The European Parliament will approve Von der Leyen’s new Commission tomorrow, in time to take over this Sunday

He saved the crossed veto of ‘popular’ and socialists to Ribera and Fitto and will add votes from greens and Meloni MEPs

BRUSSELS, Nov. 26 () –

The plenary session of the European Parliament will approve this Wednesday, barring a last-minute surprise, the new Executive of the conservative Ursula von der Leyen to face a second term at the head of the European Commission; a renewal in Brussels that will take over on the scheduled date, this Sunday, December 1, after the agreement reached between ‘popular’ (EPP), social democrats (S&D) and liberals (RE) to unblock the appointment of the vice presidents of the German , among them the Spanish socialist Teresa Ribera and the Italian ultra-conservative Raffaele Fitto.

The German team needs to add a simple majority of the votes cast in the vote, which will take place at noon in Strasbourg (France) and to which Von der Leyen goes with the majority support of the three families that form the so-called “coalition of center”, although delegations such as that of the Spanish PP – which rejects Ribera outright – or the French socialists have warned that they will not follow their respective groups and will vote against.

However, Von der Leyen will compensate for this leakage of votes from traditional allies with the support of a “small majority” of Green MEPs, according to one of their leaders, Bas Eickhout, and also with the votes of the Brothers of Italy by Giorgia Meloni who lead ECR.

Before the vote, Von der Leyen will have a three-hour debate with MEPs to present her team in detail and advance the keys to the agenda she is preparing for the next five years. Once the result of the vote is known – the plenary session can approve or suspend the entire College of Commissioners, but not veto individual candidates -, the head of the community Executive will offer a press conference with the president of the European Parliament .

For a few days, the replacement in the Commission was left up in the air due to the vetoes crossed between the European People’s Party which, with the impetus of Núñez Feijóo’s PP, questioned Ribera’s suitability for his management of the DANA, and the Socialists and Democrats, who saw Fitto’s vice presidency as a ‘red line’. Finally, the appearance of the Spanish minister in Congress to render accounts and the refusal of the socialists to reduce the position of the Italian candidate saved the blockade.

Thus, the dispute was resolved last week with a pact on a “pro-European” agenda between ‘popular’, social democrats and liberals with Von der Leyen that translated into a positive evaluation from all the members of the College of Commissioners, with the exception that Hungarian Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, who will take over the Animal Health and Welfare portfolio, will have reproductive and sexual health policies, as well as crisis management, removed from his powers. sanitary.

In a press conference in Strasbourg on the eve of this Wednesday’s vote, the leader of the EPP, the German Manfred Weber, described the pact as a “victory of the center” and assured that it will allow the construction of “new majorities” that provide stability with understanding “from the Greens to ECR”, while he wanted to emphasize that the socialist and liberal designated commissioners also needed the approval of the ultra-conservative group to move forward in their evaluation.

However, the leader of the European Socialists, Iratxe García, warned in a subsequent appearance that her group will negotiate with ‘popular’, liberals and greens to enable “parliamentary majorities but that “in no case does ECR enter into that cooperation.”

Asked about the division within the social democratic family and reproaches for the way in which she has negotiated, García has assured that “in no case has there been criticism” of her management, even if she had assumed it, and has defended that the socialists are “more united than never” in the face of the legislature.

However, he has conceded that there are “some divergent opinions” regarding what the meaning of the College of Commissioners’ vote should be, but he has avoided indicating how many MEPs will vote against or abstain; despite the fact that delegations such as the French and Belgian have already said that they do not support Von der Leyen’s new Executive.

The team that will take over in Brussels also generates divergences within the Greens, where according to their co-presidents they speak of a “small majority in favor” of Von der Leyen despite the fact that in the individual evaluations their group voted against him. some candidate despite the fact that in the individual evaluations his group positioned itself against Fitto.

Eickhout, who at a press conference regretted that Weber had “allowed national politics to take over European politics”, alluding to the EPP’s initial veto of Ribera, has also defended that the Greens see in Von der Leyen and her program a “commitment” to continuity with the climate agenda and to have his group in the legislature despite the fact that Weber tried to “separate” his group from the coalition.