The assassination attempt on U.S. presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump has sharply raised the political stakes of the upcoming July 18 confirmation of Ursula von der Leyen to head the new European Commission at the European Parliament's newly-convened EP session in Strasbourg, according to the European edition of Politico newspaper.

"The stakes of the European Parliament's vote to approve Ursula von der Leyen's re-election are already prohibitively high amid the conflict in Ukraine, political chaos in France and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's 'peace tour,'" the publication notes. - The attempted assassination of Trump has raised the stakes even higher. A vote to confirm von der Leyen's credentials will either signal stability and continuity or lead the bloc into a state that can only be described as political chaos."