Socialist lead candidate avoids attack on von der Leyen

BRUSSELS — Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for jobs and presumed Socialist lead candidate in the EU election, won’t attack the work done in the current Commission, led by his likely rival Ursula von der Leyen.

Schmit will officially be crowned as the lead candidate for the center-left Socialists at a party congress in early March, putting him in the race for the position of Commission president and in a likely contest with his current boss, von der Leyen.

In one of his first interviews since being nominated, the relatively unknown 70-year-old Luxembourgish socialist shied away from an attack on von der Leyen, instead defending the legacy of the current Commission.

“I cannot go out and say: well, you know, I was a member of a club, which finally I would not have liked to be a member [of]. It’s not serious. I have endorsed the policies of this Commission,” he told POLITICO on Friday.

He added that his party supported the current Commission in the European Parliament, and that “many important issues have been driven by Social Democratic commissioners.”

“So yes, I can say: yes, I stick … I stand by this result.”

Schmit did give insights into how he would change the direction of some of the flagship programs of the current mandate in the next term, such as making the Green Deal “more social.”

Schmit labelled the far-right campaign against the Green Deal as fake news, but he pointed out that “the only way to make [it] acceptable or to keep it acceptable is to give the Green Deal a strong social dimension.”

“We have to reassess the way how we are funding [farmers],” he said, adding that some of them have “very, very good” revenues and others “are really fighting for survival.”

“This has to be taken better into account in our farming policy for the future,” he added.

Schmit didn’t want to engage in discussion about which other top job he could get if he lost out on being Commission chief. “My party is proposing me for one job and I am not thinking now what the compensation should be if I don’t get this job,” he said.

That the Luxembourg government already has a pick for the next European Commission is not at odds with the fact that Schmit is keen to maintain an office in the Berlaymont, he said. The Grand Duchy wants Christophe Hansen to be its next commissioner.

He recalled that once he was appointed as Luxembourg’s pick for the Commission, he had to step back because Jean-Claude Juncker became its president. “So it’s an internal discussion that we will have and I’m sure it will have a good outcome,” he said.