UEF and the Spinelli Group highlight this passage from Ursula von der Leyen’s speech and call all pro-European forces in the new majority to action.
Our Union and our democracy are constant work in progress. And there is more that we can do. We need an ambitious reform agenda to ensure the functioning of a larger Union and to increase democratic legitimacy. While reforms were necessary before, with enlargement they become indispensable. We must use this as a catalyst for change in terms of our capacity to act, our policies and our budget. We will of course focus on what we can already do, of which there is a lot. But we should be more ambitious. I believe we need Treaty change where it can improve our Union. And I want to work on that with this House. And this will be part of a closer partnership between the Commission and the Parliament. – Ursula von der Leyen, Strasbourg, 18 July 2024
On 18 July, Ursula von der Leyen was elected by the European Parliament to the presidency of the European Commission with a large majority, clearly defined by the common positions on support for Ukraine, respect for the rule of law, and strengthening the European Union. The weeks following the European vote at the beginning of June thus served to test the existence of a common will among pro-European political forces to keep a firm grip on an EU that is increasingly called upon to respond to external threats and protect its citizens. Despite the increased presence at the European level of right-wing, anti-European, and anti-system forces, the votes by which Ursula von der Leyen was elected show that in this legislature there are still margins to achieve decisive advances in the unification process, in continuity with the Conference on the Future of Europe (not by chance also referred to in von der Leyen’s speech).
For this reason, it is particularly significant that, within the broad political programme presented by the President, there was a clear reference to the need for an ‘ambitious reform agenda’ with the aim of ‘improving our Union’, to be drafted together with the European Parliament. Even though this passage has generally been ignored in political and journalistic commentaries, the Spinelli Group and UEF instead emphasise it strongly, both because they supported it in the election campaign and in the past weeks of negotiations with von der Leyen, and because they consider it a crucial point on which the pro-European forces must commit themselves.
“As UEF, we welcome the fact that our indications, made public immediately after the close of voting on 10 June, were followed. We had called the pro-European political forces to create a coalition homogeneous in European and international policy positions, choosing the candidate for the presidency of the Commission on the basis of the Spitzenkandidaten system and stressing, as a necessary condition, the support to the reform of the Treaties, as voted by the outgoing European Parliament,” points out Domènec Ruiz Devesa, former S&D MEP and President of UEF. “When von der Leyen’s candidacy loomed up, we also wrote to her directly to that effect. Now it is important to take advantage of this openness of the President to work, Commission and Parliament together, to present to the European Council ambitious proposals for Treaty change, starting from the report prepared by the outgoing EP and putting the call for the launch of the Convention at the centre”.
“As President of the Spinelli Group and in my capacity as secretary of the European Democratic Party, I personally insisted bilaterally with Ursula von der Leyen during our conversation on the need for her to mention support for the reform of the Treaties in her keynote speech,” explains Sandro Gozi, Renew MEP and President of the Spinelli Group. “After all, she herself made it clear: the EU needs reforms to cope with enlargement, to strengthen its defence capability, to increase its competitiveness. All this is reflected in the policies to be made, and – as a pre-condition – in the decision-making mechanisms and financing of the European budget. This is exactly the work done in AFCO and approved in plenary at the end of the last parliamentary term, which must be taken up and relaunched‘.
On the day that Ursula von der Leyen appeared before the European Parliament and was voted in, the Spinelli Group and UEF also organised a series of initiatives, starting with a rally in front of the entrance to the EP before the start of the morning proceedings, along with a series of political meetings, and interviews that were broadcasted on social media:
- Street action in front of the European Parliament : post 1, post 2,
- Update of the Spinelli Group composition, news, and events: post 1
- Political debate at the Association Parlamentaire Europeen (APE) with MEPs Sandro Gozi (Renew), Gabrielle Bischoff (S&D), Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA), Zejiana Zovko (EPP)
- Interviews with MEPs members of the Spinelli Group: Sandro Gozi (Renew, and President of the Spinelli Group), Gabrielle Bischoff (S&D), Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA), Markus Ferber (EPP)
PRESS CONTACT Ilaria Caria
Secretary-General
secretariat@federalists.eu