Von der Leyen in anti-extremist pitch for second term as MEPs prepare to vote | The Guardian |

Knife-edge vote set to result in another five-year mandate for commission's first female leader or a crisis for EU

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On paper, she has the numbers, as the three groups that officially backed her in 2019 - the centre-right EPP, the Socialists and Democrats and the Renew centrists - have 401 MEPs. But European parliament groups are not very disciplined, and experts expect about 10-15% of MEPs to deviate from the party line under cover of the secret ballot. She cannot even count on the unanimous support of her own EPP group.

The Renew group could be particularly difficult for von der Leyen - its four Fianna Fáil members have said they will not vote for her, arguing that she has been too supportive of Israel in its war on Hamas in Gaza. Billy Kelleher, a vice-president of Renew, said under her watch the EU had stopped being "seen as an honest broker in the Middle East peace process".

Since her nomination, von der Leyen has spent hours in windowless meeting rooms with different political groups, listening to their wishlists and appealing for their votes.

The Greens, potential kingmakers with 53 MEPs, tend to be more disciplined than other groups but had said they would not decide how to vote until von der Leyen appeared on the floor of the Strasbourg assembly on Thursday morning.

"We had good discussions with the president," Bas Eickhout, the Green group's co-president, said ahead of her speech. "On the basis of the political guidelines [her programme] and her speech we will decide."