The choice
In her campaign pitch on Monday night, she told the audience, which included people tuning in to the livestream online and via about 100 “watch parties” around the world, she wanted to fight for a strong Europe for the sake of her children and grandchildren.
Von der Leyen portrayed herself as a unifying candidate and a safe pair of hands with the experience to keep leading the Commission in troubled times, warning that Europe faces dangers in the form of attacks from Vladimir Putin’s proxies who seek to undermine EU democracy.
Eickhout was the winner of a snap viewers’ poll taken among those watching. Speaking after the debate, he predicted that von der Leyen’s offer to the ECR would define the rest of the campaign. “What I heard was that she’s not excluding [working with the ECR] … We Greens exclude them and I think this election will then be about this choice,” he said.
“Within ECR you have the same people that want to weaken Europe, that want to water down our green policies,” he added.
Von der Leyen has already set out the conditions for working with parts of the ECR, saying the parties that join her putative coalition must be pro-NATO, pro-EU, pro-Ukraine, and pro-rule-of-law.
Von der Leyen made it clear she would not work with the far-right Identity and Democracy group, in a debate marked by repeated clashes between the far-right group’s representative Anders Vistisen and the other candidates, often on the topic of foreign interference in the EU.
Barbara Moens contributed reporting.