As 400 million EU citizens prepare to cast their votes in June’s European elections, a new poll shows that it is Ursula von der Leyen who has caught voters’ attention like no EU chief before her.
Our survey suggests that a large majority of Europeans today are aware that she is the European Commission president, considered to be the most powerful political office in the EU. Previous EU chief executives have been largely unknown to the public. But almost 75% are able to correctly identify von der Leyen’s name and recognise her face. Five years ago, her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, scored only 40% recognition.
Pressure for EU reform is becoming urgent. With war raging in Ukraine and Gaza, and the relationship between China and the US cooling, the EU needs deeper defence integration to meet the growing geopolitical challenges. Economic and monetary union might not be sustainable without closer fiscal integration and a stronger single market. New technologies need to be harnessed to generate prosperity for the next generation and the the 27-nation EU is committed to expanding to become a union of 30 or more member states.
But its democratic accountability remains weak. Not only are turnout and interest in the five-yearly direct elections to the European parliament low, the results have only a limited bearing on the political leaning of the commission, which forms and enforces policy for the EU.
A window of opportunity is now opening up, however, as von der Leyen, first appointed in 2019, is running for a second five-year term. Commission presidents are elected by MEPs, but first have to be nominated by EU heads of government.
Public awareness of coordinated EU responses to two major crises that have unfolded during von der Leyen’s first five-year term – the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – has raised her profile well beyond predecessors’. Europe’s leaders should seize this opportunity.
Of course, in an increasingly personalised system, von der Leyen’s fame and public recognition also leave her flaws – her tendency to act alone, for example – more open to criticism. On an unscheduled trip to Israel after the 7 October attacks she expressed unconditional support for Israel. This might not have been out of place had she been the US president. But EU member states were divided on the issue. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, delivered a swift public rebuke of von der Leyen for assuming to speak on behalf of the entire EU.
What is more, von der Leyen’s heightened profile will not necessarily do anything to help deliver a victory in the European parliament elections for the “grand coalition” of social democrat, conservative and liberal groups that backed the policies she promoted during her first term.
Instead, we are likely to see a lurch to the hard right and a new parliament that is more fragmented than ever, as voters express their anger and frustration with national and European leaders’ failure to address the continent’s growing economic and political challenges. This is likely to result in a significantly larger bloc of radical-right populist and nationalist members than ever before.
Yet these elections also provide an opportunity. With a political background in Germany’s Christian Democrat (CDU) party, von der Leyen is the “lead candidate” of the European People’s party (EPP), the centre-right grouping the CDU sits with. As the EPP is predicted to remain the biggest parliamentary grouping in the next legislature, this should ensure that a majority of MEPs elect her to head the commission until 2029, if EU prime ministers also endorse her. Furthermore, with von der Leyen’s unique public profile, voters for the first time should be able to see a clearer democratic connection between their role in directly electing MEPs and the appointment of the commission president. This could provide a mandate for decisive political action.
Returning with a new mandate, the German conservative should borrow from the playbook of her best-known predecessor, the French socialist Jacques Delors. Delors used his second term to set out a plan for economic and monetary union and started the process that led to the 1992 Maastricht treaty. Von der Leyen needs to propose an equally ambitious reform agenda – seeking to build broad support for it within the commission and between EU governments (who make up the law-making European Council) and the political groups in the European parliament. This reform agenda should be about more than making the EU’s institutions internally ready for a potential enlargement to 30 members; it should also focus on policies.
Reform is surely more difficult with 27 member states than with the dozen of Delors’ day. Unlike Delors, however, von der Leyen will be able to claim that she has the backing of Europe’s voters, and that could make a critical difference.
Rather than wait for the next crisis, it is imperative that European leaders now design and endorse reforms that will bolster the EU’s ability to act. In doing so, they have a leader, von der Leyen, who is a proven power-broker and has given the Brussels executive a public face.
If national leaders back her, she can harness that support to deliver the overhaul that an expanding union desperately needs in a troubled world.
Catherine De Vries is Generali chair in European policies and professor at Bocconi University in Milan
Isabell Hoffmann is senior expert on Europe at the Bertelsmann Stiftung
