Macron wants von der Leyen replaced: Bloomberg
3 Min Read
After pitching for her reelection, French President Emmanuel Macron is now calling for the EU chief's removal.
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French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, center left, arrive for a working session with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, on April 6, 2023. (AP)
French President Emmanuel Macron looks to replace European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and is discussing options with other EU leaders, reported Bloomberg on Wednesday, citing sources.
Von der Leyen is preparing for elections in under two months, aiming to clinch another five-year tenure. Macron, a pivotal figure in her rise to the helm of the EU, has been publicly censuring the President's methods in steering the EU Commission.
“The commission presidency is there to defend the general interest, so it must not be over-politicized. Which, it has to be said, was not at all the case with this outgoing commission,” Macron said in Brussels last month.
According to Bloomberg, the French president reached out to other EU leaders regarding potential candidates to succeed the current commission leader. Among them is former Italian Prime Minister and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, as reported by sources familiar with these deliberations.
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Sources in Brussels, including individuals within von der Leyen's office, have remarked that it's still ambiguous whether Macron genuinely aimed to remove her from her position or was only exerting pressure to extract concessions from her in the future.
Von der Leyen remains a strong contender in the forthcoming elections, benefiting from her status as the primary candidate of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which holds the largest number of seats in the European Parliament. The EPP is poised to solidify its standing in the upcoming June elections. Nonetheless, any EPP candidate must secure support from an absolute majority in parliament.
French party criticizes von der Leyen
In February, the leader of the Patriots party in France, Florian Philippot, stated that von der Leyen was leading Europe into a "total war" and demanded her resignation.
Addressing the Munich Security Conference on February 17, von der Leyen emphasized the need to avoid ambiguity in Europe and urged European nations to declare their stance on the conflict in Ukraine.
"Ursula considers herself the head of the armed forces, she is ready to drag us into a total war, even though she has no legitimacy to do so! Ursula must be removed from power and the EU must be destroyed as soon as possible," Philippot said in a post on X.
He drew a parallel between what he characterized as the exaggerated rhetoric of the European Commission chief and the statements made by former US President George W. Bush, likening them to justifications for wars portraying a dichotomy of "good against evil" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
