Von der Leyen’s warring EU Parliament allies want her to pick a side. Can she appease them? – POLITICO

STRASBOURG — The two biggest factions in the European Parliament want completely different things from Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union speech on Wednesday. If she can't keep them both happy, the rift between these traditional centrist allies risks becoming a chasm as the far-right makes gains across the continent.

The center-right wants von der Leyen to double down on the simplification drive of the past two years while further toughening the bloc’s stance on migration in the wake of the Ceuta crisis. The center-left, meanwhile, wants a halt to what it calls the deregulation of EU green policies, and for von der Leyen to steer the center-right away from passing measures in the Parliament with far-right votes.

“We expect your address to send a clear political commitment that there will be no backtracking on the European Green Deal,” Iratxe García Pérez, president of the S&D group in the European Parliament, told von der Leyen in a letter, calling for “a change of focus away from deregulation.”