The European Parliament re-elected Ursula von der Leyen as Commission President for the upcoming political mandate by 401 votes in support. The re-elected President guided MEPs through her policy guidelines in her candidacy speech, addressing wide range of policy asks from the political spectrum. Compared to the State of the Union address of 2023, forestry received less attention, however the ambitions for a green transition through biotechnologies indicate strong involvement for our sector.
The President of the incumbent Commission secured a comfortable majority of the votes in the European Parliament during the Plenary session in Strasbourg on 18 July 2024. During the secret ballot voting session, 401 MEPs (voted confidence for Ursula von der Leyen to continue leading the European Commission until 2029. While individual votes are unknown four political groups had expressed support on her candidacy (EPP, S&D, Renew, and Greens/EFA), the ECR group didn’t issue voting recommendation to its MEPs, and three groups called for the rejection of the candidate (The Left, PfE, and SNE).
The afternoon voting session was preceded by then Commission Presidential Candidate’s speech, which was largely built on her “Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission 2024-2029”. The speech addressed key demands from a wide range of the political spectrum, announcing a new European deal on competitiveness, appointing a new Commissioner for administrative simplification (in EC Vice-President capacity), enhancing the EU’s financial investment legislative framework, boosting Europe’s external border defence capacity and improving housing conditions across the Union.
The messages in the Commission President’s speech on land use sectors were broadly addressing the strategic role of agriculture, where concrete directions remain unclear, with very few references to forest and the forest-based sector. Compared to the last State of the Union speech in September 2023, where the Commission President Von der Leyen praised Europe as the “Continent of Forests”, the mentioning of forestry and the forest sector at this time stopped short with a general call on nature protection, investments in R&I, and support for climate change adaptation, notably by highlighting forest fires and water management.
The earlier messages on a renewable-based circular bioeconomy in the run-up to the EP Elections, as a key consideration for Europe’s strategic autonomy were not mentioned, despite the positive uptake in the Commission Work Programme and the Council’s Strategic Agenda. However, an important and promising connection point to the forest-based bioeconomy was mentioned in the frames of the ambitions around boosting biotechnologies, with special regard to a Strategy for European Life Science to enhance the green transition.
The continuing Commission President is now turning to the formulation of the next College, by recaching out to heads of states and governments for their respective nominations of Commissioners.
While the high-level composition of the European Commission remains to be seen till September, some important positions for the forest-based sector have already been filled and confirmed in the European Parliament. The composition of all European Parliament’s committees has been made public as of Friday 19 July.
