The Road to BrusselsDoes Von der Leyen Have a Chance as
Commission President?
The nomination of German Defense Minister Ursula von
der Leyen as European Commission president came as a surprise. And many are
unhappy. It not only undermines efforts to make the EU more democratic, but she
may not be confirmed.
By Melanie Amann, Markus Becker, Matthias Gebauer, Konstantin von
Hammerstein, Julia Amalia
Heyer, Christoph Hickmann, Dietmar Hipp and Peter Müller
July 05,
2019
06:00 PM
And there
she is. Ursula von der Leyen has taken a seat on the podium in the
parliamentary group chamber of the European People's Party (EPP) in Strasbourg,
a smile glued to her face. Once the cameras have left the room, she turns to
the man on her left, the biggest loser in the competition for positions of
power in Brussels.
"You're
still young," she says, consolingly, to Manfred Weber, who was the EPP's
lead candidate in the European elections held in late May. With center-right
political parties having won the election, Weber had hoped to land the job of
European Commission president. But the position was handed to von der Leyen
instead, a woman who has never once campaigned for a European Parliament seat
or other job in Brussels. "You have demonstrated greatness," she told
Weber, according to meeting participants.
She then
switches easily to French and speaks about her childhood in Brussels and about
her father, who worked for the Commission at the time. She then moves on,
discussing the years she lived together with her husband in California -- now
speaking in English.
It was a
badly needed marketing appearance for the German defense minister. Many
parliamentarians are not amused by the sudden nomination and -- though von der
Leyen's multilingual, self-confident speech presented a stark contrast to the
prim and proper Bavarian Manfred Weber -- her ultimate confirmation is far from
certain.
European
parliamentarians, after all, campaigned hard for their lead candidates ahead of
the vote, telling European citizens that Brussels was becoming more democratic
and that back-room decisions were a thing of the past. But now, von der Leyen,
a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic
Union (CDU), was handpicked by European leaders in a confidential meeting to be
installed as the leader of the EU's executive body. Why?
No Mood To Celebrate
Ursula von
der Leyen, a 60-year-old who is passionate about Europe, would be the first
German ever to head up the European Commission and the first woman in the
position, but nobody in Berlin or Brussels is in much of a mood to celebrate.
Her nomination is not a German victory, it is not a stroke of genius on
Merkel's part. Indeed, the German chancellor wasn't even the person who threw
her defense minister's name into the ring, nor was Merkel able to cast her vote
for von der Leyen. Rather, her nomination was a last-second solution to a
deadlock.
AP
Angela Merkel as she arrived at a
meeting of EU leaders on Sunday. The German chancellor has had to shift course
multiple times on nominations for important posts in Brussels.
Indeed, the
move brought a grueling process to an end during which almost all of the
unwritten rules were broken that political leaders in Brussels had become
accustomed to. And the EU lead candidate system was left by the wayside. The
system foresaw the leading candidate for the party group that scored the most
seats in the European Parliament being considered as the main candidate for
nomination as European Commission president.
Merkel, the
longest-serving EU head of government and the most experienced Brussels
negotiator, was forced repeatedly to change course on personnel nominations by
her counterparts and party allies. The Franco-German partnership, which has so
often set the EU course in the past, likewise had to yield to pressure from
other EU leaders. And the power struggle between EU institutions, such as the
one between the European Parliament and the European Council, the powerful body
that represents the leaders of the member states, is far from being resolved.
If von der Leyen isn't confirmed by parliament in two weeks, the grappling will
begin anew.
If she is
confirmed, she will find herself facing an immense challenge, one that is part
of Merkel's legacy: the aftershocks of the euro crisis, the inability of EU
member states to agree on refugee policy and the rise of nationalists and
populists in Europe. Von der Leyen will be tasked with making the EU capable of
making decisions once again, with closing up divisions and with assuaging the
widespread frustration that she wasn't the EPP's lead candidate. It begs the
question: Is this woman -- who isn't even particularly well-liked by her own
party back home and whose performance in the Defense Ministry has been less
than impressive -- capable of doing all that?
Von der
Leyen's nomination has also resulted in conflict within Merkel's governing
coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), with the SPD working
against her in both Berlin and Brussels. Were they to succeed in blocking von
der Leyen's nomination, it could lead to a collapse of Merkel's government.
Finding a Way out of a Difficult Situation
The
fragility of von der Leyen's current position is a direct product of how her
nomination came about. A reconstruction of the events leading to that
nomination, compiled by way of conversations with actors in Brussels and
Berlin, does not leave one with the impression that EU leaders were cleverly
pursuing a deeply thought-out strategy. Rather, it seems they were doing all
they could to find their way out of a difficult situation.
French
President Emmanuel Macron was the first to throw Ursula von der Leyen's name
into the ring. He did so on Monday afternoon, after EU heads of state and
government had spent an evening, a night and a morning negotiating without
having come any closer to a solution.
By then,
Manfred Weber was no longer part of the race, and the idea of installing Frans
Timmermans, the social democratic lead candidate with the Dutch Labor Party,
clearly didn't have majority support. Nevertheless, Council President Donald
Tusk wanted to submit the package for nomination, but Netherlands Prime
Minister Mark Rutte rejected the idea. "No, no."
The heads
of state and government were exhausted and cranky as they sat at the round
conference table on the 11th floor of the Europa building. Some of them,
including Macron and Merkel, had just returned from the G-20 summit in Osaka,
Japan.
A Helping Hand from France
At some
point, the group just started throwing out names, and one of them was Ursula
von der Leyen. She had already been rejected once, but that was for the
position of top European diplomat and not for the most powerful job in the
Commission.
Élysée
Palace, though, had long had von der Leyen in its sights. Because Macron could
not accept Weber, Paris early on began casting about for names they could
present to Merkel for senior posts in Brussels. After all, Macron and his team
weren't necessarily opposed to having a German in the position. Macron's team
says that the French president mentioned the possibility of Ursula von der
Leyen being elevated to a top EU job on several occasions even before the
European elections and again during a visit with CDU Chairwoman Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer in Paris in early June. He also apparently considered German
Economics Minister Peter Altmaier to be a good candidate.
AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron is the
EU leader who first suggested von der Leyen as the possible next European
Commission president.
Paris
values von der Leyen's commitment to Europe in addition to her engagement in
social issues -- a woman who may not have been the best defense minister, but
who revolutionized conservative German family policy back when she was Merkel's
family minister. And von der Leyen did her part to get on Macron's good side.
In a 2017 interview in DER SPIEGEL shortly before his election, she said:
"Macron is a convinced, engaged champion of the European idea who will
strengthen the European family and lead it into the modern age."
The fact
that von der Leyen can speak French and has never called into question the
European Parliament's second seat in Strasbourg also helped her case in Paris.
Macron also
realized early on that the German minister knew her stuff. Since 2017, von der
Leyen has been pressing ahead with the largest German-French defense project
yet, a new European fighter jet. There has been plenty of resistance, but von
der Leyen has not been dissuaded, often negotiating directly with her French
counterpart Florence Parly. She last ran into Macron in mid-June at the
International Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, where a signing ceremony for the
project was held.
But at
midday on the Monday of the EU summit, von der Leyen's name was little more
than a test balloon from Macron. A short time later, Donald Tusk adjourned the
meeting to give the EU leaders some time to sleep.
It was a
break that Merkel, especially, badly needed. The summit had been going poorly
for her, as had the entire process of filling top EU positions since the
European election. The lead candidate system was one that Merkel only tepidly
supported, partly out of her belief that it made little sense without
pan-European party lists and also because it made nominating candidates for top
EU jobs that much more difficult. Merkel likely felt vindicated after the May
election when none of the lead candidates appeared to have majority support in
European Parliament.
The day
before she departed for Osaka, Merkel gathered conservative leaders in the
Chancellery, a group that included Weber, Kramp-Karrenbauer and Markus Söder,
head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of the CDU
and the party to which Weber belongs. The meeting also included Joseph Daul of
France, who is leader of the European People's Party in the European
Parliament. It was during this meeting that Weber recognized that he had no
chance, say Chancellery sources, and declared himself satisfied with the
position of European Parliament president. That could have cleared the way for
Timmermans, which would have meant that at least one of the lead candidates
ended up in the position of Commission president.
That was
the plan when Merkel flew to Osaka, and it was one that EU leaders present at
the G-20 approved of, even if they had their doubts that the Poles or the
Hungarians would support it. After all, Timmermans, from his erstwhile position
as deputy Commission president, had often been sharply critical of the two
countries for their incursions on the rule of law.
Those
familiar with her thinking say that by then, Merkel had begun considering von
der Leyen as a candidate for a position in Brussels with perhaps the greatest
chances for success. Still, though, she continued to see her defense minister
as a potential commissioner in an executive body led by Timmermans or, even
better, as the EU's foreign affairs representative. Nobody from Berlin, it
seems, was thinking of von der Leyen as Commission president at that moment.
Government
sources say that Merkel, while she was in Osaka, received SPD support for
sending von der Leyen to Brussels as a commissioner. And by then, von der Leyen
herself had been informed of her possible future in the EU capital, though she
said nothing about it.
Deep Reluctance
But nothing
went according to plan at the EU summit on Sunday. When Merkel informed the EPP
of the Timmermans deal during a pre-summit center-right group meeting at the
Academy Palace, she found herself confronted by deep reluctance. Many felt that
Timmermans, as the lead candidate for a party group that had lost the
elections, should not be awarded with a top position. "I campaigned for
Manfred Weber as Commission president," Romanian President Klaus Johannis,
who otherwise tends to be a supporter of Merkel, is said to have complained.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov accused Merkel of having betrayed EPP's
interests. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had already sent a letter of
protest to EPP head Daul.
AFP
Von der Leyen (right) and EPP group
President Manfred Weber at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
Apparently
neither Daul nor Weber had done much to prepare EPP leaders for the shift to
Timmermans. The leaders of several EU member states complained that they had
only learned of the new plan that morning -- from negotiators for other
parties. The result was that Merkel, as the bearer of bad news, found herself
in the crossfire and didn't have the necessary weight to convince the rest of
the EPP to change course.
The
divisions had not been healed by the time the summit began, and no solution
could initially be found, not even in private meetings Tusk held with
individual leaders during the night.
Macron's
proposal of von der Leyen only began gaining traction on Monday morning and by
Tuesday morning, it had become clear that Germany and France had settled on
nominating von der Leyen for Commission president and Christine Lagarde for
European Central Bank president. Once again, the French-German axis was
working.
'Macron Switched the Light Back On'
And of all
people, it was Macron who showed the way out of the crisis, a man who early on
in the negotiations had shown just how destructive he could be. "Macron
switched the light back on," says one EU diplomat with respect. Merkel got
on the phone to sell the solution back home and also consulted with Söder and
Kramp-Karrenbauer, who were on a trip to Israel. Initially, though, the
chancellor elected not to inform her coalition partners from the SPD.
At 11 a.m.
on Tuesday, Merkel and Macron met with Donald Tusk in his office, with Spanish
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joining them later. The four of them agreed that
the new personnel package might just get the necessary support.
It was
apparently Viktor Orbán who rounded up support for the plan from the four
Visegrád countries -- the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia -- who
had spent much of the summit gumming up the works. Orbán had been eager to
block both Weber and Timmermans and the Hungarian government spokesman posted a
tweet in which he proudly claimed that the von der Leyen solution had come from
the Visegrád Group. Either way, the German candidate now had the support of the
European Council -- though it remains to be seen if the vociferous support of
an autocrat like Orbán will prove disadvantageous to her.
Manfred
Weber, who was still the official EPP candidate at the time, only learned of
the new plan rather late in the game. When the second round of the Brussels
summit began on Tuesday morning, the 46-year-old Weber was driving back to
Strasbourg, where he would announce his defeat to his party group that evening.
"This is where my journey began last September," he said. "And
this is where it ends today."
A Career-Saving Move?
Meanwhile,
von der Leyen's political future looks rosy once again. Her sudden nomination
to the powerful position of European Commission president came at a low point
of her political career. Just the previous evening, the minister had been
standing stony-faced on a field near Hameln to pay her respects to a young
helicopter pilot who had died in a crash. It was the second deadly accident for
the German military within a short period.
But that's
not all. Her ministry has been in the headlines for months due to massive cost
overruns, a seemingly never-ending series of mechanical difficulties
experienced by government airplanes and a parliamentary committee investigation
into potential nepotism and malfeasance among close advisers to the minister.
And then there were the comments from Hans-Peter Bartels, who keeps tabs on the
German military on behalf of German parliament. He recently said that von der
Leyen's efforts to rejuvenate Germany's severely under-resourced military were
"extremely slow-moving."
DER SPIEGEL
Election of
European Commission President
Indeed, it
looked as though von der Leyen, despite having survived as head of the Defense
Ministry for almost six years, was in danger of sinking into the political
quicksand. The times in which she had been seen as a potential Merkel successor
ended long ago and she is not well-liked within her party or among conservative
parliamentarians and she hadn't been planning on running for parliament again
in the next general election, currently scheduled for 2021. At times, she had
even mentioned leaving politics altogether.
Despite her
long service in the Defense Ministry, she still isn't completely accepted by
the military. Nobody has forgotten her comment two years ago that the military
has an "attitude problem." She herself now sees the comment as the
worst mistake she has made during her tenure and has long since apologized, but
it hasn't helped. Just recently, CDU member Friedrich Merz accused her of
having driven soldiers into the arms of the right-wing populist party
Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Nobody,
though, can accuse von der Leyen of shying away from reform. She has put her
stamp on the German military more than perhaps any of her predecessors. She has
expanded the Bundeswehr's cyber capabilities to prepare it for the future, has
taken steps to make a military career more attractive to women, fundamentally modernized
internal processes and ensured that the military budget, after years of
shrinkage, has seen an increase of almost 30 percent during her tenure. But
those successes have not helped to improve her image as defense minister.
Experience on the International Stage
Last year,
perhaps earlier, von der Leyen began quietly making inquiries regarding her
chances for moving to Brussels. Many have said that she was interested in the
position of NATO secretary general, but in reality, it was the office of EU
foreign affairs representative that she found attractive.
Largely
unnoticed by the public, she established an international network that will
help her in her new job, should she be confirmed. And only recently could it be
seen just how confident she is when appearing on the global stage. Germany had
hardly taken over its temporary seat in the United Nations Security Council
before von der Leyen flew to New York in April to speak before the
international community's most important body on the role of women in
peacekeeping missions. Whereas German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had stumbled
through his manuscript in less-than-fluent English a short time before, von der
Leyen spoke without notes in fluent English.
There are
no set-in-stone qualifications for the position of European Commission
president, there is no minimum age nor is there even a legal requirement that
the holder be a citizen of the EU. But the multilingual medical doctor Ursula
von der Leyen is doubtlessly qualified. And she also has a useful network of
contacts within the EU. Most recently, the minister made a trip through the
Baltic states and Eastern Europe - to a cyber conference in Tallinn and then
for a face-to-face meeting in Warsaw. Aside from a couple of Instagram posts,
the public hardly took notice of the trip, but it serves as an example for how
she has managed to quietly make contacts across the continent. No other group
of leaders threw their support behind von der Leyen as quickly and clearly as
did those from Eastern Europe.
How Solid Is Her Support?
The
question, though, is whether that support would be lasting. The ideological
gulf between von der Leyen, who is on the left end of the conservative
spectrum, and the increasingly autocratic, right-wing governments in Warsaw and
Budapest could hardly be wider.
On refugee
policy, von der Leyen has consistently supported Merkel, and deployed the
German military at the height of the 2015 crisis to get the chaos under
control. Her family also hosted a Syrian refugee. "He enriched our
lives," she told the weekly tabloid Bild am Sonntag at
the time.
In 2016,
von der Leyen called for a battle against populism. "We now realize that
our democracy can go to the dogs if we don't pay attention," she told DER
SPIEGEL. And as early as 2011, the passionate European said that her goal was
that of a "United States of Europe modelled after federal countries like
Switzerland, Germany or the U.S."
The senior
CDU member positioned herself squarely in opposition to growing EU skepticism within
her party. But ever since European realities have begun developing in a
different direction -- from the refugee debate to Brexit -- von der Leyen has
modified her comments. She has become more cautious, calling for an "army
of Europeans" rather than a European army, for example. But her
convictions aren't likely to have changed. It is quite possible that Eastern
Europeans will soon regret having helped boost her to the top of the
Commission.
Resistance in Berlin
It isn't,
of course, a sure thing that she'll be confirmed. There is resistance in Berlin
as there is in Brussels. The chancellor has been careful to confirm that von
der Leyen's candidacy wasn't her idea, in part to avoid any conspiracy theories
from the CSU or SPD that she torpedoed Weber and Timmermans to push through her
secret plan of installing von der Leyen. At the EU summit, Merkel's people were
careful to relate on several occasions just how passionately Merkel fought on
behalf of the two lead candidates.
Nevertheless,
the SPD was quick to veto the von der Leyen nomination on Tuesday. Which means
that the first German nominee for Commission president for 52 years will enter
the confirmation process with the support of European heads of state and
government, but without the full support of her own government.
Still,
resistance to von der Leyen among social democrats is of a different intensity
in Berlin than it is in Brussels. In Berlin, it appears that the SPD are in no
mood to torpedo the coalition over the issue. Even passionate opponents to the
"grand coalition" pairing the conservatives with the SPD have only
said that the von der Leyen nomination will be discussed during the SPD's
reevaluation of the coalition planned for the end of the year.
'Voter Deception from our Point of View'
Achim Post,
secretary general of the Party of European Socialists, the European Parliament
group of social democratic parties on the continent, said: "The procedure
to install a person as Commission president who did not campaign as a lead
candidate is unacceptable and amounts to voter deception from our point of
view." Nevertheless, he added that "Angela Merkel behaved correctly
in the Council voting by taking into account the SPD's no." As such, Post
continued, the incident has no bearing on the coalition government in Berlin.
"But Ms. von der Leyen must now find a sufficient number of votes in
European Parliament."
Jens Geier,
head of German Social Democrats in the European Parliament, threatened that
"the SPD will uniformly reject von der Leyen." The German SPD faction
also says that their counterparts from Britain, Austria, France and the Benelux
countries are also planning on vetoing von der Leyen's nomination.
German
conservatives are also concerned by the fact that the vote in parliament will
be secret. "Instead of being proud and happy that Germany's influence
would be boosted, and with the first woman ever in the position, the SPD is
blocking it," said deputy CDU head Julia Klöckner. "I can't imagine
that such behavior will attract more voters." CDU Secretary General Paul
Ziemiak is also critical of the SPD: "The tactical positioning of the SPD
doesn't just damage the reputation of Germany's governing coalition, but that
of the entire country," he said.
'The Speech of Her Life'
But von der
Leyen's biggest problem is likely to be the European Greens. Following the
European elections, in which the party did spectacularly well, particularly in
Germany, the Greens felt like the victors. Which makes their present
disillusionment all the tougher to take. Not only did the Greens not get any of
the top positions, they are also the party that has been most passionate in
their support of the lead candidate system. "The mood was
aggressive," said one Green Party MEP following the faction's first post-election
meeting.
·
The article you are reading originally
appeared in German in issue 28/2019 (July 06th, 2019) of DER SPIEGEL.
"Support
from our faction for your choice for Commission president seems unlikely to
me," said Green Party lead candidate Sven Giegold. His party colleague
Reinhard Bütikofer, co-leader of the European Greens, said that von der Leyen
didn't seem surprised in the least when EU heads of state and government chose
her for the position. "As such, she would seem to be a candidate that the
European Council was already holding in reserve," Bütikofer said.
"Why should I ratify this farce with my vote?"
Even if
German Greens are more open to von der Leyen when speaking off the record, the
party is insisting that the candidate must offer one or more Commission posts
to the Greens as soon as possible -- preferably those for climate or the
environment. The question remains, however, whether that would be enough.
And so, von
der Leyen finds herself preparing for the final round of Brussels power poker.
She has been given a "transition team" of the kind U.S.
presidents-elect assemble prior to entering the White House. Seven officials
from the European Commission are to help the candidate prepare her speech as
the July 16 vote approaches. It will have to be the speech of her life.
By Melanie Amann, Markus Becker, Matthias Gebauer,
Konstantin von Hammerstein, Julia Amalia Heyer, Christoph Hickmann, Dietmar
Hipp and Peter Müller
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