©REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

This week the European Commission adopted its stance on how to run the “Conference on the Future of Europe,” a two-year soul-searching exercise aimed at changing the way the EU works after Brexit—the pet project of French President Emmanuel Macron. But if the commission and national governments get their way, it may be a useless exercise that will be quickly forgotten.

Last week the European Parliament was the first of the EU’s three governing institutions to adopt its position on how to run the conference, set to begin in May. Their position, adopted by 494 votes to 147, would create a highly organized system of citizens’ assemblies across Europe, composed of up to 300 people each. Several bodies would be set up to run the conference, including a “conference plenary,” a “steering committee” and an “executive board.” Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who has been the parliament’s Brexit spokesperson, was chosen to lead the process.

Constitutional Convention

Most significantly, the parliament would give citizens specific questions to wrestle with, involving structural changes to the EU to make it more fit for the challenges to come in the 21^st century. They want to ask citizens if they think EU elections should be more direct, for instance by directly electing the European Commission president, and if they think it should be easier for the EU to make foreign policy and tax decisions by removing the ability for a single country to use its veto. The prospect of achieving this through treaty change, something that still terrifies EU national governments since the Lisbon Treaty nightmare ten years ago, is embraced by the European Parliament. MEPs say this conference should result in major changes in how the EU works.

Indeed, what the parliament is envisioning resembles the Convention on the Future of the European Union which ran from 2002 to 2003 and ended with the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. That constitution was notoriously rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The EU then set out on a long arduous process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, which contained most of the structural changes of the defeated constitution without the trappings of a federation (and therefore not subject to a referendum in France).

That was then, this is now. Macron, backed by the European Parliament, believes that the situation has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. The combined lessons of Brexit and Donald Trump have shown Europeans that a strong EU is needed to guarantee European sovereignty. In 2005 the EU was a backburner issue few people thought about, and indeed polling showed the reason for the constitution’s defeat had more to do with punishing sitting national governments than its actual contents.

The Dreaded T Word

The conference should “propose all the necessary changes to our political project, without any taboos, not even treaty revision,” Macron said when proposing the idea last year. But outside Paris, national capitals don’t feel the same way. The crises prompted by the French and Dutch constitution rejection in 2005 and the Irish Lisbon Treaty rejection in 2008 still haunt them. Last month the European Council of 28 national leaders showed little enthusiasm for the project when they half-heartedly endorsed the idea but refrained from saying anything about it.

National EU ambassadors are expected to discuss the issue this week ahead of the EU affairs ministers’ first discussion on the conference next Tuesday. But it’s very uncertain whether leaders will adopt a position at their March European Council summit—something that would be necessary for the conference to start in May as planned. More than likely, they will delay the start of the conference as long as possible—to Macron’s great irritation.

While Angela Merkel has publicly spoken positively of Macron’s idea, privately she is said to be terrified of the idea of it leading to treaty change and would prefer for it to remain a purely public relations exercise. Once again, Macron’s appeals for EU reforms are hitting a German wall.

Ursula’s Open-Ended Plan

It was within this context that the European Commission set out its vision of the conference this week—caught, as it so often is, between the ambition of the European Parliament and the conservatism of the European Council.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen couldn’t be in Brussels herself for the adoption of the commission’s position on Wednesday, as she was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the same time. “This is about Europe shaping its own future,” she told the world’s rich and powerful meeting in the Swiss mountain resort. “But to be more assertive in the world, we know we must step up in some fields. Recent events have exposed where we have to do more.”

However, the commission’s position on the future of Europe unveiled just 30 minutes later in Brussels didn’t seem to reflect this sense of urgency. Instead, the communication to citizens seems to say von der Leyen believes the EU is functioning just fine.

The commission goes into little detail about how the conference should be run, but it rejects the parliament’s idea for citizen assemblies saying instead it should “build on the well-established citizens’ dialogues.” One could be forgiven for having never heard of these town-hall-style dialogues, even though 1,850 have been held between citizens and commissioners in 650 locations across Europe, according to the commission.

Announcing the commission’s proposal to the press, Dubravka Šuica, Vice President for Democracy and Demography, said the conference should first focus on the EU’s headline policy ambitions of climate change, economic equality, and digital transformation.

A second, seemingly less important strand would focus on structural issues. A reference in an earlier version of the text to taking legislative action and proposing treaty change “if appropriate” was taken out.

“This will be a bottom-up forum for open and inclusive debate accessible to people from all corners of the union,” said Šuica. “We want to go beyond the cities, beyond the capitals, we want to reach also those who are critical toward the EU.”

Conducting the conference at sporting events or festivals could be one way of reaching those citizens who are not currently engaged, she said.

Šuica said an open-ended approach is better than one which already tells the citizens what the structural problems are that need to be solved. “This will be more a listening exercise than talking. And when we hear what citizens want, we will try to transpose this into policies and maybe some legal acts.”

An Unusable Cacophony

“We are not going to pre-empt what will be the outcome of these roundtables. We will allow citizens to tell us what they want. If they want treaty change, we are open to this. Parliament and council have more to say on this than the commission—but we have nothing against it.”

It might sound very democratic, but critics point out that it is unrealistic to expect citizens to know what the structural problems are or what treaty change means. Without asking citizens specific questions about what they want, and rather just sitting back and saying, “Tell me what you want,” the feedback is likely to result in an unusable cacophony of voices. This may perfectly suit those national leaders who don’t want the exercise to result in a specific mandate to change how the EU works.

Critics have also questioned the commission’s decision to primarily focus on current policy priorities and place secondary importance on long-term governance issues. Given this is a conference on the future of Europe, why is it being restricted to the policy preoccupations of the present?

German MEP Gabriele Bischoff, a Social Democrat member of the European Parliament’s working group on the conference, told the EUObserver news website that the commission’s position is “not very ambitious, not very clear, not very outspoken, and is not addressing what should come out of this conference.”

However, she said at least the commission has not ruled anything out, as the council seems likely to do.

Once the council adopts its position, the presidents of the three institutions will meet to agree a consolidated approach. Given that the parliament’s position will be drastically different than the council’s, von der Leyen will be the one casting the deciding vote. If she sides with the MEPs she will score points with Macron, but anger Merkel and others.

Observers say that if she decides to demure to Berlin and other national capitals on how to run the conference, it could render it a useless exercise that is ignored and then quickly forgotten.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

European Council summits in Brussels can often be filled with rancor, never more so than when they involve money. This week’s EU summit in Brussels was a case in point.

EU national leaders held only a brief discussion about the multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU’s seven-year budget due to start in 2021. Predictably, a new proposal to drastically cut the Commission’s proposed budget from Finland, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, was welcomed by Northern countries and condemned by the South and East. But it was the proxy battles fought over climate and defense funding that were most interesting to watch.

Heading for Net-Zero

Western European members have spent six months trying to convince the Eastern members to support a target of completely decarbonizing the European Union by 2050. It finally looked like everyone would get on board at the summit after new EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered a €100 billion “just transition” fund to ease the way for countries reliant on coal.

Indeed, at the last moment, after intense negotiations, Hungary dropped its opposition last night. Czechia fell in line too after other member-states agreed that the summit text could make reference to nuclear power. That left only Poland. It was thought that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki would take negotiations late into the night, in order to get as much money as possible, and relent in the end. That’s because this was the last possible moment he could effectively wield his veto.

Von der Leyen has said she will propose binding legislation in March to set the 2050 target, whether or not there was unanimous political approval from all 28 (soon 27) EU member states. While the Commission prefers to get unanimous consent from the Council before proposing big items of legislation, it is not legally necessary. Once the legislative proposal is made, it only needs a qualified majority of member states to vote for it in order to become law. Poland can no longer veto.

“In Our Own Pace”

As he left the summit, Morawiecki said he had secured an “exemption” to the target. “The conclusions give us enormous flexibility,” he said, saying that Poland will not have to abide by the target but will still get “a very significant part” of the just transition fund. “We’ll reach it in our own pace,” he said. “We will be able to conduct the transformation in a way that’s safe and economically beneficial for Poland.”

However Poland will not be exempt from the 2050 legislation once it’s adopted. It will apply to all member states equally. This veto was largely symbolic, and all it has accomplished is angering the other EU member states and the commission, who are now not at all minded to be generous with Poland when it comes to the just transition fund.

Morawiecki’s grandstanding was certainly meant for domestic political consumption in Poland, where his Law and Justice party (PiS) likes to be seen as standing up against the EU and its supposedly burdensome climate legislation that would hold back Polish economic growth. But in fact he has probably just vetoed his way out of just transition funding.

French President Emmanuel Macron made the funding threat explicit in his closing press conference. He described Poland’s lack of participation as “temporary.” “If Poland was not to confirm its participation, it would step outside the European mechanisms also in terms of solidarity financial mechanisms,” he said, implicitly threatening to withhold not just the just transition funds, but also standard solidarity funds.

Defense Fight

Leaders were also meeting in the shadow of a contentious NATO summit last week in London, where US President Donald Trump lashed out at French President Emmanuel Macron for calling NATO “brain-dead.” Macron was also privately reprimanded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for his comments.

Of course, Macron was merely using different words to make the same observation that Trump has made many times in the past—that NATO is “obsolete.” The dispute led to much discussion about the purpose and future role of NATO, and attention inevitably turned to the EU’s plans for a “defense union”—something that many fear is an attempt to replace NATO.

What that “defense union” is depends on who you ask. The French, who have always been NATO-skeptic, say it is needed because Europe needs the capacity to defend itself without American support. The Germans say it is merely a cost-saving exercise meant to stop duplication of efforts between EU countries and improve the efficiency of military procurement. And the British, Polish, and Americans believe it is a French plot to destroy NATO and build an “EU army.”

It has fallen to von Der Leyen to explain what exactly it is. Under her leadership, the commission is creating its very first Directorate-General (DG) for Defense, Industry, and Space, to be presided over by Margaritas Schinas, the vice president for promoting (originally “protecting”) the European way of life.

The Language of Power

“Europe must also learn the language of power,” von der Leyen said during a speech on European policy in Berlin last month. “On the one hand, this means building our own muscles where we’ve long been relying on others—for example in security policies.”

The Defense Union plan calls for a new EU military doctrine, a new EU fund for defense, a EU permanent military cooperation, a single EU headquarters for military operations, and a commission defense department.

The European Commission already deals with some defense and security matters, but they have never before been organized into one department. The new DG is expected to be complete next year. Its stated main purpose is to efficiently manage the €13 billion European Defense Fund. But many believe its powers will be steadily expanded over time.

Not everyone is so enthusiastic about this surge of military spending. In their budget proposal, the Finns have drastically cut the commission’s envisioned defense spending. Von der Leyen says this is unacceptable. “If one is serious about this then one has to invest,” she said last week.

It appears that the battles in both the climate and defense fights are going to move to the ongoing negotiations over the EU’s long-term budget. As is often the case in politics, money makes the world go round.

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© REUTERS/Sergio Perez

“As the only vegetarian … we’ll have a damned tough time of it in a carnivore’s world.” Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s Foreign Minister at the time, reached for a metaphor from the jungle at the 2018 Munich Security Conference to describe the EU’s future in the world. He then called on the Europeans to develop a common understanding of their foreign policy interests and to more vigorously project the EU’s power in the world—including by military means, if necessary. Otherwise, Gabriel hinted ominously, the EU would not be able to safeguard a free, secure, prosperous, and socially just Europe. It would struggle in a world of growing rivalry between major powers.

Gabriel was right. The conditions for European foreign policy have changed rapidly in recent years. The EU currently finds itself in a world of great power rivalry and zero-sum thinking, with a rising and ever more vigorous China, a revisionist Russia, and a United States whose president sees the EU as a “foe” rather than a partner. In their tussle for international influence and supremacy, those great power “carnivores” resort to methods and instruments that put the EU under tremendous pressure. They also challenge European thinking about the very nature of international cooperation. Because the EU has always perceived other powers as—at least potential—“strategic partners,” it now struggles to get used to also having adversaries.

Europe Encroached

Take China. Only a few years ago there was great hope in the EU that China would continue to open up and ultimately become a more democratic, Western-style market economy. With this expectation upended, Europeans are now slowly waking up to the pitfalls of their huge dependence on China. Beijing actively seeks to influence European politics through initiatives like the 17+1 format (a group of EU and non-EU Eastern European countries from Estonia to Greece plus China) and the acquisition of critical infrastructure in EU member states. On several occasions, it has successfully applied a strategy of “divide and conquer,” splitting the Europeans on issues like human rights in the United Nations. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and economic investments in the Western Balkans as well as a “no strings attached” development policy in Africa, it has gained a much bigger footprint in the EU’s neighborhood.

The EU has also had to change its view of Russia. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Kremlin’s ongoing political, economic, and military support of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine ended all illusions about an EU-Russia “modernization partnership.” What is more, Russia’s leaders have deployed instruments of hybrid warfare on a scale completely unexpected by the West. These instruments include not only propaganda and putting “little green men” or GRU assassination teams on the ground in Europe, but also supporting euroskeptic parties and politicians within EU member states.

Swamped by a New Reality

But the biggest shock of all for the Europeans was the change in the White House. Since Donald Trump took office, the EU has been getting very different signals from Europe’s closest partner and protective power, the United States of America. While other US presidents have previously taken European allies to task for underinvesting in their security or have been wary of the EU as an institution, Trump is the first one to see the EU as a hostile project set up to take advantage of the US. He values American allies only to the extent that they “deliver” for the US in a simplistic transactional sense, and he does not shy away from bullying or threatening them.

Add to this mix Turkey’s alienation from the EU and European values as well as its increased focus on Turkish nationalism, and it becomes obvious that the EU no longer serves as a role model for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As Turkey launches its military offensive in northeast Syria against Kurdish forces, the EU remains a helpless bystander, calling “upon Turkey to immediately stop its unilateral military action,” without any leverage or political will to play a meaningful role. The recent initiative for a UN protection zone put forward by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has shown that even within the German government, there is no consensus. Europeans have to face the erosion of multilateralism, democracy, and the rules-based international order—in other words the very foundations of their foreign policy.

The EU is swamped by this new reality. It is indeed a herbivore among meat eaters, reluctant to use military means. Instead, it is emphasizing soft power, international cooperation, and legal solutions. It was never designed to pursue great power politics, quite the contrary. It now must adapt to things it thought would never happen. Therefore, it urgently needs to develop a strategy to defend its interests more robustly. Also, it needs to become more resilient if it wants to avoid turning into an anachronism.

Not in Its Nature

However, becoming a fully-fledged carnivore is simply not an option. The EU lacks not only the mindset, but also the necessary tools and instruments—first and foremost, military capabilities. It is true that the Europeans have made progress in common defense policy lately, with initiatives such as the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the European Defense Fund (EDF), and the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD)—big steps when compared to the snail-like advances of previous decades. But given the actual challenges and the existing gaps in capabilities, this is still much too little and too late.

In fact, Europeans must admit to themselves that because they have comfortably outsourced most of their security and defense policy to the US, they are now hugely dependent on American security guarantees, at least in the short to medium term. This dependency hampers their readiness to rally around the European flag in order to counter Trump’s foreign policy since they often don’t want to endanger their bilateral relationship with the US. But even in cases where the Europeans have the necessary capabilities, they often lack political will and consensus, as the recent fruitless discussion about a European military mission in the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated.

The lack of military capabilities is one thing. More crucial is the fact that in order to turn into a fully-fledged carnivore, the EU would have to change its very nature. The EU was built as a counter-model to the great power politics that plunged the European continent into two devastating world wars. The EU’s founding concept is the idea that the results of international cooperation are divisible, that international politics is not about who benefits the most, but about cooperation making everyone better off. In other words, its founding idea is the exact opposite of zero-sum thinking. The EU builds its foreign policy on the concept of liberal norms and values, not on increasing its military, economic, and political power at the cost of its adversaries. That is why the EU must succeed in the art of surviving in a world of carnivores without losing its very identity by starting to become one itself.

Difficult to Devour and Digest

Of course, this does not mean it should stop pushing for the further development of European military capabilities and greater convergence of strategic cultures in order to enhance the Europeans’ ability to defend themselves. The EU can no longer afford to be a civilian power only. With America pulling back and expecting more from its allies, a more militarily capable EU is no longer “nice to have,” but a question of survival. Surely Europeans must adapt to the circumstances and change their mindsets. This means they have to become better at pursuing their interests in a more competitive world and at projecting the power they have, including making better use of their heavy economic weapons and their regulatory power. The EU needs to understand how to better leverage this power by linking up internal policies and assets to external instruments and objectives. Above all, the EU must stop seeing the aggressive meat eaters around it only as “liberal democracies in the making” and recognize their power political calculations in order to become more resilient against them.

But adaptation to the carnivores’ world has its limits. The Europeans can neither start bullying their allies nor annex foreign territory; nor can they simply bribe African and Middle Eastern dictators. If the EU gets involved in a transactional approach to difficult partners, as with the EU-Turkey deal on migration, this has severe consequences for its credibility, especially at home. For if the EU betrays its core values and abandons its basic principles, nothing much will remain of it—its very foundation will evaporate. To stay with Gabriel’s prehistoric analogy, the EU cannot allow itself to become the meat eaters’ fast food of choice. Instead, it must focus on becoming difficult to devour and digest. It must turn itself into the most resilient herbivore possible.

An Anticyclical Approach

Therefore, the EU and its member states have to find their own way to play the power game and shape international developments rather than being shaped by them. One attempt to do this is Ursula von der Leyen’s attempt to form a “geopolitical” European Commission, one that seeks to reinforce Europe’s international footprint in those areas where the EU is strongest and has a real edge: trade, competition, and regulation. In her mission letter to Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, von der Leyen explicitly tasked him with making Europe more resilient to extraterritorial sanctions by third countries and to ensure that sanctions imposed by the EU are properly enforced, notably throughout its financial system. It is too early to assess whether this reorientation of the commission will actually have the desired effect or what role Europe’s common foreign and security policy and the EU’s diplomatic service will play in this. But it is a sign that awareness of the new international challenges is growing in the EU institutions.

As unsettling and threatening as the global shift toward nationalism and unilateralism is, the EU needs to turn its supposed weakness into a strength and adopt an anticyclical approach. The US turning toward protectionism has made the EU an even more attractive partner for like-minded states including Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Korea, as well as others who feel the need to maintain the multilateral system and seek predictable and stable cooperation. The recent trade agreements between the EU and Japan and between the EU and Mercosur are proof of this. In meetings at multilateral institutions, Europeans should push for more cooperation that is in the interest of many other countries—for example, the free use of the global commons, trade, and climate. The EU’s core strength is its regulatory power. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the EU’s third energy package illustrate the writ of the EU’s regulatory authority. In the future, the EU needs to understand how to better leverage this power by linking internal policies and assets to external instruments and objectives.

Speak with One Voice

The EU’s power of attraction stems from the freedom and democracy as well as peace and prosperity it has provided for its citizens. If the EU is no longer able to guarantee those, citizens will turn their backs on it—as some are already doing. The quest for more resilience vis-à-vis external threats begins at home. In order to credibly support democracy and a rules-based order, the EU has to ensure its domestic continuity. This includes finding more effective ways to sanction violations of the rule of law and democratic principles by member states. And if Europeans want to strengthen the international role of their currency to reduce their dependency on the dollar and to become more independent, they would do well to complete the institutional architecture of the eurozone and to maintain its credibility as a currency union.

Most importantly, Europeans should speak with one voice and stand together. This reads like a platitude, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The greatest threat to the EU comes from the Europeans themselves. At a time when—more than ever—the EU needs to act as a united international player if it does not want to become a pawn in the hands of major powers, its member states are struggling to find the determination and political will to set aside their disagreements and focus on the European common interest. After the plethora of crises for more than a decade, Europeans are deeply divided on essential political questions. There is little agreement about which goals they want to pursue through European integration.

As a consequence, the EU has often had no adequate answers to foreign policy crises, and its influence on the international system as a whole has declined. Europe’s common foreign and security policy was rarely more than an expression of the “lowest common denominator” of diverging interests. Europeans can no longer afford this. If they continue to speak with 27 (or 28) individual voices in foreign policy, they will soon find that no one hears them.

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© REUTERS/ Olivier Matthys/Pool

Policy-making is often like the dreaded writing of to-do lists: one tedious problem after another needs to be sorted, tackled, and—rarely—crossed off. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign policy: crisis management is its heart and soul. Most of the time, foreign policy has to deal with urgent developments ranging from armed conflicts to diplomatic incidents, and forward planning rarely goes beyond the horizon of one year. It is very much a “firefighting and avoiding the worst” portfolio.

The foreign policy to-do list of Ursula von der Leyen’s “geopolitical” commission is no different: relations with Russia and the United States need to be improved one way or other, but as fast as possible; those with China need to be redefined; an entire continent (Africa) has to be lifted out of poverty to prevent mass migration, and wars in the Middle East and North Africa need to be ended before new ones break out, in that region or elsewhere.

In short, one rarely gets the chance to write a foreign policy bucket list filled with positive things to be achieved as one races from problem to problem. But let’s try it here.

Take the Middle East and North Africa, a region that carries “bad news” as its byword. The nine ongoing, frozen, ending, or emerging conflicts in the region are all playing out against a dirty background of raging youth unemployment, militarization, and human rights violations. Discouragingly, efforts to improve the situation have not led to the desired results of forging a more prosperous and peaceful region.

A Solar Powerhouse at Europe’s Doorstep

But this does not mean that the new European Commission should simply continue as the old one has done, or worse, give up on the region altogether. In fact, beyond the rubble and the drama lies an opportunity that should be on the foreign policy bucket list: turning the region into a solar energy powerhouse.

Granted, this will involve an effort that goes beyond the commission’s five-year term, but the transition needs to start now. By 2035 at the latest, the region could be waving goodbye to rentierism and celebrate having become climate-neutral; it then could help Europe do the same, cooperate in a trans-continental electricity grid, create jobs, and meet exploding energy needs.

Turning to green energy on a massive scale would also help mitigate instability in states that are not ready for the end of oil, such as Iraq, Yemen, and Algeria. This in turn would save the EU from more trouble down the line. It would require climate financing for those states that have already requested it (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia), but also some climate diplomacy—reaching out to those states that do not require financing but a political nudge in the right direction, such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq. If all goes well, lessons learned here can very well be applied to sub-Saharan Africa, too.

Another cluster of issues on the EU’s foreign policy to-do list involve the United States and China. Beyond the troubled bilateral status of affairs lurks a populist new world order in which, or so it seems, Europe and the multilateral, liberal old world have evaporated.

Take the Lead on Climate Change

Here, too, the EU’s usual foreign policy tools have failed to deliver: diplomacy and sticking to European values have not stopped Donald Trump’s US from breaking diplomatic norms, or China from becoming the first digital dictatorship. With a bit of luck, some say, a new American president will take us straight back to 2009, but this is wishful thinking: Obama did not care that much more about us Europeans than his successor; he just spoke more elegantly.

Instead, Europe has to come up with a plan for what it wants to be in 2030, and the basis for it needs to be created now. And if the future is to be European, we need to take the lead on climate change and related technology.

In the future, carbon neutrality and related technologies will not be merely environmental assets— they will be strategic assets, too. The vacuum the US has left by disengaging from the fight against climate change is one that Europe can easily fill—and be greatly rewarded for doing so. States that lead in this field will have more allies and friends, sell their technology, and be aspirational leaders. The Chinese leadership has understood this, which is why China is leading in this field, not us. Being a climate leader will also mean relying on renewable energy (also coming from the Middle East and North Africa) and therefore being less energy dependent (hint: from Russia).

Develop a Strategic Capacity to Act

Speaking of Russia: no matter what one thinks of Moscow, it knows how to talk “military”—a language the EU is still learning to speak as a collective. But while some of us still think that this is a language made up of neat and snappy acronyms and abbreviations, its most important component is the will to act. As the annexation of Crimea and the Syrian war have shown, Russia will not be deterred by diplomatic or economic language only. Indeed, in the past five years Russia only changed track when it had to fear a military confrontation, with Turkey and with the United States.

Make no mistake, though: the case made here is for a robust posture, not for military action. But this is precisely where Europe struggles the most: with addressing violence and conflict generally, and specifically dealing with military matters. Most EU missions abroad are civilian in nature.

What is needed on the bucket list in this connection is therefore not to create a Europe-only NATO, or to push more energetically for PESCO, CARD, or EDF. Rather, the EU needs to develop the strategic capacity to act. The current debate about Europe achieving strategic sovereignty is far too focused on assets. It misses the point of what sovereignty is: a mind-set, a self-awareness, an attitude that uses these assets.

Therefore, achieving European strategic sovereignty is not about purchases or procedures; it is a process whereby European states understand what they want to achieve in the world, and by what means. For the EU, this means less bureaucracy and more inner-European diplomacy. The exchange on foreign policy needs to be revitalized, common ground needs to be found, the different bodies need to be integrated, and honest conversations need to be had.

Speak an Authentic Language

Last but not least, a revolution in foreign policy communication, perhaps not in itself a foreign policy objective, is key to all of the above. European—and international—audiences today understand our bureaucratic and anodyne language even less than before; emotion, authenticity, and humanity will have to become part and parcel of how we Europeans speak about what we do in the world, or we will continue to lose credibility very quickly.

With these key points, the EU’s foreign policy bucket list is short yet aspirational. It will never replace short-term to-do lists, but it would help us maintain a positive momentum as we manage one crisis after the next—and lead to concrete achievements by 2024.

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Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

On the morning Phil Hogan was nominated as the EU’s next trade commissioner, he told Ireland’s public broadcaster RTÉ his priority was “to get Mr. Trump to see the error of his ways.” The US president should abandon his “reckless behavior” when it came to China and the EU.

His remarks did not go unnoticed. EU diplomats in Washington reported back immediately that there was outrage in the White House. “We were told it was fortunate that John Bolton [the hawkish former National Security Adviser] had just been fired the same day,” recalls a close aide, “or that the president himself might have tweeted his reaction.”

Trump didn’t tweet, but his ambassador Gordon Sondland delivered the message to Politico, accusing Hogan of a “belligerence” that would lead to an impasse between the EU and US. “Then people start to do things that you don’t want them to do.”

It was a combative start, confirming Hogan’s reputation as a political bruiser with a sharp tongue. However, many in Brussels felt Hogan was right. The US was waiting for the new EU executive to take office, and Hogan was reminding the world who the new interlocutor would be.

His timing, however, may have been unfortunate. The next day, the WTO ruled in a decades-old dispute with Boeing that Europe had granted illegal subsidies to Airbus. As a result, Trump was expected to announce up to $10 billion in tariffs on European products.
Making the Strategic Case for Trade

All told, the 59-year-old, hailed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a “brilliant” and “firm” negotiator, could not have taken up his post at a more turbulent time. The United States and China are locked in a trade war, China is accused of wholesale technology theft, Trump is threatening more tariffs on European goods, and Brexit is sapping the EU’s energy.

European efforts to sail above the turbulence as the self-identified defender of the rules-based global order are limited. “So far, the EU has benefitted from the turmoil created by Trump’s trade war,” says Sam Lowe, a research fellow with the Center for European Reform (CER), “which provided the political impetus to conclude trade agreements with Japan, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, and Vietnam; but the waters ahead look choppy.

“Phil Hogan will need to make the strategic case for a resilient trade policy. But he will face a European Parliament looking for greater reassurance that the EU’s trade policy complements its environmental ambitions, and an inwardly focused European agriculture lobby.”

That lobby has been up in arms over Hogan’s role in negotiating the EU-Mercosur trade agreement as agriculture commissioner. South American farmers will enjoy increased access to the EU, but the access for beef―an annual quota of 99,000 tonnes―has enraged farmers, not least in Hogan’s home country.

The Irish Farmers Association claims Mercosur beef will cost European farmers €5 billion annually, compounded by a lack of traceability, food safety, animal health, and environmental controls. Hogan hit back: “There will be no product that will arrive in the EU from the Mercosur countries without complying with existing EU food safety standards.”

The Road from Kilkenny

Hogan was born just outside Kilkenny in south-east Ireland to a small-holder farming family. He followed his father into politics and won the parliamentary seat for the center-right Fine Gael party that had always eluded his father.

He was a junior finance minister in 1994 in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, but was forced to resign when a staff member accidentally leaked details of the annual budget. Observers say Hogan nursed a longstanding grievance at his premature fall and was determined to make a return to ministerial politics.

It started by being appointed party chairman. “This put him in a position of extraordinary influence,” says a longstanding associate. “He got to know the organization intimately. He became director of elections, selecting candidates, placing candidates.”

Hogan honed his skills as a ruthless political operator. When in 2010 a minister attempted a coup against Enda Kenny, the party leader turned to his longtime friend Hogan for advice. Hogan told him to sack the entire shadow front bench.

Kenny promptly did so the next morning. While 15 rebel MPs assembled in front of the Irish Parliament to declare the revolt, Hogan rounded up 40 loyalists and sent them to the same spot. The coup was over as soon as it had begun.

Happily Unpopular

But Hogan soon made a bigger impact on Irish politics. In 2011, Fine Gael swept to power following the collapse of the Irish economy due to the banking and sovereign debt crisis. Hogan was appointed environment minister.

Under the advice of the EU-IMF troika administering the bailout, the government established a new state utility, under Hogan’s direction, which would introduce water charges in Ireland for the first time.

Hogan insisted the new charges would cost as little as €2 per week, but there was a backlash when he warned that those who did not pay would see their water supply “turned down to a trickle for basic human health reasons.” To many reeling from the austerity of the bailout years, this was callous in the extreme.

The theory is that Hogan took on the poisoned chalice of water charges because he knew Kenny would appoint him Ireland’s Commissioner three years later. “There was a neat choreography,” says one source close to Hogan. “Kenny needed someone with balls to do the job, and who was also happy to be unpopular because they weren’t going to be around.”

Journalist Michael Brennan, who has just published a book on the affair, In Deep Water, says, “It was one thing to take a bullet for other people. It’s another when you’re casual about doing it, knowing you have the job in Brussels sown up. He had to convince people this was a charge worth paying and he failed to do that. Within months of his going to Brussels, they had torn up the Hogan plan and came up with a very different approach.”

Negotiating Brexit

But Hogan had other things on his mind when he arrived in Brussels. Within two years the United Kingdom launched its Brexit referendum. Hogan was the only senior EU official given a license to make the case to remain, travelling to farm meetings and agricultural shows around the UK.

“He spoke very well about the importance of the EU for farmers,” recalls a senior European Commission official, “both in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and in trading opportunities. But he spoke as an Irishman as well, in terms of keeping the UK and Ireland together in the EU. He made a real contribution. He might even have swung quite a number of votes.”

That Hogan, a searing critic of Brexit, will be Brussels’ top negotiator when the future EU-UK trade talks start has not been lost on Boris Johnson’s government.

Going the Extra Mile

He is described as a tough negotiator. Despite the hostility of the farming lobby, Hogan’s supporters say he went the extra mile to limit the access of South American beef, holding up the Mercosur talks and irritating member states keen to get the deal over the line.

“Mercosur would not have been done without him,” says one EU source. “He doesn’t hold back in protecting Europe’s defensive interests. Farming often ends up as one of the final issues, and depending on your desire to close a deal for the sake of it, people can be more amenable at the last minute. He would step in and say, we won’t give on that.”

Hogan will have his work cut out for him. He is said to have a reasonable relationship with US Trade Secretary Robert Lighthizer dating back to when they negotiated the EU-US hormone-free beef deal. But he will have to tread carefully when it comes to the problem of how to resolve disputes between WTO members. The US has declined to appoint judges to the Appellate Court until the matter is resolved, but has been slow to suggest solutions.
The EU and Canada are working on a mechanism that would bypass the WTO, but a broader framework will be needed to uphold the multilateral rules-based order the EU wants to spearhead.

Lads, Give Us Five Minutes

“Bridge building will be the immediate challenge for Hogan,” says Peter Ungphakorn, a former senior WTO official. “If WTO members feel the US is undermining multilateralism, some kind of alliance could be forged between the EU and China to break this. That is definitely a possibility.”

That will require the ability not just to reconcile the interests of the US and China power giants, but to understand the nuances of diplomacy.

Hogan, who enjoys life in Brussels and can often be seen in one or two of the city’s fabled Irish pubs to watch rugby or Gaelic football, has, say his aides, the skills needed, including for one-on-one encounters.

“I’ve seen him in various places where there are two delegations,” says one aide, “and he’ll say, ‘You might give us five minutes, lads,’ and we’d leave. You’d be amazed at what can happen between two politicians in five minutes.”

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© REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

In July, when former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen narrowly survived a confirmation vote in the European Parliament by just nine votes, she emphatically thanked MEPs and said she looked forward to starting her new job as European Commission President on November 1.

But three months later, von der Leyen will not be starting as scheduled. MEPs, still angry over the circumstances of her appointment, lashed out earlier this month by rejecting the nominee to be her internal market commissioner, Sylvie Goulard from France. Their real target was the man who nominated her, French President Emmanuel Macron, who killed the parliament’ Spitzenkandidaten system for choosing the Commission President in June.

The parliamentarians also rejected the Romanian and Hungarian nominees, for more traditional reasons. Now, with questions over Macron’s replacement nominee, Thierry Breton, and Romania’s government in chaos, it’s looking like von der Leyen may not be able to start until 2020.

No More Gender Balance

Perhaps the most lasting effect of this month’s drama in the European Parliament is that it has destroyed the chance for the EU to have its first gender-balanced college of commissioners. When she announced her team in September, von der Leyen was keen to trumpet the fact that it would be the first gender-balanced one in history—with half of the team women (13 out of 27, or 48 percent).

But Macron has replaced Goulard with a male nominee–Breton is a former economy and finance minister under Jacques Chirac and a businessman. Romania’s ousted prime minister is battling with that country’s president over who can nominate someone to replace their rejected female nominee, but both of the people being considered are men.

To make matters worse, with Brexit being extended until January 31, 2020 (for more see below), it will now be necessary for Boris Johnson to nominate a temporary commissioner before von der Leyen’s commission can begin. The most likely choice will be for Julian King, the current British commissioner, to stay on. That would mean only 11 out of a team of 28 would be women—a ratio of 39 percent. This is roughly the same ratio the commission of outgoing president Jean-Claude Juncker had.

Romanian Chaos

But the gender imbalance may be the least of von der Leyen’s worries. Though Hungary’s replacement nominee Olivér Várhelyi looks set to sail through, the French nomination is complicated, and the Romanian nomination is a mess.

Breton and Várhelyi will have their confirmation hearings next Wednesday and Thursday in the European Parliament in Brussels. Many MEPs are not happy with Macron’s choice. Unlike Goulard, Breton has no EU experience and is considered far more conservative than the previous nominee. He is nominated for the same vast internal market portfolio as Goulard was and there are still concerns that his position will be too powerful. There have also been questions about his current job as CEO of technology company Atos. He reportedly owns about €34 million worth of shares in the company, which he would be regulating as part of his new job.

MEPs say they are preparing some tough questions for him. It’s highly unlikely they would reject him, after having already rejected one French nominee, but they may hold up his appointment for several weeks.

Romania has still not put forward a replacement, because since the original nomination was made the government of Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă has collapsed. That hasn’t stopped her from putting someone forward anyway—the Socialist MEP Victor Negrescu. But Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is challenging her right to do this, arguing that because the government has fallen, it is now his responsibility. He reportedly wants to nominate Liberal MEP Siegfried Muresan.

Meanwhile, there are reports in London that Johnson may refuse to nominate a new commissioner—fearful that it would suggest to the British public ahead of December 12 election that the UK is not leaving the EU. Lawyers at the commission are looking to see if there is any way around the rule that there must be one commissioner from each EU member state.

None of this, from the Spitzenkandidat fight to the Romanian chaos to the Brexit meltdown, is von der Leyen’s fault. But she has found herself seriously hampered by all of it before her tenure has even begun. And her inability to react robustly to the unfolding situation has many in Brussels questioning her fitness for the job. This is unnerving for her team, considering she still has to survive a second confirmation vote, along with her whole college of 28 commissioners, in the European Parliament.

Another Brexit Delay

The other major event meant to take place tomorrow was Brexit. But after Boris Johnson failed to ram his renegotiated Brexit deal through the British parliament in record time, MPs voted this to call an election for December 12. The EU granted an extension of three months, until 31 January 2020, even before that vote.

This is the third time the UK has requested, and the EU granted, an extension to the Brexit deadline which was originally supposed to be at the end of March. The continuing extensions have left everyone exasperated.

French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly came close to vetoing the request for extension—delivered by Johnson under duress (or so he pretended) because of a piece of UK legislation requiring him to do so. On the EU side, there is a strong desire for the UK to leave as quickly as possible, but in an orderly fashion. People in Brussels are tired of having the Brexit issue hijack European summits and slowing the EU agenda. “As much as I hate Johnson, I have to say I hope he wins a majority in December because it would mean the British are finally gone,” admitted one EU civil servant in Brussels.

But the divisions in the UK are making that exit seem almost impossible. Polls currently point to a resounding victory for Johnson, but they were also predicting that ahead of his predecessor Theresa May’s snap election in June 2017. May ended up losing her majority in that election. An inconclusive result could mean months of more uncertainty and possibly in a second referendum being called.

The European Union is ending 2019 in a state of paralysis. With the start of both the new commission and the new EU of 27 delayed until 2020, decisive action in Brussels seems as far away as ever. It is certainly not where Emmanuel Macron wanted to see the EU two years into a presidency. The European renaissance, which he and the many people who believed in him, had hoped for, seems still some way off.

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© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

In an unprecedented move, the European Parliament’s internal market and industry committees overwhelmingly voted on Thursday to reject Sylvie Goulard, the French nominee, to become the next EU internal market commissioner. As a result, the commission of incoming president Ursula von der Leyen will not start on November 1 as planned—and there is even speculation in some quarters she may never start.

Though the rejection is ostensibly over potential ethics issues during her time as an MEP, it has more to do with the parliament’s unfinished business from its battle with French President Emmanuel Macron this summer. Though the Parliament warned they would only confirm one of the official election candidates to become European Commission president, Macron disregarded their warnings and refused to honor their system for electing the commission president. (According to the EU treaties, Macron had every right to do so, as they stipulate that the European Council—the group of heads of governments—picks the commission president.)

Macron instead put forward Ursula von der Leyen, the German defense minister, who was not a candidate during the EU elections in May. In the end the parliament backed down from its threats and confirmed her by just nine votes. But she only made it across the line because of support from far-right parties in Hungary and Poland.

“Resentment? Pettiness?”

Macron may have thought he was out of the woods—that the parliament was all bark and no bite. But yesterday MEPs, led by rejected center-right Spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber, took their delayed revenge.

Macron was left stunned. “I need to understand what played out,” he said at a press conference. “Resentment? Pettiness?”

He said von der Leyen had assured him Goulard would pass, and that she had been personally told this by center-right EPP leader Weber and center-left S&D leader Iratxe Garcia Perez. But Weber and Garcia Perez deny having any such conversation with von der Leyen, who has not responded to Macron’s accusation.

Macron’s assertion that this has more to do with institutional politics than Goulard’s qualifications is shared by most people in Brussels. The EPP itself made this more than obvious when it accidentally sent out a tweet yesterday before the vote with a WhatsApp conversation in the background saying, “Guys we are going to kill her in the vote later but do not say.” The tweet has since been deleted.

The stated reason for rejecting Goulard, a close ally of Macron, is allegations that she used a European Parliament assistant for domestic political work while she was an MEP in 2009. There was also discontent over the fact that while she was an MEP she was receiving $10,000 a month from a US consultancy firm for whom she appears to have done little work.

But this explanation doesn’t quite hold water. Though it might be distasteful, there is nothing illegal about having a second job as an MEP and Goulard fully disclosed what she was earning. Almost a third of MEPs have such second jobs, according to public data, with many earning far more than Goulard.

As for the payment scandal, though she has been questioned by investigators there has been no formal investigation launched against her. After a tough first round of grilling she promised MEPs that she would resign if she was ever found guilty of improperly using her MEP funds. There were far more serious doubts about the ethics and competence of other nominees, but they sailed through.

MEPs also had objections to her very broad portfolio, but in truth it is not that much bigger than in previous commissions.

Von der Leyen Is in Trouble, Again

Every five years, these confirmation hearings are often more about political games than the actual competencies of the nominees. The European Parliament wants to flex its muscles and show it can’t be pushed around by the other EU institutions, so it always rejects at least one nominee. But this year, after suffering such a humiliating climb-down in July, it had more to prove than normal.

The parliament had already rejected two Eastern European nominees even before their hearings—from Hungary and Romania. They were deemed by the legal affairs committee to have conflicts of interest. Given that the two governments who nominated them are political pariahs accused of violating the rule of law, the rejections were not that surprising.

The Hungarian was from the EPP, and the Romanian was from S&D. Those two groups then focused their attention on Goulard and Macron’s Renew Europe group of liberals, the third largest in the parliament.

Clearly, the parliament was not content with just catching the usual Eastern European small fish. They wanted a big fish to show Macron they can’t be trifled with—and that big fish was Goulard. She is only the second nominee to ever be rejected from a Western European country; the first being Italy’s Rocco Buttiglione in 2004 who was voted down for his homophobic views.

Lacking a Majority

This wasn’t just a humiliation for Macron, it has also critically wounded von der Leyen. Her own EPP group, which is led by Weber, has very publicly and ostentatiously disobeyed her. They also apparently disregarded an intervention by Angela Merkel, who urged them not to do anything that would delay the new commission’s start date on November 1—a crucial time with Brexit scheduled for October 31.

That the EPP ignored both of these women shows that von der Leyen does not command a majority in the parliament. This was always the worry with her very slim confirmation victory. Like Goulard, von der Leyen has found herself stuck in the middle of an institutional power battle she did not start. And some people in Brussels are questioning whether she can survive.

Von der Leyen, after all, has only passed one out of two confirmation votes. She must still be confirmed by the parliament again, along with her college of 28 commissioners. Under the EU treaties a commission cannot start work until it has been approved by the parliament. If there is no majority for any commission led by von der Leyen, then a new president would have to be found.

With the collapse of the Romanian government this week delaying a new nominee from Bucharest, there is now no prospect of von der Leyen’s commission being approved before the intended November 1 start date. Von der Leyen tacitly admitted this herself in a statement following Goulard’s rejection.

A delay itself is not a mortal blow, and indeed von der Leyen may be breathing a sigh of relief that there is now no risk her first day will be occupied by a no-deal Brexit. But if she cannot get a confirmation for her college by December 1, people will start asking whether they need to start over with a new president.

It’s a road few want to go down, and the parliament is likely to be content having taken their revenge against Macron. But MEPs may have kicked off a tit-for-tat process that could snowball out of control.

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© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

One of Ursula von der Leyen’s top priorities is to preside over what she calls a “geopolitical” European Commission, one not afraid to stand up for EU’s interest in a competitive world. While the objective is certainly right, the label is wrong. Based on the set-up and plans for her team, her commission will be primarily a “geo-economic” one—an executive laser-focused on the EU’s economic power.

Instead of strengthening traditional foreign policy and EU diplomacy, the next Commission is setting out to reinforce Europe’s international footprint in those areas where the EU is strongest and has a real competitive edge. A former German defense minister, von der Leyen knows that the EU is still a military dwarf and the much-heralded Common Foreign and Security Policy often little more than a cacophony of diverging interests. She is now steering clear of these EU foreign policy black holes and focusing on trade, competition, and regulation.

The push for global relevance is based on the accurate assessment that Europe has fallen behind in an increasingly dog-eats-dog world. Whereas the United States and China embrace global competition and don’t shy away from using economic instruments to bring allies and competitors in line, the EU tends to bank on the power of international agreements and diplomacy. However, the Commission has often overlooked the heavy economic weapons that can make a difference.

Sharpening the EU’s Weapons

Take sanctions policy. The power to cut off trade or financial flows is one of the EU’s most potent and often-used weapons. For the past few years, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini has been in charge of the unit in the European Commission that oversaw the member states’ implementation of the embargoes.

But in the von der Leyen commission, the sanctions officials will get a new boss and a new mission. Under the auspices of executive Vice-President Vladis Dombrovskis for the economy, they will now be fighting for EU’s “economic sovereignty” and are supposed to make sure that Europe is more resilient to the threat of extraterritorial sanctions. The recent US “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, which forced European businesses to comply with Washington’s sanctions, has clearly pushed the EU to rethink its priorities.

A similar pivot to the EU’s economic strengths is taking place in the area of defense. While EU civilian and military missions demonstrated little ambition in recent years, the commission did become more active in propping up Europe’s defense industries. And now the new  Directorate-General for Defense Industry and Space will be responsible for both funding Europe-wide defense capability projects and encouraging cross-border military mobility. Indeed, thanks to the €13 billion European Defense Fund, the Commission will be the third-largest defense investor in the post-Brexit EU.

Von der Leyen is also adjusting the executive’s working methods and streamlining its geo-economic agenda. A new group for external cooperation—naturally with its own acronym, EXCO—will tie together the outward work of the large bureaucracy and prepare the leadership meetings. Given that von der Leyen’s diplomatic advisor is co-chairing the group, together with Borrell’s deputy head of cabinet, one expects the new commission president to have a big influence on how this body wields external power. Moreover, her three executive vice-presidents received additional powers over the commission machine rooms to direct EU action on climate action, digitalization, and economic potency.

Changing the Face of EU Foreign Policy

Von der Leyen’s geo-economic commission aims to change the face the EU presents to the world. Previously, pushing for “global Europe” often meant upgrading the post of EU High Representative, which the Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell is scheduled to take over. Since the Lisbon treaty, the EU foreign policy chief has also been tasked with coordinating the commission’s external relations as one of its vice-presidents—with mixed success in the past.

Instead of empowering the high rep, von der Leyen plans to relegate Borrell and his European External Actions Service to a more supporting role. In her letter to Borrell, von der Leyen made it unmistakably clear that he will work “under her guidance” and “support” her in coordinating the commission’s external work. This is very different from the “pragmatic partnership” and “full” role in ensuring the effectiveness of EU’s external action that outgoing Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker offered Mogherini back in 2014.

Borrell will not have an executive position in the commission that could draw on its economic resources. He will be in charge neither of implementing EU sanctions nor of coordinating the commission’s work on defense industries, which is one element in his mission to build a European Defense Union. The Spaniard will chair the commissioners group on “A Stronger Europe in the World”, but with von der Leyen and her three executive vice-presidents now coordinating the big economic-related portfolios, it’s not clear how much influence he will have on the commission’s geo-economic agenda.

And while Mogherini had a green light to tap into commission resources on climate action, energy, transport, migration, and home affairs, Borrell is left with the vague instruction to “work closely” with his peers. It remains to be seen whether, under these conditions, he will be able to exert greater influence on European foreign policy than his predecessors could.

The New Game

The meager results of EU diplomacy in recent years have left their mark. The EU cannot escape the trend of increased global competition; it needs to sharpen its economic sword. Borrell’s post as the EU’s chief diplomat is not the top priority anymore in the new game of geo-economics.

The focus on geo-economics could pay off. But everything will depend on whether von der Leyen succeeds in getting on board the member states that have played the greatest role in European foreign policy in the past. She would be well advised to establish good cooperation with the European Council and Charles Michel—and to leave Borrell enough room for maneuver.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

In national parliaments confirmation hearings for government nominees are often more about theater than substance. The European Parliament is no different, and this week has already seen its fair share of drama in Brussels.

Before she can take office on November 1, incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must have her entire team of 26 commissioners approved by the European Parliament. And historically, at the start of each term MEPs like to reject one nominee in order to flex their muscles.

Given the humiliation the parliament suffered in July over the failed Spitzenkandidaten process, it was clear from the start that MEPs would be out for more blood than usual this year. But nobody predicted that the parliament would reject two candidates even before the hearings began.

Last week the legal affairs committee exercised its new powers for the first time by finding that Romanian nominee Rovana Plumb and Hungarian nominee László Trócsányi had too many conflicts of interest to even have a hearing. This in turn prompted an angry response from MEPs not on that committee, feeling robbed of their chance to grill the nominees. Power games all around.

The parliament’s leadership asked the committee to reconsider and vote again, and when it again rejected the two nominees, Budapest and Bucharest begrudgingly withdrew them. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has nominated career diplomat Olivér Várhelyi as a replacement, and Romania’s embattled prime minister Viorica Dăncilă, barely clinging on to power at home as she faces a no-confidence vote, has issued von der Leyen an ultimatum.

She has nominated a man, Romanian MEP Dan Nica, as a replacement – knowing full well that this will upset the impressive gender parity ratio von der Leyen was keen to trumpet when she announced her commissioners earlier this month. She has floated a second name, Gabriela Ciot, but said she will only put her forward if Hungary puts forward a woman also. It isn’t entirely clear what she’s playing at, but there are likely discussions happening now between her, von der Leyen and Orbán that could involve a portfolio swap. Hungary was supposed to be getting the enlargement portfolio, while Romania was to get the transport portfolio.

Poor Polish Performance

The confirmation hearings started in Brussels on Monday, and on day two Poland’s nominee Janusz Wojciechowski, slated to become the new agriculture commissioner, ran into trouble with the parliament’s agriculture committee. MEPs said he did not seem to have adequately prepared, that his answers were vague and garbled, and that he contradicted himself during the hearing in an effort to agree with every MEP questioning him.

Even without the poor performance on policy issues, there was a question mark over Wojciechowski. He is part of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party, accused of dismantling democratic institutions and disrespecting the rule of law. He is also under investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud office for misuse of funds while he was an MEP.

To make matters worse, his party is not in any of the Parliament’s main political groups but instead in the much unloved European Conservatives and Reformists, the breakaway group created in 2009 by David Cameron. It is currently the second-smallest group in the parliament, with only the far-left being smaller. While the Hungarian nominee benefits from being part of Angela Merkel’s European Peoples Party, the largest group in the parliament, the Polish nominee has no such protection.

From his face, it was clear Wojciechowski knew he was in trouble at the end of his hearing, when committee chair Norbert Lins asked MEPs for a round of applause and was met with silence in return. At a minimum, it appears he will be brought back for further questioning. But some MEPs are already saying they will vote against him, which would mean Poland has to nominate someone else. This is already Warsaw’s second nominee. The government originally put forward Krzysztof Szczerski, the head of President Andrej Duda’s cabinet, but he withdrew following a meeting with von der Leyen for reasons that are still unclear.

The Underrepresented East

The confirmation troubles are part of a larger EU problem of under-representation for Eastern Europe at the start of this new term. Already in July, when the EU’s five top jobs were awarded to a German, a Belgian, a Spaniard, an Italian, and a Frenchwoman, it did not go unnoticed that this completely excluded Eastern Europe—a notable absence after the council presidency of former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. With von der Leyen promising to make Dutchman Frans Timmermans and Dane Margrethe Vestager “executive vice presidents” in a deal to secure conformation by the European Parliament (they were both Spitzenkandidaten), the Western orientation of the new EU leadership was starting to look obscene.

Von der Leyen appointed a third executive vice president – Valdis Dombrovsksis from Latvia, saying at her press conference that this would rectify the situation and provide geographic balance. But many have noted that Dombrovskis has a much smaller role than the other two deputies, and fewer staff. And some in the “Visegrad Four” (encompassing Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) have grumbled that the Baltic states shouldn’t count toward meeting an Eastern Europe quota.

With the core Eastern states being made to field new, more technocratic commissioner nominees, their influence in this commission will decrease even further. This comes at a time when nationalist parties unfriendly toward the EU have powerful voice in the East.

On the third day of hearings, two western nominees with potential corruption problems—Belgium’s Didier Reynders and France’s Sylvie Goulard—faced some difficult questions. But MEPs appeared reassured about the allegations against Reynders, given that a Belgian prosecutor has mostly cleared him of fault. And Goulard, who was interviewed by French authorities for potential ethical lapses while she was an MEP, may be protected by her alliance with Emmanuel Macron. Reynders and Goulard are part of Macron’s liberal Renew Europe group, the third-largest in the parliament. MEPs may not be keen to pick a fight with the French president.

And so once again the European Parliament has set its crosshair on Eastern nominees as the sacrificial lambs of the confirmation process. Last time around, in 2014, in was the former Slovenian prime minister Alenka Bratušek who was rejected. This time, it may be three nominees from the east.

The geographic disparity may just be an unfortunate coincidence. But at a time when politics in Eastern Europe are become increasingly hostile toward the EU and liberal democracy in general, it’s not a great look.

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Although it was largely absent from the European election campaign, the negotiations over the next so-called Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)— the EU’s budget—will take up a prominent place on the European agenda in the coming months. The European Council and the European Parliament have just 18 months to reach an agreement on the next seven-year MFF, and this has to be done in parallel with the finalization of 45 regulations that provide the legal basis for the various EU spending programs.

Agreeing on the EU’s budget has always been difficult, but the current MFF negotiations are particularly tough. The post-2020 budget has to make up for the Brexit gap caused by the United Kingdom’s departure, a financial shortfall estimated at €84-98 billion over seven years. It can do this either by making unpopular cuts to cherished programs (agriculture, cohesion policies, etc.), getting larger contributions from the member states, or both.

On top of that, the EU is confronted with new spending needs in areas such as migration and border control, external security, and digital transformation, which require anything between €91 and €390 billion of additional resources between 2021-2027, according to the commission.

Member States Are Digging In

The outgoing commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker did a good job in trying to “square the circle.” The original MFF proposal, presented in May 2018, offered an intelligent political compromise to member states. Richer countries would agree to moderately increase their contributions to the EU budget to keep EU spending for the remaining 27 member states roughly at the same level (in real terms) after Brexit.

Poorer countries, in exchange, would consent to a certain degree of spending re-allocation, with significant increases in new spending priority areas (an 80 percent increase for security and defense, a 160 percent increase for migration and border control, a 60 percent increase in research, innovation, and digital), and moderate increases or reductions in cohesion and agriculture (+6 percent and -4 percent respectively).

Finally, new sources of revenue, such as a small levy on corporate profits and a share of the proceeds from the EU Emissions Trading System, would be introduced to make the numbers work and partially offset the impact of Brext on member states’ net contributions.

The commission’s balanced proposal, however, has failed to change the dynamics of MFF negotiations in the European Council. After roughly one year of discussions, various net-payer member states made clear their opposition to any increase in net contributions. Meanwhile, the countries that benefit most from agriculture and cohesion funds have built up coalitions to preserve the existing envelopes in these two areas, and a majority of member states continue to reject any reform of the system of EU own resources. There is thus a strong risk of ending with a European Council compromise on an EU budget close to 1 percent of EU GDP, with no increases in new spending areas and agriculture largely preserved from cuts.

One crucial factor is the new European Parliament’s reaction to the council proposal. An absolute majority of elected MEPs must approve the MFF. In a more fragmented parliament, obtaining this majority could be difficult, particularly if the council comes up with a not-so-ambitious proposal.

An Opportunity

This leads us to another, related factor. A particularity of the current MFF negotiations is that they coincide with a change in the EU executive. This is in fact the first time this has happened since the creation of EU multi-annual financial frameworks in 1988—and it offers an opportunity for the new EU commission to try to align EU spending with its political agenda.

The Juncker commission did not get this opportunity. It took office in November 2014, less than a year after the adoption of an EU multi-annual budget covering its entire executive term (2014-2020). As a result, it had very little capacity to influence EU spending choices and had to struggle to finance one of its main flagship priorities, the “Juncker investment plan.”

While the Von der Leyen Commission cannot remake the MFF proposal from scratch, it will have some leverage on MFF negotiations if it allies with the parliament. The commission and MEPs can also work to introduce some modifications to the 45 legal regulations that are the basis of the various EU spending programs. For some of these programs (for instance, the new EU research program Horizon Europe) there is already a partial agreement between the council and the parliament, but as long as the regulation has not been formally adopted, the new parliament is not legally bound on issues agreed by the previous parliament and can always re-open the agreement. In other cases (for instance, the Common Agriculture Policy) neither the parliament nor the council has taken a position, and thus it is easier for the parliament and the new commission to introduce changes to the original proposal.

The question is how much appetite Ursula von der Leyen’s commission will have to modify the MFF proposals tabled by its predecessor. Von der Leyen has taken various positions in her wide-ranging candidature speech to the European Parliament. Some of them have no budgetary implications—for instance, completing the Capital Market Union or relaunching the Dublin asylum rules reform. Others do not imply a major break with the budgetary proposals tabled by the previous commission, like the creation of a Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness for the eurozone.

Testing Times

In some areas, however, von der Leyen has called for budgetary changes that would require amendments to the existing MFF proposals. An example is the promise to triple the Erasmus+ budget, as requested by the parliament (going beyond the Juncker Commission’s proposal to almost double it), or to create a European Child Guarantee to combat child poverty.

Another area in which the new commission’s ambitions may require new or different funding is on climate. Achieving climate neutrality by 2050, a goal endorsed by the von der Leyen, will not be possible without significant additional investments in energy and transport, a major disinvestment in fossil-fuel energy and high-carbon infrastructure, and a serious commitment to support territories and individuals most affected by the transition.

No-one knows yet what will be included in the “sustainable Europe investment plan” announced by von der Leyen, but she has already committed to set up a “Just Transition Fund” to support people and regions most affected by the energy transition, an idea which is cherished by the parliament but not included in the Juncker Commission’s MFF proposal. It is also possible that the new commission backs the parliament’s demand to increase the percentage of EU budget funds dedicated to climate action from 20 to 30 percent (instead of the 25 percent proposed by the Juncker Commission). This would require, in turn, re-adjusting the specific climate engagements set for the different programs and funds.

MFF negotiations may well be the first “litmus test” for Commission President von der Leyen. If she is capable of partnering with the new parliament and delivering on her budgetary promises, she will demonstrate to her critics that she has the necessary skills to head the commission—of which only a small majority of MEPs were convinced back in July.

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