EU chief Ursula von der Leyen faces vote on her bid for second 5-year term
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00:00This will be literally a make-or-break moment for EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today as she faces a
00:07confidence vote by the Parliament.
00:09This is a confirmation required after she was appointed by the 27 presidents and prime ministers of the European Union.
00:17We're expecting this vote to be close. Last time she was confirmed
00:21it was by a margin of just nine votes. Now that had to do with some
00:25outside issues at the time that were not necessarily to do with her. This time around she's relying on a coalition of
00:33centrist parties, so the Liberals, the center-left and the center-right. If she has all of those people in those groups voting for her
00:40she's fine, but the fear is this is a secret vote and there could be a certain amount of defectors.
00:45So to be comfortable, to be sure today
00:47she's really going to want to get at least some votes from the Greens and from the hard-right party of
00:53Italian Prime Minister Georgia Maloney. So it could really go any way today.
00:58We don't know, but the thing is if she is rejected, tradition dictates
01:02she cannot be put forward for a vote again and the 27 prime ministers and presidents would have to have an
01:07emergency summit in August in order to designate a new appointee who would then be put forward to the Parliament for another confirmation vote in
01:15September. Now von der Leyen's case isn't being helped by a court decision that came out yesterday from the European Court of Justice
01:22the EU Supreme Court that found that her refusal to
01:26make public the entirety of contracts that she negotiated during the pandemic with COVID-19 vaccine
01:33manufacturers is unlawful.
01:35They're saying the Commission's defense that they need to redact some of that information for commercial and privacy concerns is not adequate.
01:41That was a lawsuit brought by the Green group in the Parliament who she's hoping to get the votes of.
01:47I'm not sure that would necessarily sway any MEP who already thought that she wasn't being transparent with these contracts.
01:53I'm not sure the court decision would change someone's opinion, but we'll see. She's going to give a speech today at 9 a.m.
02:00followed by a debate. The various groups will have meetings and they will decide at 1 p.m.
02:05when the vote is held whether they will vote for her. We will know the result at 2 45 p.m.