It has been six months since votes were cast in the EU elections and, after the lengthy and at times hostile negotiations that followed, the shaky house of cards that returns Ursula von der Leyen to the top of the European Commission is completed.
The German centre-right politician whipped enough votes in the European Parliament in July to secure a second five-year term leading the EU executive, having got the support of national capitals beforehand. Then there was the balancing act of trying to keep everyone (somewhat) happy when deciding what jobs to hand to the 26 commissioners nominated by member states.
After a tense standoff between political groups on the right and left that at one point threatened to collapse the whole deal, an uneasy truce was reached earlier this month. In a vote in Strasbourg this week, a majority of MEPs approved the new commission as a whole, clearing the way for the executive to start work on Monday.
Politicians, diplomats and officials in the EU institutions were universally relieved the commission is up and running, given the threats facing Europe. Across the Atlantic, US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to slap hefty tariffs on imports has raised fears of a trade war. To the east, Russia continues to bombard Ukraine, whose civilians face a brutal winter of rolling power outages.
‘I don’t know where I am going’: Manchester police criticised for mass expulsion of Traveller youths on trains
Democrats sift through the debris of a presidential season that went horribly wrong
Ambitious plans of new European Commission tee up fights to come
China’s tradition of confinement after giving birth: ‘I made it to the sixth day and then I just had to have a shower’
Making the EU more economically competitive and increasing the bloc’s ability to defend itself are likely to be two of the biggest priorities of the new commission. Both will require countries to chip in a lot more money to the common pot, something that is always politically contentious.
Von der Leyen has promised a bundle of plans within 100 days. A “clean industrial deal”, a White Paper on the future of defence, a “vision” on agriculture, and an “action plan” on cybersecurity for hospitals are all due in the first three-and-a-bit months.
On defence, the direction of travel is to push countries to beef up their militaries and buy in bulk. A proposal to jointly finance common projects is expected to feature prominently. A potential example would be a European air defence shield that Poland has been arguing for, to guard against the threat of aerial bombardment from Russia.
Member states with large arms industries such as France stand to benefit from a military build-up, given there will be a drive to buy from European producers. The commission traditionally played only a small role in defence policy, but that changed after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Senior officials around von der Leyen believe the best chance of getting support for common defence projects off the ground is to have member states agree on what those projects would be first. Then they could argue about how to finance them.
While no one has put a price tag on the EU’s big defence ambitions, Mario Draghi came up with a number for how much he thinks is needed to stop Europe’s economy stagnating towards global irrelevance. The former European Central Bank president said the EU had an investment shortfall of €800 billion a year, which if not made up would see it slip further and further behind the US and China.
In a report on the future of EU competitiveness, Draghi said internal reforms were needed to make it easier for businesses to operate across the 27 national borders, particularly when it came to raising money. Much of that €800 billion would come from private sources, but Draghi said a step change in public spending was also required, though he did not spell out exactly how countries should stump up the extra funds.
Some of that fight will play out in the looming negotiations to agree the EU’s next multiyear budget. In the interregnum of recent months, EU officials have been sketching up possible reforms of the budget, which is funded by contributions from member states. The net contributor club that Ireland has joined in the past decade tends to prefer a short leash for the EU executive. The commission is pulling for more flexibility in how it allocates funding.
An overhaul of the budget would kick off a tussle between national governments, all angling for whatever might give them a marginally larger slice of the EU pie. “There will be a big fight where they all take out their calculators and try to work out how much will come home,” one senior commission official said.
The growing demands for the EU to spend more will certainly put the question of common borrowing back on the table. This would see the 27 states take on shared debt, an approach that has historically been opposed by “frugal” members such as Germany and the Netherlands.
[ How could the EU respond if Trump imposes tariffs?Opens in new window ]
Over the past five years, von der Leyen came in for criticism for her tendency to rely on a small team of advisers to make key decisions. Power is even further centralised around the president in this new commission. One seasoned insider says there’s a view that the incoming crop of commissioners is “not made up of stars”, although some stand out.
Teresa Ribera, the Spanish commissioner in charge of climate transition and competition policy, will be a significant player. So will former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas, the new foreign affairs chief, who many speculate will be less focused on the war in Gaza than her predecessor, Josep Borrell. The jury is out on the French commissioner for industrial policy, Stéphane Séjourné, according to one senior EU official.
Though the commission president has consolidated power inside the Berlaymont, getting legislation through the European Parliament is going to be a bigger headache. Far-right and ultra-conservative parties now make up a fifth of the parliament, which has become much more divided as a result.
Von der Leyen’s political grouping, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), will continue to set the agenda. The group includes the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Fine Gael, and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition.
[ Netanyahu has every reason to avoid a Gaza ceasefireOpens in new window ]
In the parliament, the group is led by German MEP Manfred Weber, who politically has pushed the EPP further to the right. Weber has many of the landmark “green deal” climate reforms of von der Leyen’s first term in his crosshairs. Near the top of his hit list is a law banning the sale of new petrol and diesel engine cars from 2035, which is also opposed by the car-making lobby, a big beast in domestic German politics.
Speaking this week, Weber said workers, such as those in the car industry at risk of losing their jobs, would be pushed “into the arms” of the far right, if centre parties seemed oblivious to pressure they were facing. Competitiveness and the economic strength of the EU had to be the “number one issue” of the next commission, he said.
On several recent votes, the EPP under Weber has broken away from the centre majority that has for years governed European politics. That traditional coalition is made up of the EPP, the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group and French-dominated centrist group Renew, and more recently at times the Greens.
A vote to delay a new deforestation law saw the EPP side with MEPs from far-right and extreme-nationalist parties, to form an alternative right-wing majority. This has infuriated the S&D, Renew and the Greens.
Von der Leyen is much closer to the leadership of the Greens than her German party colleague Weber. She also has a less fraught relationship with Iratxe García, the Spanish MEP who leads the S&D group. So tensions within the EPP between von der Leyen in the commission and Weber in the parliament may become a significant point of friction in the coming term.
[ Pressure builds for Germany to drop ‘debt brake’Opens in new window ]
Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, said the rightward shift in the balance of power meant the commission would not have a “permanent political majority” in the centre to rely on as it had in the past.
The majority that approved the commission this week was made up of the EPP, Renew and the S&D, but also some of the left-wing Greens group, and hard-right MEPs from Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.
“This puts this European Commission in very uncharted territory,” Alemanno says. “It has never happened before to have a European ‘college’ of commissioners whose actions will depend on so many European political groups, that really have little in common in terms of values, in terms of ideologies, in terms of political priorities.”
- Listen to our Inside Politics Podcast for the latest analysis and chat
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date