Challenged to clarify whether she would work with the ECR group in the next European Parliament following the June elections – a group that could become the fourth largest in the next European Parliament, and which includes parties such as Spain’s Vox, Poland’s PiS, Italy’s Brothers of Italy and France’s Reconquête – Von der Leyen, the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), who had responded with a “definitive no” to the possibility of working with Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), from the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, did not rule out cooperating with the ECR, causing “astonishment” to her Commissioner and “lead candidate” (‘spitzenkandidaten’) for the European Socialists, Nicolas Schmit.

In a debate in Maastricht, the Netherlands, co-organised by Studio Europa Maastricht, a centre of expertise for European-related debate and research, and the newspaper Politico, which involved the eight ‘spitzenkandidaten’ of the European political parties for the June elections, the only moment of disagreement between the two candidates from the largest families – Von der Leyen and ‘her’ Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Schmit – came when the Green candidate, Bas Eickhout, noted to the current President of the Commission that she always attacked the far right by pointing to the ID group, and then challenged her to say whether she would accept cooperating with the other far-right group, the ECR, which was absent from the debate because it had decided not to put forward a lead candidate.

“It depends a lot on the composition of Parliament and who is in each group,” was the EPP candidate’s brief response, causing audible surprise from both Eickhout and Schmit, who until then had always been ‘in line’ with Von der Leyen in her responses to the three main themes of the debate: combating climate change, foreign policy and security, and democracy in the EU.

“I was a bit astonished by your answer that it depends on the composition of Parliament. That is a bit strange, because values and rights cannot be divided according to certain political ‘arrangements’. Either you are able to deal with the extreme right, because you need them, or you say clearly that there is no deal possible, because they do not respect the fundamental rights that our Commission has been fighting for [...] This should be clarified,” Schmit then stated, with Von der Leyen not returning to the issue.

The possible cooperation between the EPP and the ECR, as already happens in some national or regional cases – namely at local level in Spain, between the PP and Vox – thus ‘threatens’ to become one of the hot topics of the campaign for the European elections scheduled for 6-9 June, which, according to most polls, should result in a significant rise of the far right and its ‘weight’ in the future European Parliament.

Representing the far right in the Maastricht debate today was the ID ‘spitzenkandidaten’, Anders Vistisen, who sparked the most ‘heated’ exchanges, having accused Brussels of being “a swamp” full of “elites” who want to bring more migrants to the European Union (EU), who are using the war in Ukraine to deepen European integration and abolish the unanimity rule in foreign policy, and who are corrupt, pointing to Von der Leyen’s purchase of vaccines from Pfizer and the ‘Qatargate’ scandal that hit the Socialist group in Parliament.

In response, Von der Leyen pointed out that the leaders of the AfD, one of the main forces in the ID, “are under investigation for being in the pocket of [Vladimir] Putin” and the electoral programme of this German far-right party “echoes the lies and propaganda of the Kremlin”: “So clean up your own house before criticising us,” she said, addressing the Danish politician.

“Putin uses disinformation and polarisation to try to destroy the EU from within, and we see here, tonight, an example,” she said, pointing to the ID leader, to whom she said: “I want to be very clear: we will not allow you to destroy the EU. We are stronger than you and we will fight your interference with all means,” she said.

During the debate, Von der Leyen, considered the great favourite to succeed herself, received several criticisms from the various candidates, being accused by the Greens of gradually ‘dropping’ key elements of the Green Deal under pressure from the EPP, and accused by the Left group of sanctioning Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, but not Israel for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Regarding the Green Deal, Von der Leyen argued that “everything is already on paper” and that it is now a matter of implementation, with Eickhout regretting that the President of the Commission had announced in 2019 “her project to put a man on the moon” and, four years later, it is still on paper. “Imagine if John Fitzgerald Kennedy, after four years, had said ‘well, maybe halfway to the moon isn’t bad either’,” he joked.

The debate was attended by Ursula von der Leyen (European People’s Party, EPP, centre-right), Nicolas Schmit (Party of European Socialists, PES, centre-left), Walter Baier (European Left), Bas Eickhout (European Greens, centre-left), Anders Vistisen (Identity and Democracy, ID, far right), Maylis Rossberg (European Free Alliance, left), Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Renew Europe, liberals, centre) and Valeriu Ghile?chi (European Christian Political Movement).

This was the third edition of the “Maastricht Debate”, held since the ‘spitzenkandidat’ model was inaugurated in the 2014 European elections, which provides that the “lead candidate” of the most voted political family in the European elections is elected President of the Commission.

This happened in the first year of the ‘spitzenkandidaten’ system, with Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker succeeding José Manuel Durão Barroso as President of the Community executive, since the EPP had won the election, but in 2019, although the political families also put forward their candidates, the model would end up not being respected.

During the long negotiating marathons that followed the elections, again won by the EPP, the European conservatives and socialists mutually rejected the designation of the candidates of each of the two largest European families – Manfred Weber for the EPP and Frans Timmermans for the Socialists – and the Council would end up deciding on the distribution of all the top positions ‘behind closed doors’, choosing as the Commission an ‘outsider’, the then German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

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