The European Commission chief is “obsessed” with proving she’s in charge, diplomats and officials have complained
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has tightened her control over the EU’s executive branch to the point where the bloc’s leaders and diplomats now view her as too powerful, according to a Bloomberg report.
In power since 2019, von der Leyen has rebuilt the European Commission in her image and become “the face of Europe,” Bloomberg wrote on Tuesday. She has spearheaded the EU’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, authored its hyper-belligerent policies toward Russia, and negotiated its trade deals with US President Donald Trump.
However, EU officials told the US news outlet that she’s “obsessed with demonstrating that she’s in charge,” and “is constantly jumping into the middle of the latest crisis, even when it’s outside her remit,” all while neglecting her core mission of strengthening the economy.
A draft internal market strategy compiled by Commission Vice President Stephane Sejourne, for example, has sat neglected on her desk since November, Bloomberg claimed. Von der Leyen only showed the document to member states and the European Parliament days before its publication last month, making deliberation effectively impossible.
A similar scenario played out last year when von der Leyen shared the EU’s long-term budget with her fellow commissioners at the last minute, angering member states who were being asked to cough up a record €2 trillion ($2.4 trillion) with no consultation.
Germany immediately rejected the budget, and lawmakers from von der Leyen’s CDU party met to demand additional checks on her power. Business leaders, meanwhile, have demanded that she act to improve the bloc’s competitiveness, but Bloomberg’s sources say their concerns rarely filter through to her “tight-knit” and “micromanaged” group of advisers.
Von der Leyen was handed a second stint at the helm of the commission in 2024, and has spent this second term in office dramatically centralizing power in Brussels. She began her term by appointing her team of 26 commissioners without running the list past the European Parliament first, proposed the establishment of an intelligence agency under her control last year – snatching this responsibility away from Kaja Kallas’ diplomatic arm of the EU – and has pushed for the creation of a “two-speed” EU, in which smaller blocs of countries could make policy decisions without the unanimous support of all 27 member states.
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Von der Leyen pushes abolition of veto power in EU
Von der Leyen has also moved to end the EU’s unanimity requirement on matters of foreign policy, arguing that the commission’s proposals should be passed with a simple majority vote. With regard to the bloc’s Ukraine policies, removing unanimity would eliminate the veto powers exercised by former Hungarian Prime Minister and war critic Viktor Orban, and undermine the neutrality of countries such as Austria and Ireland.
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