming years, he supports the idea of appointing a European defense commissioner.
VON DER LEYEN HAS HIS SHOULDERS COVERED
Meanwhile, after the green light from the CDU, it also received that from its Bavarian sister CSU, which plays an important role in Brussels, if only for the presence of Manfred Weber at the top of the EPP. The two old rivals (Weber should have become president of the Commission as the leading candidate of the People's Party in the last elections, before the stop ordered by Merkel himself) now seem to be marching together also in the prospect of future new balances within the European Parliament. At the moment the prevailing belief is that we can have the numbers to continue with the current majority. But without prejudice to the red line towards sovereignist and eurosceptic parties, it is no mystery that Weber is the weaver of a plot that aims to bring pieces of the conservative world closer to the orbit of the EPP. In short, with his back covered in Germany and France, von der Leyen is preparing to receive the official investiture of the EPP in Bucharest. His second mandate currently seems like the most obvious bet in the Brussels lottery. The political balance that will govern him will be seen the day after the vote: von der Leyen can represent almost all of them.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cdu-sostegno-von-der-leyen-secondo-mandato/ on Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:31:56 +0000.