The European Union is greater than the sum of its parts, but possibly no greater than the sum of its personalities. the rocky relationship between the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is exacerbating tensions between Brussels and national capitals, making it more difficult for any decision-making results to be achieved. Although the Union system carries with it some necessary tension, it need not be overcomplicated.
The work of the European Commission – both proposing legislation and running its administration – is designed to balance the lack of oversight by member states. Summits between EU heads of state and government offer national governments the opportunity to have a say on priorities and provide democratic oversight. Coordination in Brussels is supposed to help Member States find consensus and collectively decide how to move forward.
When it works correctly, the results are historical. EU leaders joined the institutions to save the euro, develop and distribute a vaccine against COVID-19 and protect the economy from the pandemic collapse. Right now, however, the lack of rapport means that the achievements to come are increasingly out of reach.
conflicting plans
Consider Europe’s collective efforts to respond to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes $369 billion in subsidies for clean technologies and a host of provisions aimed at bolstering American manufacturing. through protective tax credits. The EU not only does not want to launch a new round of joint borrowing, it cannot even agree on the management of the existing industrial policy.
In an attempt to show that Brussels is taking action, von der Leyen and Michel offered competing versions of a “solidarity fund” designed to help smaller countries spend as freely as their larger neighbors see fit. Neither of the two proposals had a run. Both demonstrated that political complacency was displacing problem solving.
Von der Leyen’s Commission rallied first, pushing for looser rules on state aid and trade talks with Washington that would restore EU market access to the electric vehicle supply chain. But the bureaucracy under him also stirred up the waters with a proposal to set industry targets through aggressive regulation, in an unfunded bid for top-down economic planning. It is likely that the fact that von der Leyen was focused on his own agenda made it difficult to coordinate what was happening within the Commission.
Given that it has the right to propose legislation, not just issue political mandates, the Commission is a natural power center for Brussels. Of course, nothing can happen without the consensus of national leaders, and the European Parliament has become a powerful voice in negotiating future rules. But the breadth and technocratic depth of the Commission put it in a privileged position to set the political agenda, especially if member states have not made up their minds.
Political will, therefore, is the strongest indicator of whether the leaders will hold Brussels to account or, on the contrary, will find themselves subject to its conditions. Big crises usually bring major players to work together. Medium-sized crises, on the other hand, present the constant temptation to put national interests first and lead to alternatives to “muddle through”.
an uncomfortable fit
Michel does not master the art of reaching consensual agreements through meetings. The former Belgian prime minister seems to prefer to surround himself with his own team, rather than reconcile opposing positions. His approach shows the limitations of the position of Council President, created in 2009 as part of the Lisbon Treaty reforms. His incumbent – there have been three so far – is supposed to be a former prime minister with whom current leaders can relate as peers. But basically the job is to find consensus, not to be at the head of the pack.
This makes it an awkward position for someone like Michel, who at 47 still has decades of career ahead of him. His immediate predecessor, Donald Tusk, was a seasoned Polish politician who sought to rally the EU around security concerns, and was therefore not pushing to put his personal stamp on the economic issues that are the bloc’s daily bread. Michel, by contrast, is used to both being outnumbered and being at the top of his class. He chaired the only francophone party that was part of two coalition governments between 2014 and 2019, which gave him the job of prime minister because it was easier than choosing a leading faction from the Flemish contingents that made up the majority.
The other Belgian to sit on the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, did so at the end of a long career dedicated to building consensus under unfavorable conditions. Van Rompuy was Prime Minister Belgian between December 2008 and November 2009, at the head of a five-party coalition improvised in the midst of significant internal tensions. When he became the first to serve on the European Council, he brought negotiating ingenuity as well as a commitment to European federalism. During the euro sovereign debt crisis, Van Rompuy’s ability to host multi-day/night summits and small meetings with top policy makers helped the EU find the guts it needed to pull through.
play with the crowds
That kind of teamwork is now conspicuous by its absence. Instead of prolonging meetings to give themselves more time to find solutions, union leaders are now more likely to go home early because they see no point in staying, and the conclusions of the peaks are increasingly vague and tedious. As Michel looks for a political hook to hang his own hat on, von der Leyen is acting in front of the crowds, and not necessarily the peers he needs to get on with his job. His management of the EU’s joint lending program during the pandemic earned him applause from financial markets and world leaders, but not from conservative members of his own political group. As a result, it is not clear if his country will give him the back he needs for a second term as head of the Commission. For Germany, to give up the most important post in the EU under these circumstances would be a major political failure.
Von der Leyen therefore needs to counter the perception that it was installed by French President Emmanuel Macron over the objections of his natural allies. In fact, the former German defense minister secured the support of former Chancellor Angela Merkel when she needed it to win the commission seat. If Merkel’s successor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, caves to pressure from conservatives to oust von der Leyen because she is too aligned with European socialists, that would kick off a bizarre loop of personalities-first-interest politics. national and European
The EU cannot afford to fragment now. Climate change, economic uncertainty and global financial malaise require countries to act together or risk being overwhelmed by soaring energy prices and uncertainty in global supply chains. The bloc’s 27 member states have to manage Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, pursue trade talks with the United States on investment in green technology and safeguard the euro’s role as the world’s second-largest reserve currency. While it may be tempting to retreat beyond national borders, those tasks are too big for any one European country to take on alone, especially with the United States and China stepping up their own global agendas.
Need for adhesion
The clashing personalities thus jeopardize the broader objectives of the EU. The roles defined by institutions don’t work without people filling them, but neither can they work when those people can’t unite around something bigger than themselves. Political decision makers in Brussels cannot limit themselves to having their own ideas, but need to win the support of the Member States they are supposed to support. On the contrary, when countries put distance between themselves and the machine in Brussels, they will undermine the chain of democratic legitimacy that gives the EU its strength. All the good ideas and intentions in the world will not work unless the citizens support them.
Although this sometimes seems to fade in the minds of Europeans, national voters are the backbone of the European project. His political energy goes primarily to electing a leader and a legislature at home. These politicians dictate the message that goes to Brussels and the agenda of the envoys that accompany them. While it is fine for the European Parliament to offer an avenue for direct civic engagement, the EU assembly acts to support the system, rather than lead it. Most voters do not have a personal relationship with their elected representatives in the EU, who are often chosen from party lists and sit on the fringes of national governments. But every voter knows who their president or prime minister is. And it is that leader who carries the singing voice of a Member State at the European level.
This makes it imperative that senior officials like Michel and von der Leyen cooperate with their constituents, not work around them. The goal of an “ever closer union” requires its members to work together at all times, despite political differences. The banking union, vaccine development and the European Green Deal show real progress on that front. But if the leaders behind those programs don’t want to take each other’s calls, all the closeness in the world won’t be able to address the gaps that remain to be closed.
Article originally published in English on the website of International Political Quarterly.
The entry An improper rivalry at the heart of the EU was first published on Foreign Policy.
