On July 18, the European Parliament elected German conservative Ursula von der Leyen to a second five-year term as President of the European Commission.
Running as the only candidate, she managed to cobble together a heterogeneous temporary coalition government made up of the center-right Christian Democrats, the center-left Socialists, the Liberals and the Greens. Despite strong gains for the right-wing national conservatives in June’s European elections, mainly at the expense of the Liberals and Greens, a majority in parliament opted to keep von der Leyen in office.
In foreign policy, this meant strengthening the “center” (neo-conservative and liberal) consensus on the Ukraine war and isolating war skeptics on the right and the far-left. The first session of the newly elected parliament has drawn clear lines, sealing a clear division for the next five years.
First, the far-right European Patriots party, led by France’s National Rally and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, called for including on the plenary session’s agenda a debate about last weekend’s assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is seeking return as the Republican candidate in the November election, but the majority rejected this.
The Patriots are the main national-conservative grouping in parliament and the third-largest faction overall after von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the Socialists. When the request was predictably rejected by the center parties (119 votes in favor, 337 against), the Patriots accused the center parties of violating democratic norms and creating an environment for politically motivated violence against opponents.
Underscoring the Patriots’ isolation, the main center-right group, the European People’s Party, countered with a resolution on Ukraine, joined by other center-right parties, including the Socialists, Liberals and Greens, as well as the pro-Ukrainian right, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, the fourth largest in parliament. The five political groups submitted a traditionally tough joint document, calling, among other things, for the removal of all restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against military targets on Russian territory.
The MEPs also “reiterated their belief that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO,” despite the fact that the European Parliament has no say in NATO and that many EU member states (Austria, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus) are not members of NATO and have not indicated their intention to join to date.
Reflecting the turmoil in Brussels over former Prime Minister Orbán’s diplomacy in recent weeks, during which he undertook a so-called “peace mission” to Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, Washington and President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the resolution stressed that it accused the prime minister of “violating the EU’s common position” and failing to coordinate with other member states and EU institutions.
The lawmakers called for “consequences for Hungary”, which have already been caused by the move to boycott Hungary’s EU presidency, but have shown no interest in addressing the comments Orban made in his letter to EU Council President Charles Michel.
Given the extent to which Orbán has chosen to emphasize what should otherwise be a very sensitive and cautious diplomatic effort, one may rightly question its effectiveness, but the problem is that he is the only EU leader who enjoys an open channel of communication with the Kremlin, while mainstream “respectable” European leaders engage in often wildly hyperbolic rhetoric about Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat without defining those terms, let alone laying out a credible path to achieving them.
Patriots of Europe tabled an alternative motion regarding Ukraine that differed significantly from the majority resolution: they condemned Russian aggression and expressed support for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders (including Donbas and Crimea), but at the same time recalled that all member states “have sovereignty over decisions regarding the provision of financial, military and diplomatic assistance to third countries.”
They also stressed their conviction that there is no military solution to the conflict and that peace is the only viable and sustainable solution. They therefore called on the parties to “open diplomatic channels with a view to concluding a lasting peace agreement.”
The two motions exposed the irreconcilable differences in the two sides’ approaches to the war in Ukraine. Negotiations to find a middle ground were therefore neither possible nor desirable. Instead, they were aimed at political point-scoring. The Majority tried to portray the Patriots as pawns of Russian President Putin, while the Patriots accused the Majority of escalating the conflict in pursuit of unattainable goals and undermining the European economy in the process.
As expected, the majority text was adopted by an overwhelming majority: 495 votes to 137. All amendments put forward by leftist groups that aimed to pave the way for a diplomatic settlement of the hostilities were rejected. This tells us that while it may have been politically unacceptable for the centrists to vote for the Patriots’ proposals, no such informal restrictions existed with regard to the far-left. Thus, rejecting diplomacy seems to be a matter of choice, not just political expediency.
The “centre” majority also rejected a left-wing (relatively moderate) amendment that condemned the apparent double standards applied by the EU to Russian violations of international law in Ukraine and Israel in Gaza.
While the majority leaders touted themselves for sending another “strong message” to Orbán, not all lawmakers seemed convinced. Michael von Schulenberg, a member of the German left-wing party Sahra Wagenknecht and a veteran UN diplomat, lamented that the majority’s draft was based on “the continuation and intensification of the war until military victory over Russia,” which is now completely unrealistic. In his view, rejecting attempts to find a peaceful solution would continue to inflict “immeasurable suffering on the Ukrainian people.”
As a recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows, these views are fairly widespread among Europeans, including among voters of mainstream parties. But as the first session of the new European Parliament showed, they are destined to remain isolated in the parliament that is supposed to represent them.
Almost the same coalition that voted for the Ukraine resolution (minus the majority of the ECR and some defectors from the centre-right, such as the Gaullists in France) elected Russia hardliner von der Leyen to a second term, in addition to which Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia who once advocated for the division of Russia, was appointed as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, completing the coalition of EU institutions in favour of a continuity on the Ukraine issue.
But these EU dynamics could change if a Trump-Vance administration were to usher in the feared (or hoped for, depending on how you look at it) US withdrawal from Europe, which would force Europe to either fight Russia in Ukraine with significantly less US support, or to seriously consider how to achieve a negotiated end to the war.
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