After being hand-picked by the 27 EU leaders as the nominee to preside over the European Commission for a second five-year term, Ursula von der Leyen now needs to win the approval of the European parliament. The 65-year-old German politician needs an absolute majority when the 720 MEPs vote on Thursday: 361 votes. For this she can rely on the three pro-European political groups that won a majority of the seats in the European elections last month and supported her in 2019 – her own centre-right European People’s party (188 seats), the Socialists (136), and the liberals of Renew (77).

Yet individual MEPs from all three groups have already gone public to say they won’t back von der Leyen. They include France’s conservative Les Républicains from the EPP, German, Irish and Romanian liberals as well as French and ItalianSocialist delegations, among others. Moreover, as the vote is held by secret ballot, some may support her candidacy in public but still push the “no” button in Strasbourg.

Unsure about her chances of re-election, von der Leyen has been striving to expand her majority in an intense round of negotiations. First, she tried to create a bridge with the hardline right, notably with Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) which has 78 seats, but this exposed von der Leyen to criticism from the centre left.

She then moved to the Greens, who have 53 seats, and renewed her commitment to the climate agenda while also reassuring the liberals that she would not make any advances to the far right.

Yet all these groups, including those within her majority, have in the meantime formulated a range of demands that are difficult to reconcile. The........

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