2024-07-19 18:53:46
The assassination attempt on US presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump has sharply raised the political stakes of the upcoming July 18 confirmation of Ursula von der Leyen as head of the new European Commission at the session of the new European Parliament in Strasbourg, the European edition of the Politico newspaper claims, Day.Az reports with reference to TASS.
“The stakes of the European Parliament vote to confirm the re-election (referring to the reappointment by a closed decision of the EU summit on June 27-28 – TASS note) of Ursula von der Leyen are already prohibitively high against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, political chaos in France and the “peace tour” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban,” the publication notes. “The assassination attempt on Trump has raised the stakes even higher. A vote to confirm von der Leyen’s authority will either signal stability and continuity, or lead the bloc into a state that can only be called political chaos.”
Politico, like many other European media outlets that actively support von der Leyen’s reappointment, are trying to create intrigue around her upcoming confirmation to the EP. They consistently claim that there is a possibility of a vote against her. However, von der Leyen is the uncontested candidate for the post of head of the European Commission, she has already been approved by the EU summit and has the support of more than two-thirds of the EP members, while she only needs a simple majority to be confirmed.
It is supported by four leading factions in the European Parliament: the neo-Christian democratic European People’s Party, the Socialists, the neo-liberals from Renew and the Greens, who together have 478 seats out of 720. In fact, we are talking about a confrontation between all the classic parties of the right and the left, which together have less than one third of the seats in the EP.
Several Politico sources in the same article essentially confirm that there is no alternative to the upcoming vote. Thus, the Vice-President of the European Commission for the Promotion of the European Way of Life, Greek Margaritis Schinas, stated: “There is only Plan A (von der Leyen’s statement – TASS note). There is no Plan B.” He also added that “no one is considering” the possibility of a different outcome of the vote by MEPs.