a man on the moon. i'm phil gale welcome to the program. fonda lion has addressed the european parliament in strasburg ah she winds up bid to become the 1st female president of the european commission and her last chance to win any peace support dr fonda line sought to deal with accusations that she's been too vague and so laid out her positions on issues including climate change gender equality migration and it. confident and smiling. yet everything is on the line for also the fonda lion who is resigning as a german defense minister and her bid to lead the u. commission. some called her address to parliament the speech of her lifetime the world is calling for more the world needs more you i believe europe should have a stronger and more united voice in the world and it needs to act fast the conservative said european unity is the antidote to the continent's biggest challenges most pressing among them climate change. this is the greatest responsibility and opportunity of our times i want europe to become the 1st climate neutral continent in the world by 2050. she celebrated her

donald managed to get the e.u.'s national leaders to unite behind fonda lion but he knows the parliament presents a major hurdle for their chosen candidate. so i am not a prophet it's not for me to to assess what is the real shuttle story achieve. success in the parliament that it's always a question mark or so this is right we have parliament i mean 2 to debate to discuss to argue. and then to decide to parliament has already flexed its muscles and ignore the national leaders choice for another key job president of parliament. and funder lyon faces serious resistance because she is not a shit sing country down as one of the candidates put forward by parliament to be commission chief. the council obviously you know who was once the parliament as it's clearly from day one from. be long before the election that we're only going to vote for one of the states that is what parliament and although all the parliamentary groups have said all the time critics say fonder lyon emerged from a backroom deal made to please national leaders instead of keeping promises made to european voters

challenging and ursula fonda lyon has not left the defense ministry in a particularly good condition there are problems for instance with weapons systems that need modernising plenty of other equipment doesn't work properly there is a need to recruit germans to the armed forces a lot of them are on willing to join there's been money wasted on expensive advisors have plenty of other internal problems and also there's the question of the military budget and a great cram karrenbauer is known to support the idea of increasing military spending but of course you have to argue that out with the finance minister and one of the chancellor angela merkel she's in her final as chancellor does she still carry the or far too she used to when she said she's not going to stand for chancellor again so she's in her final years but i think it's been a good couple of days for the chancellor she's got to have her close allies now in the front rank and of course with us live on the line in brussels. will be assured of being at the very least heard and understood. at the top level of the europea

arcilla fonda lie and one lawmaker is backing to take on the role she has promised a quote united at a strong europe saying that she would work constructively and pragmatically in order to achieve it she will succeed in the top job after being voted in by a narrow majority. uncertainty until the very last minute. the members of the european parliament here installs book new with a vote on the next commission president was going to be close but not even the candidate herself was a loaf on the line would have thought it was going to be that close. vote the 5 votes in favor 3 shots 383. things are on the line secure the majority by just 9 books a week results in the end still enough to celebrate. my message so all of you is let us work together constructively because of the endevor is a united a strong year old. the former german defense minister spent the last 2 weeks building a majority trying to convince the political groups in the european parliament to support her bid. her final address to parliament which some called the speech of her lifetime seem to have tilt of the scale in her

they are voting today max what to any piece there make of fonda line as the nominee to become commission president. it depends which political group you asked now the greens have flatly rejected the whole package so if things don't change dramatically in the next 2 weeks they will not vote in favor of. the conservatives will vote for it was enough on the line at least most likely many of them were not happy with the choice because they wanted their candidate during the campaign months to be able to be the nominee but that didn't happen it's going to be difficult for them to oppose fund a lie nevertheless because like i said she's from the same party and so the conservative e.p. p. would continue to provide the e.u. commission president now the key to this whole conundrum are the sole szell democrats they are extremely disappointed because up until the end it looks like they're the candidate plans to moments was going to be the choice of the leaders in brussels but that didn't happen as we all know it so now they have to arrange themselves with the situation when you talk to so

on the line for it was the fonda lion who is resigning as german defense minister in her bid to lead the u. commission some called her address to parliament the speech of her lifetime the world is calling formally the world needs more you i believe europe should have a stronger and more united voice in the world and it needs to act fast the conservative said european unity is the antidote to the continent's biggest challenges most pressing among them climate change. this is the greatest responsibility and opportunity of our times i want europe to become the 1st climate neutral continent in the world by 2050. thank you celebrated her candidacy as a step forward for women she would become the commission's 1st female leader the german politician also promised a new e.u. approach to asylum it was a nod to italy greece and spain which process the most asylum applications because of their proximity to north africa and the middle east fearful peroration a common european asylum system must be exactly that common. we can only have stable external borders if we give enough help to member

it's interesting you know a few years ago fonda line was seen as a potential successor to angle a medical worker was at least named in the sort of list of a few people who could follow angle of medical eventually and start it does seem to slightly wane since then as i say she's been in this job at the defense ministry and they've been difficulties there in various sky. randall's and she's perceived not to have dealt with it absolutely perfectly so. her star has has faded a little bit now she's coming from behind if you like and if she gets this vote today we should say it's still up in the air but if she if she is voted through she'll have something like a job that's in a way bigger than german chancellor in that it covers a larger geographical territory and obviously the potential reach of that job. on a huge stage of course the european commission isn't a government it's sort of been a straight in it it's a guiding administrative organ and you know really also defining in some ways what the european union will eventually become the german chancellor a well angular medical still

funded lion was in the fonda lion is germany's minister of defense on a such she is in charge of a extremely difficult and controversial ministry this is a ministry that is but has been criticized time and time again because of the state of the forces here in germany the criticisms relate to the readiness to the capability of the armed forces on a such as a reform the line has also been criticised although it's important to stress to some of the problems she inherited this is a role that in many cases has been described as korea so depending on what your position is on was it on the line you may think that she has done a good job given the circumstances or she hasn't done enough to change things in the bundesliga so that said that's one issue why germans may be skeptical about her she's also facing an investigation into spending irregularities and i think many germans are also not happy about her nomination because of the way that she was nominated in the end not having been on the ballot during the european elections if she does get the top job with that allow her to skate full of

the world health organization thank you it's a pleasure. germany's a sort of fonda lion has announced that she will step down as the country's defense minister she hopes the european parliament will vote tomorrow to give her a new job as the 1st european president of the year of the commission that outcome is far from certain was founded on mr win over skeptics in the parliament and to do so she's been a little charm offensive making a raft of promises to win lawmakers back. keeping up with. it's not an easy task last week. she was on the move constantly meeting almost all the political groups of the e.u. parliament. she needs to convince enough parliamentarians that she is the right woman for the commission presidency and that could be a problem especially with the social democrats in the european parliament they've called her commitments to being and they dislike their fund and wasn't even one of the lead candidates especially the german social democrats are up in arms about the members of the social democratic group in the european parliament has not taken a final decision yet i gu

been following for you here on news germany's ursula fonda line is about to address the european parliament in her final push for the e.u. used. a majority of lawmakers must approve her nomination in today's vote if she is to become the 1st woman president of the european commission g w we'll be carrying that speech live at 9 am. and still to come here on news on business the european parliament on a new what commission will face this as usual or will we see brussels take a harder stance on the trade dispute with washington monica jones has all that and more. so we leave you now with some rare pictures of a large pod of dolphins having fallen off the coast of southern california i'm sorry kelly and carla thanks for watching. her 1st day of school in the jungle. first camillus and. then doris crane moment arrives. join during a tank on her journey back to freedom. in our interactive documentary. story on the radio 10 returns home on d w dot com tang's. welcome to the girl max new 2 channel. goodbye no stewards. with exclusive sights. the must see concerning parts culture consider

been campaigning for in brussels germany's defense minister ursula fonda line has been on a charm offensive there as part of her quest to become president of the commission on her agenda if she's successful fighting climate change and integrating europe's own forces. walk. through the busy it's fun to lyons 1st public appearance as nominee for the e.u. commission presidency the european union's top job her priority is to speak with m.e.p. is 1st to clarify her position and gauge the mood she's meeting with european social democrats who are critical of fund a lion a conservative and i mean for she was specific on some issues but on other areas she stayed quite vague so that was definitely not the end of our discussions. fund a lion needs 374 parliamentary votes to get the job it's not clear how much support she'll get from social democrats greens and business friendly parties she can rely on the 182 votes from her own group the e.p. p. and possibly the european conservatives and reformists or e.c. our critics are hinting their decision on her stance on climate policy rescues of mig

that nomination before ms fonda line can be appointed and that's far from a done deal. straight to the straight to strasburg that might be found d.w.b. correspondent hoffman welcome where is the opposition to the line coming from. the opposition is coming from all sides for example from the social democrats who are disappointed that they couldn't have their lead candidate who campaigned for them funds in the lead for that position also from the greens but the doors opened at least with the greens who said it depends on what kind of program will fund and will propose but oddly enough maybe not so odd if you think about it there is also opposition in her own party the european people's party so the conservatives the reason for this is that they also had a different beat candidate monthly so that's the man who went on the campaign trail for the party beginning in last september and so he was hoping and his party was also hoping that he would be the one probe posed by the leaders for the commission presidency as we all know that went downhill and completely changed so the question real

of fonda line but we've heard from many other social democrats the spanish are the biggest political group right now in the social democratic group and they are in favor as we understand even the leader of that group so the leader of the whole social democrats who haven't said the spanish is stood up and gave her standing ovations also the italians are inspected to vote in her favor we also expect the brits to vote in favor of fundal line because she made such a strong stance on on bragg's it saying here in this speech also she is ready ready to push the withdrawal date even further back if there is a if there is a good reason for that and you can imagine what would happen in parliament when she said that because you have many bright city years in there are a lot of booing but it will get her the votes of the social democrats of the u.k. who are in favor some of them at least of no bragg's it at all so you can see she played her cards quite well mixing it with her personal story makes it with the fact that she's the 1st woman candidate for the european commission presidency

usual self she's actually seen a week that's been very successful for her where she managed to put fonda line for defense minister at the top of the european commission voted in there but we also saw during all the ceremonies that went with all of that using a chair to avoid once again being put in the spot where she then could be seen to be visibly shaking what her response is basically she's fine she still once again won't give exact details as to what the origin is of this visible weakness that we've seen in the past but i also want to add that we've seen quite a bit of polling here in germany certainly that by a majority of german seen as being a largely private affair. despite the speculation she has repeated her determination to govern until 2021 i think she'll last that long well healthwise she seemed pretty stable today at the same time she's in a very difficult spot when it comes to her governing coalition with the social democrats suffered weakness after weakness and this actually was a pit in my german social democrats not voting for the fund the line the 1st german in decades

resistance to us or the former defense minister mrs fonda line. is going to take something with her in her new job so important for europe and what she will take is what message down told us namely there is a utopian view dimension to resistance because it is a european identity which is very much based on the elementary the fundamental human rights thank you. for your brand of lock out your own ideas. as in many parts of my legacy posters so the german art of freedom flourishes quoting parts of the manifesto the resistance fighters and one of the your. if you government declarations from july 24th the resistance was in order to ensure dignity like we need to properly treat every human being and they also say you are somewhere in this manifesto the persecution of youth of jews which culminated in deeply embarrassing impossible to repair the consequences is something which we must stop immediately. much of what they want to it was controversial much of what they said was dependent on the situation they were in and the time they live in but one thing they will agreed on in the rule of di