The two top officials are reportedly struggling for control over the bloc’s diplomatic and intelligence services
Two of the EU’s most powerful and controversial officials, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas, are struggling for control of the EU’s diplomacy and intelligence services in a confrontation “worthy of ‘Game of Thrones’,” the French newspaper Le Monde has reported, citing sources.
Von der Leyen is steadily concentrating authority in her office at the expense of Kallas’ European External Action Service (EEAS) by creating new units such as the Directorate-General for Defense Industry and, reportedly, a spy unit, despite the existence of parallel bodies inside the EEAS, noted Le Monde.
Officials at the Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN), which operates under Kallas’ EEAS, fear von der Leyen’s new spy agency will duplicate existing functions and weaken the foreign service, FT reported earlier this month.
According to Le Monde, the clash escalated this autumn when Kallas tried to appoint Martin Selmayr, a former top EU official, to a senior EEAS role to boost its influence. Von der Leyen reportedly saw it as “a declaration of war” and created a lower-ranking post for Selmayr, blocking the move.
“This latest affair confirms the Commission Presidency’s almost obsessive desire to concentrate all power and, consequently, to prevent any competing, even slightly autonomous, entity,” Le Monde writes.
Critics have long accused von der Leyen of an “authoritarian” and opaque leadership style, claiming she bypasses both member states and internal institutions to centralize control. The notion was central to recent attempts by opposition members of the European Parliament to depose her.
Kallas, who has secured her role largely through her anti-Russian rhetoric, has earned herself a reputation for gaffes, with insiders arguing that her tone has alienated partners and undermined the EU’s diplomatic standing.
One such example occurred in September when Kallas asserted that, “Chinese are very good at technology but they are not that good in social sciences,” adding that, “The Russians… are not good at technology at all, but super good in social sciences.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova ridiculed the statement, by asking who launched rockets from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome if it’s true that Russians lack technological expertise, calling Kallas “critically uneducated.”
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