Headed for conflict
These tensions are nothing new. While von der Leyen has stood by the Green Deal she helped erect, Weber, who leads both the EPP’s parliamentary group and its EU-wide party, has now spent years trying to stamp out what he views as environmental excesses.
His campaign has intensified since last year’s European election, which tilted the Parliament to the right and elevated Green Deal skeptics within the EPP.
Von der Leyen has sought to accommodate some of Weber’s concerns, especially regarding nature laws, corporate regulation, and specific industrial sectors like the automotive industry, which are core to the interests of Germany — where they both come from.
But the Patriots’ power grab strikes at the very heart of von der Leyen’s project, the climate targets that she has repeatedly vowed to protect. It’s not clear, however, that Weber is on board.
“In our meetings, there’s always criticism — she’s not understood anything, she changed nothing — that’s of course not true. But Ursula … is of the opinion that we don’t have to abolish everything we did in the last mandate,” said one EPP official, who, like others, was granted anonymity to disclose internal group discussions.
“Manfred, he always says that we are ambitious, but realistic. What that actually means is often difficult to discern,” the official added.