EU’s biggest losers hold Ursula von der Leyen’s fate in their hands

The fate of Ursula von der Leyen hangs in the balance — and the EU election’s biggest losers are the unlikely kingmakers.

Every vote will count when the European Commission president attempts to convince just over half of the European Parliament’s 720 MEPs to give her a second term. If she fails in a vote on Thursday, it will plunge the EU into an unprecedented political crisis, sending national leaders back to the drawing board to come up with another candidate and ruining a package of top jobs they hammered out last month.