As it happened: Ursula von der Leyen’s secret ballot triumph

EU Confidential

POLITICO

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.4 • 175 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

Big decisions awaited the new class of MEPs this week: Whether to back Ursula von der Leyen for a second term atop the Commission; which committee assignments to pursue; and, most urgently, which Parliament bar to visit to get away from it all. Join host Sarah Wheaton for a romp through the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament, and relive a week that was so crucial for Europe's direction over the next five years. Sarah is joined by POLITICO's Eddy Wax, who takes us behind the scenes of all the horse-trading and political maneuvers during the week, in which the parliament's key leadership positions were decided and the legislature's support for von der Leyen was confirmed. She also speaks to several MEPs including Hannah Neumann, a Green MEP from Germany who was reelected, and outgoing MEP Jan Zahradil — the long-serving (and sometimes controversial) Czech MEP, who reflects on his 20+ years in the Parliament and describes what has changed for Euroskeptic politicians in the hemicycle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm right now standing floor above the main entrance to the plenary for MEPs.
0:05.9	Could just hear some bells ringing to tell people to go in.
0:09.7	The next item is the election of the president of the European Commission.
0:14.4	So ushers are now going around physically passing out paper ballots to the MEPs.
0:18.9	So some MEPs are literally jogging up to the ballot box.
0:24.3	All right, he's put his ballot in.
0:27.4	And that's it.
0:29.1	Here is the result of the vote.
0:31.3	Votes in favor, 401.
0:35.7	According to these results, the candidate for president of the European Commission proposed by the European Council is therefore elected by the European Parliament.
0:44.7	I would like to congratulate Ursula von der Leyen on her re-election.
0:49.0	So that was the moment when Ursula Fonder Lyon finally got the official blessing of the European Parliament to keep her job as commission president.
0:59.2	As regular listeners to this podcast know, this is the end of a month's long series of campaigns.
1:05.6	It's pretty ironic, actually.
1:07.8	Funder Lion hasn't ever really had a serious challenger in the race to lead the commission
1:11.6	for the next five years. Yet the process was full of speculation and suspense. Ursula Fondre
1:17.8	lion has always been running against herself. There were a lot of complaints about her policy
1:23.6	choices over the last five years and about her leadership style. At each turn,
1:29.1	there's been a sizable minority who said they'd rather gamble on an alternative, any alternative,
1:35.6	even when that could mean chaos. And we were bracing for possible chaos. MEPs knew they'd be
1:41.9	voting anonymously, and that meant that just hours before the vote,
1:46.0	we didn't know, she didn't know, whether or not she would get over the line with a majority
	...

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