Ms. Von der Leyen is the candidate put forward by the EU Council, which represents the various EU governments. Euro deputies (and especially the Greens) expressed their discontent that the government and State leaders had successively sidelined the candidates the major political groups had put forward. As could be seen from her thin majority, voting instructions clearly had not been followed by the parliamentary political groups that backed the future President (EPP, S&D, Renew Europe), and this in spite of the fact that Ms. Von der Leyen’s statement to win over Parliament support had sought to unite pro-European forces.
Priority No. 1 – Environment. During her declaration, Ursula von der Leyen used ambitious targets in her call for unity, “I want Europe to become the 1st climate neutral continent in the world by 2050,” and argued that “Lowering emissions by 30% by 2030 is not enough (…),” and she advocated a 2 two step approach to reduce CO2 by 55 or 55% by 2030.