Ursula von der Leyen will be in Portugal to participate in the AD campaign

The President of the European Commission and candidate of the European People’s Party for a second term will be in Portugal on June 6 to participate in the electoral campaign of the Democratic Alliance (AD), a source in the European party told Lusa this Thursday.

A source from the European People’s Party (PPE) told Lusa that at the invitation of AD – the electoral coalition formed by PPD/PSD, CDS and PPM – Von der Leyen will participate in the election campaign in Porto on the day it starts. in the European Union, the European vote in the European elections and three days before the national vote.

The visit came after Ursula von der Leyen campaigned in countries including Greece, Germany, Poland, Croatia and Denmark.

The candidate’s agenda is expected to intensify in the next two weeks before the European elections scheduled for June 6-9, also given the end of debates with the other three main candidates that took place from late April to this week. .

In addition to criticism of her pro-Israel stance on the Middle East conflict and her recent openness to dialogue with conservatives, Von der Leyen’s election campaign was also marked by cyber attacks on her website, leading to increased security on their accounts. with their teams predicting increased disinformation and Russian interference as voting approaches.

At 65, the former German defense minister is the head of the EPP’s list (“spitzenkandidat”) to lead the community executive, after presiding over that institution since 2019 under a mandate marked by the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting Ukraine in the face of a Russian invasion and, more recently, increasing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East given the conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas.

The figure of the main candidates – in the German term “spitzenkandidat” – emerged in the 2014 European elections, when the largest European parties presented their options for the future President of the Commission, although this model was not followed in 2019.

For this reason, von der Leyen was chosen as leader of the community executive, without being at that time a “Spitzencandidate” from the EPP.

This is the procedure by which European political parties nominate list leaders for the post of President of the European Commission, with this role given to the candidate capable of gaining the most parliamentary support after the vote.

It is the European Parliament that must approve, on the proposal of the European Council, the new President of the Commission with an absolute majority (half of all MEPs plus one), while Ursula von der Leyen must receive the green light from at least 361 parliamentarians (720 seats in total).

As the first female President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen was approved by the European Parliament in July 2019 with 383 votes in favor, 327 against and 22 abstentions in a closed vote.

With party fragmentation increasing, namely the rise of the far right, it is expected that the person in charge will now have to “convince” the various parties that she is worthy of a second term at the head of the community executive, and she must first do so with heads of government and state in the European Council, since they must first approve his name.

The European Parliament currently consists of seven political groups, the largest of which is the European People’s Party, followed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, a group of the Party of European Socialists.

Some 400 million voters are called upon to choose 720 members of the European Parliament in elections taking place in the 27 member states of the European Union. Portugal will elect 21 members of the European Parliament.