site.btaMEP Stanislav Stoyanov: Europe Needs Strong Leaders, Ursula von der Leyen Is Not One

Interviewed by BTA in Strasbourg, MEP Stanislav Stoyanov (Vazrazhdane/Europe of Sovereign Nations) said that Europe needs strong leaders and Ursula von der Leyen is not one.

Stoyanov stressed they would not support the possible re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. The vote is due to take place on Thursday. "We will not support this candidate. We would very much like to see new faces at the head of the European institutions and the European Commission", the MEP stressed.

"I am not at all convinced that she will get elected. In the previous parliament, with a much bigger majority supporting her, she won by only nine votes. Now things will be even more interesting," Stanislav Stoyanov said. 

Commenting on the convincing majority by which Roberta Metsola was re-elected President of the European Parliament on Tuesday, Stoyanov said he hoped she would do a good job as an unbiased leader. 

He said he still had very few impressions of the European Parliament's work. "The real work has not started yet. We are still at the very beginning, but it is obvious that there is some change, insofar as we have direct and indirect observations from previous parliaments. There is a tangible change."

"The notorious cordons sanitaires, which the parties with a majority like to talk about, are thinning out. The group that is supposed to be isolated outside the cordon sanitaire is getting increasingly larger. If this trend continues, at some point we have to ask ourselves: Who is subjected to a cordon sanitaire?", the MEP commented.

"The group outside the cordon sanitaire is becoming more and more visible. There are three groups, including ours, Europe of Sovereign Nations, which we established, as well as the European Conservatives and Reformists and the Patriots for Europe, the new group which is now part of the European Parliament," he added.

In his words, the priorities of Vazrazhdane in this Parliament will be to start solving people's problems. "They should become heard better because now the policies imposed by the European institutions do not meet the needs of the ordinary European citizen. They serve lobbyists. There is a huge number of officially registered lobbyists. There are probably also unofficial lobbyists doing their work through other channels. There is a huge bureaucracy which is not elected by anyone. It is really huge and is also practically unaccountable, it is not accountable to voters. Even the holders of some very senior posts are not elected. We want citizens' concerns to be heard. We have to start working for the European citizens, this is the number one objective," the MEP said.

"The EU itself has shown many more weaknesses. It needs to be much better positioned on the world stage, to find solutions to the problems it faces in both foreign and domestic policy. These include migration, the botched-up Green Deal, the inability to find a solution to the conflict and the war in Ukraine. We are hearing that more and more money should be given for weapons. Some people cannot understand that this solution is clearly not delivering results," he said.