EU lawmakers approve Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, signaling Europe’s swing to right

The News

The European Parliament voted to approve European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s nominations for the bloc’s top policy roles Wednesday after weeks of infighting among left-leaning and right-wing groups.

The vote marks the first time since 1999 that no country’s nominee for the European Commission has been rejected, Politico reported, coming after the European Union’s right-wing, centrist, and center-left factions managed to hash out a deal that saw the EU’s conservative bloc vote for the Commission despite having originally opposed von der Leyen’s bid for a second term.

SIGNALS

Despite von der Leyen’s optimism, the center may not hold

Sources:  Financial Times, The Guardian, Atlantic Council

After the vote, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it demonstrated that the “center is holding” in Brussels, yet she will “preside over the most rightwing commission in decades,” the Financial Times noted. Von der Leyen lost support from the Greens in the vote, who protested a Commission nominee belonging to Georgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party, Politico noted. Ultimately, her Commission suggests she may be further inclined to cooperate with the broader far-right, a columnist argued in The Guardian ahead of the vote. “In a shift from her first term, emboldened hard-right politicians are more eager to influence EU policy rather than just play spoiler to it,” a Europe expert at the Atlantic Council wrote.

New Commission needs to understand that security is ‘everything’

Sources:  Financial Times, European Council on Foreign Relations

EU foreign policy going forward needs to treat security as “everything,” the director of the EU Institute for Security Studies argued in the Financial Times. That means establishing a council dedicated to Europe’s defense, setting aside the first day of every summit to discuss security matters, and convening regular meetings of national security advisors, he argued. Being more proactive and decisive on security issues like the Russia-Ukraine war could ultimately help the new Commission convince EU citizens that “they are better protected within the union,” a Europe expert argued for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

EU’s antitrust agenda risks becoming ‘contradictory’

Sources:  Reuters, Bruegel, Center for European Policy Analysis

Von der Leyen wants to revise the bloc’s competition policy in a bid to help companies scale up and compete in global markets. But she has been criticized for contradictory messaging, and protecting domestic firms from competition risks putting them at a disadvantage once they get big enough to try and face international rivals, an economics expert argued in Bruegel. Tech could be key focus point: Washington is overtaking Brussels as “the world’s most hardline tech enforcer” with its crackdown on Google, while the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which was designed to curb big technology companies from stifling competition, yet has not encouraged innovation, a tech expert argued in the Center for European Policy Analysis.