ROME — Ursula von der Leyen will not take over as president of the European Commission until Nov. 1, but she is getting a head start on giving fuel to her critics and angering members of the European Parliament.

An otherwise smooth transition was upset last month when Ms. von der Leyen, a former German defense minister close to Chancellor Angela Merkel, announced that her top lieutenant with a portfolio that covers security and immigration issues would be charged with “protecting our European way of life.”

While some were baffled and bemused over what constitutes a European way of life on a continent that stretches from Finland to Portugal, others saw a more sinister motive.

Critics said the job sounded like a phrase out of the playbook of one of the right-wing nationalist movements gaining influence across Europe, including in Germany.

“It’s a far-right slogan!” the European Trade Union said on social media. “And why is migration in this portfolio? We need protection … against climate change, etc., not against migrants!”

“The implication that Europeans need to be protected from external cultures is grotesque,” said Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament.

Other leading European voices called Ms. von der Leyen’s idea “an abomination,” “disgusting” and “scary.”

Ms. von der Leyen defended her initiative in a statement arguing that “the ‘European way of life’ also means listening and debating with each other to find solutions for the common good. That is what I want us to do together.”

She also said she was moved by a desire to reclaim terms of the political center such as “tolerance” and “nondiscrimination” that had been appropriated by fringe critics of the EU.

“We cannot and must not let others take our language away from us,” she said. “This is also part of who we are.”

She left the door open to a name change. The European Parliament is not set to vote on her 27-member commission until Oct. 23.

Outgoing European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas, a Greek politician who will fill the post, avoided the unfortunate word choice from his soon-to-be boss. In his social media profiles, he called himself the “commissioner-designate for migration, security, social rights, education, culture, and youth.”

The controversial name was on the agenda for last month’s meeting between Ms. von der Leyen and European Parliament President David Sassoli, who earlier called the choice for the renamed post “bizarre.” Ms. von der Leyen later told the German news service Deutsche Welle that the discussions were “constructive and positive,” although no decision on a name change was announced.

Both Ms. von der Leyen and Mr. Schinas belong to the conservative bloc in the EU Parliament, the largest single grouping by a narrow margin.

Europe watchers said the ruckus was a reflection of Brussels’ attempts to deal with cultural, economic and political concerns of its restive central and Eastern European members. Many leaders in the region, notably Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have fought what they call the EU’s traditional “globalist” approach and has pushed for more restrictive controls on immigration into the bloc.

“It’s not uncommon for the commission president to ruffle a few feathers in the European Parliament once they start pushing their agenda,” said Gian Franco Gallo, a former chief of staff for a French member of the European Parliament now working as a political affairs analyst with ABS Securities in Milan. “But von der Leyen may be the first to do it months before taking office.”

Mr. Gallo also said Ms. von der Leyen may have less room for error than some of her predecessors because her margin of victory in the 751-member Parliament was just nine votes, far slimmer than any of her five predecessors when they sought approval from European legislators.

“If she wants to get her agenda enacted once she’s head of the commission, von der Leyen cannot afford to lose much support in the Parliament,” Mr. Gallo said.

Prickly topic

Migration policy is an increasingly prickly topic in Europe. Violence, terrorism and poverty encourage thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East to set out for Europe every month. A fear of migrants was a major factor in Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU. Immigration-skeptical governments won big electoral victories in Hungary and Italy last year, and protests centered on border security and migration policy have been held in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and elsewhere.

“If there is one central issue in Europe right now, it is migration,” said Jose Ignacio Garcia, Brussels-based regional director for Jesuit Relief Service Europe, a migrant advocacy group. “It is a political factor in nearly every country.”

Still, Mr. Garcia brushed off the furor over the European “way of life” title as a “branding mistake” by the incoming EU chief. He said the media and other observers should look past it.

“Von der Leyen acknowledged her mistake, and unless it becomes some kind of a trend, then maybe we can pardon her for picking the wrong words as she is getting started,” he said.

Others say the problem runs deeper and that the EU is starting to embrace the restrictionist immigration and cultural policies in an attempt to co-opt nationalist parties.

“Some center-right politicians seem to think they can head off threats to their party from those further to the right on the political spectrum by adopting their challengers’ rhetoric and ideas,” Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director for Human Rights Watch, said in a Twitter post. “The results can be disastrous, of course.

“If the framing of the new European Commission portfolio was a deliberate effort to try to mollify and copy the far right for political gain, it would be sad to see, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen it,” he said. But it could also be the case that “the Commission simply didn’t know they’d chosen far-right framing for the portfolio name, because the shift in public rhetoric has moved so far to the authoritarian right, they just thought it was normal.”

Aidan Regan, a professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, said the debate sparked by Ms. von der Leyen’s proposal calls into question a different problem — one that has bedeviled the EU from its founding days.

“What is a European?” Mr. Regan asked. “Look, I’m Irish and my fiancee is from Spain, and even though we’re both European I can promise you our two cultures don’t have a lot in common.

“‘The ‘European way of life?’ If that means values like tolerance and democracy, then it makes some sense,” he said. “Otherwise, Europe is just a collection of 28 countries, each with its own culture, practices and traditions. From that perspective, how do we know what the ‘European way of life’ is?”

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