Last Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen was appointed European Commission president, succeeding Jean-Claude Juncker. The choice was a solution arrived at following negotiations among the heads of governments of the EU member states and approved by the newly elected European Parliament. As such the question posed by the title of this week’s contribution poses a very pertinent question. Will there be a change in policies, strategies and initiatives following a changing of the guard at the European Commission?
A number of considerations need to be made. And maybe the issue is not so much whether there will be a change in Europe but whether Europe will provide answers to its citizens.
Von der Leyen – the first female president of the European Commission – was not the lead candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP). The lead candidate was Manfred Weber. He was the person indicated by the EPP prior to the European Parliament elections in May this year. However, those elections changed the balance of power within Europe and the EPP and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats no longer commanded a majority in the European Parliament, as they had done since the EP’s inception.
They required the support, at least of the Liberals (the Renew Europe group). This required the governments of the member states to seek another candidate who could win the support of the European Parliament. The final compromise included the appointment of the French Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank and the Belgian Charles Michel to the post of president of the European Council. This meant the idea of trying to give a bigger say to the EU electorate by indicating the name of the future president of the EU Commission prior to the EP elections, had to be shelved.
Another consideration is that von der Leyen received 50.9 per cent of the EP vote, thereby indicating a split right down the middle. However, the split was not fully along party lines. Nor was the split between eurosceptics and europhiles. For instance, the German Socialists did not vote for her, even though the large majority of Socialists from other countries did. On the other hand the eurosceptic Italian Party (5 Star Movement) voted for her. The European Greens, who are strong europhiles, did not support her.
This is why the appropriate question is whether Europe will provide the answers, and not whether Europe will change. A Kantar survey shows that across the whole of the EU, 68 per cent believe that their own country has on balance benefitted from being a member of the European Union. This certainly does not indicate an anti-European sentiment. What seems to be the main issue is the desire of European citizens for the EU to provide them with answers about their future. The relative figure for Malta is 81 per cent.
In total, 56 per cent believe their voice counts in the EU. Never before has such a percentage been registered. Again, this does not denote an overall anti-European sentiment. The relative figure for Malta was 65 per cent.
We have also had voters in the European Parliament elections of last May who have grown up within the EU and know no other kind of situation. The increase in the participation rate of voters aged 16 to 24 in the EP elections was the highest among all age groups. The main reason for voting is that it is seen as one’s duty as a EU citizen. So do EU citizens want a change or do they want answers?
The answers that von der Leyen has promised to provide relate to various aspects. They are aspects that do not coincide fully with a centre-right vision of politics but more with a centre to centre-left vision. The first is that she committed to ensuring full gender equality among the 28 commissioners that she would lead in Brussels.
Other commitments were establishing a pan-EU guarantee of free healthcare and education for every child, establishing an EU-wide minimum wage, setting up a fund to support national welfare systems in case of an economic crisis, and ensuring flexibility in the application of fiscal policy rules in the eurozone countries.
She also committed to a far-reaching environmental programme, including billions of euros in investment and a new EU carbon border tax, with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality on the continent by 2050. She has pledged to increase resources for the Erasmus programmes. She also spoke about the need to strengthen the rule of law in member states and about the need to provide a EU solution to problem of immigration from outside the EU.
If von der Leyen does meet these commitments, she would have indeed provided answers to the EU electorate, even to those segments that did not support her nomination. She would also have effected some significant changes in Europe in that she would have committed the EU further to one of its founding principles, that of solidarity.
There may be some sceptics who will sneer at these commitments. I sincerely hope she will prove these sceptics wrong.