as well. so you know she is somebody with a with the format as they say she's been thought of as a potential chancellor even as a potential general secretary of nato now she's got this important job and she'll be with her linguistic skills which we've seen today she'll be you know speaking different languages french german and english she was she was talking today as somebody who's lived her whole life she was born in brussels actually and she's lived her whole life you know around europe and she'll be on the international stage i think she'll be very much at home much often let's let's pick your brains out having. what's that observed in brussels and strasburg for some time how much difference does the personality of the president make it so it was so we have a joke for younger at the moment before him i think it was. mr barroso what. what do they need to bring to the job that they bring different things to the job. that

is true but before we get into those details i would like to remind our viewers that we believe that the european parliament has elected from the law and as commission president with what we are hearing are 383 votes this is not official yet this is what we're hearing from trustworthy sources could it could change but if this is true it is a very small margin only 9 votes above what she would need she would need 370 votes so if this is confirmed within the next minutes the european parliament has convened again for the official results then we would have quite a different kind of commission president than earlier junko juncker was very well known for his how would i put it you know he was a very experienced european politician he'd been in that business for 20 years head of the euro group he'd been finance minister and also a prime minister of this country luxembourg he was known for his humor humorous side easygoing really he was a brilliant really known for things that was

a tough on the line we're bringing to the table now very disciplined she doesn't drink a drop of alcohol by the way she says if she wants to celebrate she she drinks sparkling water so that might be a little different from from the spirit in the european commission at the moment and as she did she will probably have to win over the staff of the european commission where john through juncker had decades to do that she is although she has this history in brussels and just trying to get up to date here as it often is entering the european parliament right now to hear the official results of that vote so she will have to win them over in spite of being trilingual and having lived the 1st part of her life in brussels she does not have the same kind of connections that john clode younger her most likely treat assessor had in brussels all right so what we're saying that the same thing is that you are now much more looking sort of on the line that's sitting down in the chamber. they your hand.

parliament as we await a decision well that will keep our eye on a vast so it does look like she's got the job but silent young she faced a lot of opposition from german social democrats why. in fact let's let's let's let's cross to the pilot now a box like that may not use a lot of the. results of the vote. and the. votes of the $733.00. people only majority of members that make up the pile and i don't know what 374. same fair vote 383 leaf tea

i've. been changed. 327. 7 and still have standing. to one so much and on the basis of these votes the candidate for the president of the commission has proposed by the council and has been elected by the european parliament and i would like to congratulate ms underlaying for her election and i wish her all the very best for her mandate and in line please article one tomorrow for paris 3 all 15 years of procedure i will inform the console and i will write. for the

new commission president to propose the various commissioner condition list and i will be i letter informing them of the parliament's decision. so you were saying that. it looks like it's official as he found out i think is it when you look at your play and you mention president to the president to his here. i've. thanked.

germany's our current defense minister she actually believes that job but tomorrow she has now is confirmed her new job as president of the european commission those numbers against 133 votes cast. quite reach you on behalf of the parliament on your election as president of the european commission on behalf of the other member states. and the rest of this assembly. you have a very important job it's very important for the european institutions we need to prepare for the hearings of the commissioners the designate commissioners and let you know that we will be very scrupulous in the life that we do here in the parliament and you mentioned topics today here in plenary and we've got forward to

getting into the detail and speaking to the levels of the college with those and then the competent committees will be dealing missed the next few years are going to be very important she's important for the future of the european union and we will be successful and if there is close cooperation between the european institutions i will give you the floor so that you can speak to the assembly you have the floor madam. mr president i'm on her royal manvers self this folly and i feel so honored and i'm overwhelmed and i thing you for the trust you placed in me the trust you placed in me is confidence you placed in europe your confidence in the

united and a strong europe from east to west from south to north your confidence in a europe that is ready to fight for the future rather than fighting against each other your confidence in a europe that will take the vicks challenges of our times together the task ahead of us how mobile to me. it's a big responsibility and my work starts now i thing president saucily i think all the group leaders i thank all the members soft volume and decided to vote for me today but my message to all of you is let us work together constructively because the endevor is a united a strong year old thank you very much thank

you. thank you from there larry an official present. and letters to the consul. of course. to president don't go to school. and inform him of the decision we have taken so the question is suspended for a few moments. or that is that it's official us it off on the lot in a german as a present defense minister has a new job is to be the president of the european commission really just bringing those figures again 733 votes cast the majority that she was striving for was 374 she actually got 383 i gave taking a 9 over the limit there were 327 votes against 22 abstentions and blank paper

watching those proceedings with me here in the studio as they double years political correspondent simon young and in strasburg where the vote has just taken place we have a hoffman. sort of on the line and we'll take up position as a council president in november let's see if we can have a word with max hoffman. in strasburg. a fun time line received a fax and congratulations there we have knocked off one. i'm sorry i didn't catch that question and i did not tell you what i was wondering if you were actually that i'm jus off so. much i want to say. what they what do you make of those figures. it's a listen there was a learning curve involved in those numbers last week it was really all about just

getting that majority for it was enough on the line that sometimes you know it seemed a little out of reach so. you know obviously being journalist there was a bet going on who would be closest and you had a lot of the journalist at that 438-381-3823 extension 83 so very close to that absolute majority she needed 374 now the optimism in the last days on the side of. increased because the social democrats started coming around you even heard today some of the greens saying they might vote in favor of her and that's why many thought she might get over 400 votes just like her predecessor. a majority now is is much much smaller than most of us here would have expected in the late afternoon and i think i know why this happened because because of the speech it was enough on the other side that did win over basically the social democrats and maybe even some of the greens and also the liberals also alienated parts of the so-called

e.c.r. group which is the right wing euro skeptical group where you for example you have the polish. law and justice party in there that many would define as right wing populist so they didn't like that and didn't come up with a consensus whether to vote for for the lion or not so everybody was free to vote in favor of. or not and it appears she lost a lot of votes on that side of the spectrum ice ice suppose that she's probably not unhappy about that given how she acted in the plenary this morning she's probably happy that she managed to get a majority without those parties on the right. political correspondent simon younger your reaction to the on air because a lot of your reaction to this result well i think it is for. worryingly close it's single figures close only 9 votes.

margin of victory i think that does create a bit of a problem for 1st of all it shows how essential these get to know you sessions in these these shifts in position on the line has been doing over the last week or so . to meet the european parliament politicians many of whom have only just arrived there for the 1st time after the recent european election you know they got to had to get to know each other get to know their own positions work out what goes where suddenly they're putting being presented with a german politician that they hadn't reckoned with before and she's really had to work very hard to. you know push to put out this message that she's a listening person who's ready to take on things that are said to her she's moved as i said earlier very far really as a conservative politician towards not just the green agenda which is perhaps easier

to do because that's a mainstream agenda but certainly towards a sort of left wing agenda she's talked about ok you know jobs for young people that's fine you know how do you implement that program how do you how much money are you willing to spend on it she's a german in the past in recent years germans have not been so keen to you know open the coffers to get big social programs like that going she's also talked today for instance about a european wide fan minimum wage again not something that she can actually deliver but she's apparently going to have bases part of her program on pushing the governments the member states to into. something like that now of course there isn't a european country where that hasn't already been discussed the 6 countries that don't have a minimum wage. you know places where you know there's been a majority for it in their parliaments so you know when she said today you know we

we need more europe we need more coordination more harmonizer more qualified majority voting and less veto from national governments on things like tax and social policy you know this is the pro european agenda that is primarily not been driven forward by the european people's party particularly it's at the moment anyway being driven forward by by socialists and greens and others and don't forget this of course in the context of the rise of nationalist. parties who you know in some way threaten to roll back europe if not indeed to bring down the whole european edifice interestingly strangely rep and it's reminiscent of the political situation here in germany max hoffman in strasbourg so . now has the job i think she doesn't start until november.