Campaigning EU chief defends record during debate

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen defended her decisions on several issues from climate change to the war in Ukraine during a debate on Monday as she bids to land a second term.

The former German defence minister, 65, has run the European Union's executive arm since 2019 and wants another five-year mandate after June polls.

One of the key issues during the debate was the EU's "Green Deal" laws, which are aimed at helping the bloc meet its climate goals.

"We designed the European Green Deal as our new growth strategy. Europe is a leader in clean technologies. With massive investments, we can show that there's progress," she said during the debate in the Dutch city of Maastricht.

The Greens candidate, Bas Eickhout, accused von der Leyen of "watering down the Green Deal" after farmers' protests, but she denied moving away from the EU's climate goals.

Von der Leyen had heated exchanges with the other candidates, who took aim at her decisions on Ukraine among other issues.

When the Left candidate Walter Baier mentioned a political solution, the commission chief hit back, telling him: "If you want to end this war, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin just has to stop fighting."

And she told far-right candidate Anders Vistisen to "clean up your house before you criticise us" after referring to German AfD colleagues in his Identity and Democracy grouping "under investigation for being in the pocket of Putin".

While von der Leyen rejected any cooperation with Putin's "proxies", she did not exclude working with the hard right European Conservatives and Reformists group.

"It depends very much on how the composition of the parliament is and who is in what group," she said.

Von der Leyen participated with seven other candidates from across the political spectrum during the debate hosted by Politico and Studio Europa Maastricht.

- 'PR stunt' -

During the 90-plus-minute debate, von der Leyen also did not rule out a similar ban to the United States of popular video-sharing app TikTok.

"It is not excluded because the commission was the very first institution worldwide to ban TikTok on our corporate telephone devices. To be very clear, we know exactly the danger of TikTok. We've done a lot to regulate," she said.

Brussels already has two investigations into TikTok under a new mammoth content moderation law.

The debate comes before elections between June 6-9 across the 27-member bloc to choose the next European Parliament.

After the vote, top jobs including von der Leyen's, will be decided taking into account which political groups in parliament score best in the election.

Von der Leyen is the candidate for the biggest political grouping, the conservative European People's Party.

She will take part in another debate on May 23, this one hosted by the European Broadcasting Union.

Before the debate, Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law, pointed out that the EU polls do not directly elect the next commission president.

To secure the job, von der Leyen must win over national leaders who have the power to choose the commission president, even if the European Parliament must endorse that choice.

Alemanno wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that von der Leyen's recent campaigning around the election was "a PR stunt targeting 27 heads of state and government" who will decide the top jobs.

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