The few days between Ursula von der Leyen’s nomination by EU leaders to the job of European Commission President and the confirmation vote by the European Parliament last Tuesday were marked with characteristic horse-trading to scrape her over the line.

Rather than launching a debate on the political issues that matter to citizens, von der Leyen opened a process of symbolic promises and “concessions” in order to win the vote.

While von der Leyen may be a fairly unfamiliar name to most Europeans, Germans know only too well her track record in government. 

VDL–as she is known–is a stalwart of the conservative establishment and was, her appointment, the German Defence Minister. Many remember her for submarines that do not work and the spiralling cost of refurbishing a ship, but it is her corruption and cronyism scandals that should be most alarming for EU citizens. 

Despite clinching the Commission presidency, there are ongoing investigations into VDL’s conduct whilst in office. My party–Die Linke–has helped to set up a committee of inquiry in the German Parliament into the awarding of lucrative contracts to external consultants to the tune of several million euros.

Von der Leyen admitted to making mistakes last year but other investigations continue, including allegations of nepotism following the hiring of a consultant as deputy minister responsible for procurement. 

If this is the best that the EU can offer to lead the institution that wields so much power in our everyday life, what hope is there for the millions of citizens who have been forgotten and left behind by a decade of austerity?

Unfortunately, Von der Leyen’s profile fits well with the project to militarise the EU. She has turned a blind eye to repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, facilitating training for Saudi military committing war crimes in Yemen, and has defended a massive increase in German military spending.

Recently in the European Parliament, she paid lip service to the discourse of European Union values and saving lives at sea but promised a stronger FRONTEX and praised the divisive European Defence Union. 

I and fellow Left MEPs met with VDL to hear what she had to offer for the EU’s top job. We gave her a list of 10 demands for holders of EU top jobs. In it, we set out measures for a truly progressive and inclusive social Europe for all citizens.

We want radical action for a carbon-neutral European Union, and an end to austerity policies and cuts in EU social funds that have plunged millions into poverty. 

Von der Leyen’s ‘European Green Deal’ is not commensurate to the climate emergency the planet is facing, with insufficient targets rehashed from the previous Juncker Commission amounting to a cynical greenwashing of climate policy.

Her tax reform proposals for big tech, while laudable, represent only a small part of the picture, ignoring the elephant in the room: European tax havens and the institutionalised tax breaks already given to big corporations at the expense of public services.

We demand measures to tackle the race to the bottom for workers’ rights and proper regulation of the gig economy. The new Commission needs to show that it has learned from its mistakes after the 2008 crisis and start building a financial sector that works for people not bankers–this means ending the Capital Markets Union project. We are pushing for another path for Europe on trade, rejecting Trumpism and the deals scripted by corporate lobbyists that we have seen in recent years.

In the run-up to the European elections, there was intense debate about an existential crisis in the EU. Politicians promised efforts to reverse this trend if elected. The shady agreements around Ursula von der Leyen have shown that the EU is determined to deepen its democratic deficit and move citizens away from its decision-making process.

In the end, VDL got a wafer thin majority of 383 votes, only nine votes over the line. She achieved this with support from anti-democratic and far-right parties.  

The Left in the European Parliament, as the only group refusing to participate in the negotiations of the so-called grand coalition and insisting on full transparency, will continue to be a voice for workers, climate action, feminism, peace and human rights. Our outright opposition to the new Commission’s politics will be crucial in the time to come.