Mario Draghi, Macron’s “chosen” for the Presidency of the EU

An alternative candidate for the helm of the EU is being sought by Emmanuel Macron, who in the past played a key role in Ursula von der Leyen becoming head of the Commission.

The French President is now in talks with European Union leaders about an alternative candidate, such as Mario Draghi, to fill the EU’s top job.

And with EU elections less than two months away, Macron has spoken to European leaders, including Giorgia Meloni, about the possibility of putting a technocrat in the position of head of the European Union’s executive arm, such as Mario Draghi. Sources told Bloomberg the above.

Ursula von der Leyen became president in 2019 following a deal between Macron and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

(AP Photo/Rene Rossignaud)

At the time, he had promised to turn the institution into a “geopolitical Commission”. But the fact that she over-politicized her role has damaged her chances of re-election, an official told Bloomberg.

Von der Leyen has sparked strong resentment among some governments over the way she has run the Commission over the past five years.

She is particularly criticized for her stance on trade negotiations, the bloc’s green transition and relations with the US.

Macron has openly criticized her policies.

“The Commission presidency is there to defend the general interest, so it should not be too politicized,” Macron said in Brussels last month. “Which, it must be said, has not happened at all with this outgoing Commission.”

A spokesman for Macron’s office had no comment.

However, officials in Brussels, including those in von der Leyen’s office, are unsure whether Macron is genuinely seeking a replacement for the top Brussels post or whether he is lobbying as a ploy to extract concessions from her in the future.

Only 1 in 5 MEPs believe that von der Leyen will have a second term

At the time when Ursula von der Leyen is playing her “changes” to secure a second term in the presidency of the Commission, the MEPs do not seem so “warm” towards such a possibility, while they see the extreme right as the biggest threat to the future of Europe, according to a Politico survey.

In particular, outgoing MEPs polled cited Europe’s rightward shift and the rise of populism as the biggest challenges facing the old continent.

Climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine also ranked high, overshadowing traditionally hot-button issues like immigration and the state of the economy.

However, as Politico reports, not everyone has the same fears.

While Social Democrat MEPs emphasized right-wing populism, the climate crisis and social inequality in their responses, MEPs from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) were more likely to cite the war in Ukraine and EU security as a top concern their.

The war in Ukraine is notably absent from the responses of the right-wing MEPs of ID and ECR.

Instead, they focused on the dangers of immigration and the erosion of national sovereignty, as well as the pitfalls of a hasty implementation of the Green Deal.

As for Ursula von der Leyen, about 1 in 5 respondents said they would like her to stay on for a second term. Even her own group, the EPP, is divided.

At the same time, a significant percentage of respondents placed their hopes in the Spitzenkandidat procedure, according to which the leading candidate proposed by the winning party becomes president of the European Commission.

The system in question, which was first introduced in 2014, failed miserably in 2019 when Manfred Weber, the EPP’s Spitzenkandidat, ended up short-circuiting the Commission in favor of von der Leyen, a former German defense minister. which had not even participated in the elections.

But some MEPs seem to believe (or hope) that this system can be revived and that citizens will finally be able to have a say in the composition of the next EU executive.