The European Parliament’s vote yesterday to confirm Ursula von der Leyen’s second commission was considerably tighter than in 2019, but a secure commission president has again proved she has a solid centre-ground majority for the challenges ahead. That has meant ruffling feathers on the left by – for the first time – breaking a convention of non-co-operation with the far-right, by finding an important vice-presidency job steering cohesion funding for Italy’s Raffaele Fitto.
Speaking to the parliament in Strasbourg, von der Leyen set out her vision of a three-strand “competitiveness compass” programme, aiming to close Europe’s innovation gap with the US and China, to boost economic and military security, and, in a nod to sceptical Greens , to “stay the course” on the EU’s Green Deal and decarbonisation. Other constituencies also got a mention – the Socialists have put housing on the agenda. There is a first commissioner for the Mediterranean, a first defence commissioner, and an important emphasis on protecting EU borders.
How to pay for the planned extensive programme of work is the real problem. The message to the member states from von der Leyen is very much that of the recent Draghi report on lagging European competitiveness, with its call to invest an additional €800 billion a year. The creation of a defence union will also require huge new resources. It is a big financial challenge. Member states should now be seriously addressing how to approach it – in the forthcoming five-year budget review they will have to consider raising EU spending from the current modest one per cent of EU GDP, perhaps to three to five per cent .
That message will not be welcome in Dublin, any more than von der Leyen’s, and Draghi’s, call for treaty change to make union decision-making fit for purpose. Given the threat to Ukraine from Russia – and the wider implications of that conflict– there will also be debate about whether Ireland should be clinging to collective defence opt-outs. In a fast-changing Europe, the new Irish government has much to consider.