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STRASBOURG – Ursula von der Leyen received the support of the majority of Members of the European Parliament on Thursday for another five years at the helm of the European Commission, and her election was supported by all Croatian MEPs except Stephen Bartulica from the Homeland Movement.
The current Commission President received 401 votes out of 707 MEPs, and the Croatian MEP groups, including the People’s Party, Socialists, and Greens, announced their support and called on their members to vote for Ursula von der Leyen, which many of them did.
Nicola Procaccini, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, to which Croatian MEP Stephen Nikola Bartulica also belongs, announced during the debate following the Commission President’s speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg that the ECR had allowed its members to decide freely according to their “national interests” on how to vote.
During the constitutive plenary session of the 10th term of the European Parliament, Bartulica previously told Croatian media that he would not vote for Ursula von der Leyen. Other Croatian MEPs overcame their political differences when choosing the new Commission President.
Green MEP Gordan Bosanac says that the vast majority of his colleagues in the Green group supported the election of Ursula von der Leyen.
Before the vote, von der Leyen addressed the MEPs in the European Parliament and dedicated much of her speech to the security and competitiveness of the continent, announcing that she would triple the number of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, and double the number of Europol members to address the pressing issue of illegal migration.