Terry Reintke, the German Green MEP chair, said her group would “absolutely” not support von der Leyen – the incumbent centre-right commission president who is seeking a second term – if she made a deal with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s group in the European parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

Reintke warned that if von der Leyen joined forces with the ECR, which has repeatedly voted against EU green policies, the EU’s plan to tackle the climate crisis would be in danger. “It’s much more likely that the green deal will be killed, or at least slowed down”. She said this would be “a disaster not only for the climate, but also for the economic standing of Europe” in the face of intense competition from the US and China.

"Ursula von der Leyen – when you look at her track record – she very often is a politician that follows the zeitgeist,” Reintke claimed. “And the zeitgeist in 2019 was towards green Europe. Now she has a lot of pressure from her own political group, and we know that EPP wants to turn back and basically say we do business as usual.”

Von der Leyen has twice refused to rule out working with Meloni, who she described as “clearly pro-European”. Rival candidates have excoriated von der Leyen for failing to mention the complaints of Italian journalists who have alleged “suffocating control” from Meloni’s government over their work. Von der Leyen has also glossed over the Italian government’s restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, merely saying she took a “completely different approach”.