Von der Leyen's rival and Feijóo's friend who reaffirms his position as the great leader of the European People's Party (PP).

BarcelonaManfred Weber continues to stealthily gain power little by little. The Bavarian maintains a rather secondary profile and is largely unknown to the vast majority of citizens, but he now has almost absolute control of the European People's Party (EPP). He reaffirmed his mandate as leader of the conservative party with 89% of the vote—he was the only candidate, obtaining 502 votes in favor and 61 against—for three years at the EPP congress in Valencia, which is being held this Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, he has chaired the parliamentary group in the European Parliament since 2014 and the party since 2022. And, since then, the Christian Democrats have steadily gained power in the European institutions and national governments. "The PP is the best," Weber triumphantly celebrated after recalling that he leads the party. the most powerful party in Europe, the conservative.

The Bavarian leader has managed to build an even more tailored team than he already had, and has signed as party general secretary one of his sympathetic voices within the EPP, Catalan MEP Dolors Montserrat, and has dispensed with one of his internal rivals, Thanasis Bakolas. This makes it even more evident that one of the PP delegations with which Weber maintains the best relationship is that of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Although the PP leader took advantage of the meeting of European conservatives to criticize the Spanish government's handling of the power outage, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, avoided criticizing Pedro Sánchez, with whom he has always maintained a very good rapport.

The differences between Weber and Von der Leyen, however, do not end there, and the Bavarian's strengthening of the party's influence could work against the EU leader. He is one of her main internal rivals and represents the two souls of the Conservative Party. While Von der Leyen is part of the more moderate wing of the People's Party (PP), Weber has always been more open to reaching agreements with a segment of the far right—the pro-Ukraine and pro-NATO segment, and opposed to Vladimir Putin—and has maintained more radical stances against immigration.

However, in the face of the reactionary wave spreading across Europe, Von der Leyen is also hardening her stance and has shown herself open to reaching agreements with the segment of the far right that she considers more moderate, to the point of pushing through controversial EU legislative proposals. Now, although the two are increasingly aligned politically, the most powerful woman in Brussels and the man who controls Europe's most powerful party remain at odds, trying to gain influence at each other's expense.