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Associated Press
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
EU chief von der Leyen faces a confidence vote. Hungary's leader says she must go
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers will hold a confidence vote Thursday on the head of the bloc's powerful executive arm, Ursula von der Leyen, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán leading calls for her to be ousted. The censure motion, the first at the European Parliament in over a decade, was brought against the European Commission president by a group of hard-right lawmakers. To pass, it requires a two-thirds majority vote in favor. Von der Leyen could be forced to resign if she loses, but she is virtually guaranteed to win as most of the political groups in the assembly have signaled they would vote against the motion. She is not expected to attend the vote in Strasbourg, France. The motion contains a mix of allegations against von der Leyen including text messaging privately with the boss of COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer, misuse of EU funds and interference in elections in Germany and Romania. Orbán said on Facebook that the vote 'will be the moment of truth: on one side the imperial elite in Brussels, on the other patriots and common sense. There is no getting out of it, it is essential to make a choice.' He posted: 'Madam President, the essence of leadership is responsibility. Time to go!' Von der Leyen's commission has frequently clashed with Orbán over his staunchly nationalist government's moves to roll back democracy. The commission has frozen Hungary's access to billions of euros in EU funds. The vote has been a lightning rod for criticism of Von der Leyen — who led the EU drive to find vaccines for around 450 million citizens during the pandemic — and her European People's Party, which is the largest political family in the assembly. They're accused of cozying up to the hard right to push through their agenda. The EU parliament shifted perceptibly to the political right after Europe-wide elections a year ago. The second biggest group, the Socialists and Democrats, has said that the censure motion was a result 'of the EPP's irresponsibility and the double games.' During debate on Monday, S&D leader Iratxe García Pérez said to the EPP: 'Who do you want to govern with? Do you want to govern with those that want to destroy Europe, or those of us who fight every day to build it?' The EPP has notably worked with the hard right to fix the agenda for hearing von der Leyen's new commissioners when they were questioned for their suitability for their posts last year, and to reject an ethics body meant to combat corruption.
Times
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Times
Marine Le Pen says corruption case could block presidential run
Marine Le Pen has asked Jordan Bardella, her top lieutenant, to prepare to replace her as presidential candidate for the hard-right National Rally if the appeal court upholds a bar on her entering the 2027 election. The 56-year-old populist, who is far ahead in the polling in her planned fourth run for the French presidency, was acknowledging for the first time that her conviction in March for embezzling EU funds could block her path to the Élysée Palace. Her words were a boost for her 29-year-old protégé who was elected president of the party in 2022. It is also part of a shift she is making to broaden the Rally's appeal to the conservative voters whom it needs to win in 2027. Le Pen was barred from standing for public office for five years, but, amid an outcry, the justice authorities fast-tracked her appeal so the case will be retried from scratch next spring with a verdict expected about a year before the spring 2027 elections.
Arab News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
France in flux following Le Pen ruling
In 2022, the UK was widely ridiculed internationally for having three prime ministers in a single year. Yet, France went one better in 2024 with a remarkable four premiers in office within 12 months. The French political landscape may appear to have stabilized in 2025, but there remains much volatility. With President Emmanuel Macron having just two years left to serve in his final term, the key question in French politics is who will succeed him. Since last year's snap legislative elections, Macron has spent much more time focusing on international affairs, with his approval ratings in some April and May 2025 trackers below 30 percent with disapproval over 70 percent. While he may try to reassert himself in domestic affairs, the clock is ticking on his presidency. Macron's main domestic political goal is to prevent the French right-wing, populist National Rally from winning the presidency. Before this spring, there had seemed a strong possibility that the party's leader and favorite of US President Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, could prevail in 2027, as she still might. In most polls from 2023 to March 2025, Le Pen was the lead candidate. Typically, she scored well over 30 percent, significantly above her nearest rival Edouard Philippe, who has been serving as mayor of Le Havre since 2020, having been prime minister from 2017 to 2020. Yet, on March 31, a French court sensationally found Le Pen guilty of embezzling EU funds and barred her from standing for public office for five years. This result, which Le Pen is appealing against, could yet destabilize French politics. It is possible, for instance, that Le Pen's National Rally may try to bring down the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou. In 2024, his centrist MoDem party was also ruled by courts to have been involved in misusing European Parliament funds to pay for party work in France, but he was not personally implicated. Another way in which the judicial decision may undermine French political stability is by making Le Pen a political martyr. Her protege, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, who is RN's president and may well stand in 2027, blasted the judges by saying 'it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned, it is French democracy that is being executed.' Polls since March 31 have tended to show Bardella as the leading candidate now. In April, polls showed him above 30 percent, well ahead of Philippe. As much as the French judicial decision against Le Pen is legally sound, it has given global populists, including Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the political ground to rally around her. The judicial decision may make Le Pen a political martyr. Andrew Hammond Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had been leading Trump's DOGE initiative, meanwhile, compared the judicial ruling to that of the US president's legal troubles before he won last November's election. He added that 'this will backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump. When the radical left can't win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents.' Musk's sentiment also echoes the warnings of US Vice President J.D. Vance, who asserted in February that the biggest threat to Europe is not from China or Russia but 'from within,' including what they claim is a decline in free speech. While Vance is wrong, events have given him bragging points. For the French judicial decision follows a similar one in Romania late last year when the Romanian constitutional court barred rightist Calin Georgescu, who won the nation's first round presidential election last November, from standing in the second round after allegations of Russian interference. While both the French and Romanian authorities appear to have acted diligently, it remains a truism that populists are best defeated at the polls. Of course, even then, as in the November 2020 US presidential election, populists such as Trump will often cry foul when they lose. But the ballot box is nonetheless the best way of countering insurgent right-wing politicians. The outcome of the 2027 French presidential election will, therefore, be a key test of how much global populism might continue to grow. In the post-1945 era, France is one of the few European countries not to have — yet — had a populist national leader. The backstory to this battle for France's political heart and soul is a huge growth in populism over the past quarter of a century. In 2000, only a handful of key states with populations over 20 million, including Italy, had populist leaders. This was an era that saw, for instance, the controversial billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi as a maverick prime minister from 2001-2006 in Italy, presaging the rise of Trump. This relatively small populist club expanded significantly after the onset of the 2008-09 international financial crisis, which led to Trump's first presidential win in 2016. Yet, the wave may not yet have peaked, with Europe fast becoming perhaps the single most important center of global populism. As much as this vision is the wrong one for Europe, populists are increasingly winning power. The influence that Trump has over European populists is shown by perhaps his biggest admirer in the continent, Orban. During Hungary's six-month presidency of the EU in the second half of 2024, he made the official slogan into one loaded with Trumpist lexicon: 'Make Europe Great Again,' or MEGA. In this context, center-right and center-left European leaders must do much more to push back at this misguided, populist MEGA vision. Europe's moderate politicians, including in France, need to show they can work together better to deliver political and economic progress across the bloc to thwart the damaging political tide which Le Pen and Orban represent.
