For a brief window of time, the Parliament — generally considered the weakest of the EU’s main institutions — is vital for von der Leyen, the most powerful leader of an EU institution: She needs to convince at least 361 MEPs to vote for her to get a second five-year term at the helm of the European Commission, in a vote scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday in Parliament’s Strasbourg base.
In the negotiations von der Leyen has been holding with MEPs, including in ‘t Veld’s own liberal Renew Europe group, MEPs should not be focusing that much on legislation, but on imposing a “shopping list” of measures on von der Leyen that would reassert Parliament’s role as a sharp-toothed watchdog over the executive, in ‘t Veld said, digging into a Caesar salad.
The Parliament should — as a pre-condition for holding the vote in the first place — tell von der Leyen to make her infamous text messages with the CEO of Covid vaccine-maker Pfizer accessible, crack down on legal breaches by the governments of Hungary, Slovakia and Greece, commit to monthly unscripted Q&A sessions with MEPs, and hold a confidence vote midway through her term in 2027.
When MEPs vote this week, in ‘t Veld will not be among them. After 20 years as a lawmaker, mostly for the liberal progressive Dutch party D66, she was not reelected in the June vote, having failed to win a seat with the pan-European Volt in Belgium, but remained tight-lipped about her next steps.
In ‘t Veld praised von der Leyen’s “drive” and leadership on Ukraine and the pandemic.
But she said: “I honestly don’t think that with her track record when it comes to transparency … that she should get a second mandate. At the same time, the problem is, you know, who else? But then, Parliament has to secure a rebalancing of the relations between the institutions,” she said.
