EPP feud with German Liberals escalates after vote against von der Leyen

The German FDP’s decision to vote against a second term for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen despite tight margins drew anger, as the president’s team had  “frantically” tried to secure the German liberals’ support before the vote.

While the FDP’s liberal Renew Europe group mostly backed von der Leyen, Germany’s five FDP lawmakers announced shortly before her parliamentary confirmation vote on Thursday that they would not support her, citing concerns that she did not rule out new common EU debt.

Von der Leyen ended up with a comfortable majority, but the FDP’s decision increased the risk of failure as it was unclear until the last minute who would vote for and against her.

This did not go down well with the EPP, with Daniel Caspary, delegation leader of von der Leyen’s CDU party (EPP) in the European Parliament, telling Euractiv that the FDP’s voting behaviour “is nothing but embarrassing,”

“It was important to signal stability from Strasbourg (…) Those who did not support Ursula von der Leyen, such as the FDP lead candidate Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the right-wing populists and the left, are doing our parliamentary democracy a disservice,” Angelika Niebler, delegation leader of CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU (EPP), told Euractiv. 

Many other EPP colleagues also took to social media to vent their anger. 

The episode marked another step of escalation after the FDP had campaigned against von der Leyen before June’s EU elections, whom they blamed for excessive bureaucracy, killing the internal combustion engine, and not ruling out EU debt.

“Frantic” calls

After the election, the FDP’s new delegation leader, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, wrote to the president, asking her to commit to several FDP demands, which remained unanswered. 

“It is a special kind of disrespect not to respond to our questions or our letter, and at the moment when our voting behaviour becomes public, von der Leyen’s team frantically tries to call me,” Strack-Zimmermann wrote on X. 

Strack-Zimmermann did not take the call, prompting von der Leyen’s team to send her “excerpts from this morning’s statement via SMS without comment,” a source close to the FDP told Euractiv. 

The president’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

After the vote, trust between the EPP’s German delegations and new FDP leader Strack-Zimmermann, whose parties are frequent collaborators on the national stage, appeared damaged.  

CDU MEP Dennis Radtke threatened that the EPP might not support Strack-Zimmermann’s bid for the chair of the EU Parliament’s Security and Defence subcommittee.

Caspary also attacked Strack-Zimmermann, whose party he called “isolated in its liberal group [Renew].”

The FDP would “have to fight even within her group’s own ranks to be taken seriously at all,” he added. 

Most Renew delegations had opted for von der Leyen after lengthy negotiations, with its French leader, Valérie Hayer (Ensemble), being among the president’s first to congratulate her.

Over the previous term, the FDP had often clashed with Renew’s group majority over key topics such as climate protection, where it favoured a laissez-faire approach. 

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Jonathan Packroff/Alice Taylor]

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