The largest family of European parties has a new leader: Germany’s Manfred Weber was elected the new president of the European People’s Party (EPP) at a congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Tuesday. Weber received 447 out of 515 votes from delegates across Europe. The Bavarian Christian Socialist succeeds former EU Council President Donald Tusk, who wants to try to make a comeback as Polish head of government next year.
Severe PPE crisis
Weber takes over the party’s conservative family in the midst of a serious crisis. Since Germany’s change of government last fall, no major EU country has had a Conservative head of government. Weber thanked his predecessor Tusk for “closing the Orban file” and that the PPE is now “the rule of law party” in Europe.
The EPP’s hapless candidate in the 2019 European elections is hoping for a “signal of exit” from Congress, as he told the APA on Tuesday. He was confident that he would be able to defend the EPP’s top position in the European elections within two years and left it open whether he would like to run again for the post of President of the EU Commission. Weber wants to keep his previous post as head of the EPP group in the European Parliament so that “citizens can understand what the EPP stands for”.
It is the first EPP congress since Fidesz’s controversial Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban left the EPP. This has suffered further setbacks in recent months, with Conservative heads of government in Bulgaria, Germany and recently also Slovenia being ousted. However, Weber was confident he could reverse the trend and referred to good poll numbers in Finland and Spain, which are currently ruled by Social Democrats.
Nehammer’s Wednesday morning speech
The ÖVP delegation was led by Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), who took advantage of his stay in Rotterdam for several bilateral meetings. As one of the EU’s few remaining Conservative heads of government, he was due to address delegates in a speech on Wednesday morning. In the APA talks, Weber emphasized the important role Nehammer is currently playing for EU conservatives. “At the level of heads of state and government, Karl Nehammer is a strategic pillar for the work of the EPP, even though he is a newcomer, there is no doubt about that,” said Weber. EU Minister Karoline Edtstadler, EU Delegation Head Angelika Winzig, Secretary General Laura Sachslehner and EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who wanted to run for re-election as EPP Vice President on Wednesday, also traveled to Rotterdam.
The Congress was all about resisting Russian aggression against Ukraine. Delegates held a minute’s silence for the victims of the war. Then the winner of the Ukrainian music contest, Ruslana, sang the Ukrainian national anthem. In a speech that received a standing ovation, she urged delegates to support their country. Then, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former head of government Yulia Tymoshenko also spoke.
“More sanctions, more solidarity, no compromise,” emphasized Poroshenko. He welcomed the decision on the EU oil embargo at the EU summit and highlighted the role of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in this regard. “Without you, Madam President, this would not have been possible,” he said. In panel discussions, leading EPP politicians made a clear commitment to Ukraine’s EU membership prospects. However, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra acknowledged that EU politicians had an emotional emergency over Ukraine. In view of the war, you “can’t say no to Ukraine,” Hoekstra said.
Programmatically, the struggle for the future direction of the traditional party family was at the center. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic admitted that the situation for EPP member parties is “difficult” because they are being criticized for being too moderate or right-wing. One should not get involved in these discussions, but present oneself to voters as “problem solvers”, he emphasized. EU Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola urged party friends to show more pride in their pro-European orientation.