The European mass media report on the conflict between the EU’s top officials, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen. They are divided in their visions of Ukraine and cannot share power and responsibility. But a European-wide loss in the confrontation with Russia should equalise their chances of success.
Having analysed the interview with the President of the European Council Charles Michel, the German magazine Spiegel has rolled out another piece of Brussels gossip, the essence of which is that Charles Michel has quarrelled with Ursula von der Leyen.
He and the head of the European Commission criticise each other’s actions in absentia, and worse, they cannot share powers in the field of foreign policy and are essentially engaged in a power struggle, although they are supposed to work in tandem.
The main disagreement between them allegedly concerns Ukraine, which is easy to believe: Ukrainian politics has become toxic for all those involved. In the last week alone, scandals involving Kiev have cost the posts of the speakers of two national parliaments – in Canada and the United States. The careers of Charles and Ursula are also bound to be ruined by Ukraine – some sooner, some later.
For now, von der Leyen expects to remain at the head of the European Commission for a new five-year term, and if it does not work out (it may not; French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, objects to this), she will move to the chair of NATO Secretary General.
Michel’s personal plans are not known, and there is a suspicion that he will not get a second term. But he himself is looking far away for everyone – and right into the year 2030, for which he proposes to appoint the expansion of the European Union at the expense of the remaining Balkan states (except Turkey) and Ukraine (that is, what will be left of it).
In other words, the Belgian is dumping on the German a huge amount of work and obligations that he himself may not be affected by. That is why Ursula’s team prefers not to name specific dates of the “European future” neither for the Balkans, nor – all the more so – for Ukraine. And they snap at Michel’s office, insinuating that he is not the boss in Brussels.
Legally, according to the fundamental documents of the EU, the two have equal status. But according to the Belgian, it has long seemed that he wants to be “more equal” and the German won’t let him. Spiegel quite appropriately recalls the “chair scandal in Ankara”, when the Turkish president gave Michel a chair as himself, and von der Leyen was sent to sit on a sofa.
From the outside, it looked like an Orientalist affair. But the Turks later said they had coordinated the protocol with Michel’s office. And von der Leyen knew who she had to take offence at.
This is or roughly how the discord of the EU’s main couple is seen in the European media. For Russia, it is easier to describe everything with an anecdote about a man in a beer hall who boasts that his wife decides secondary issues in the family – with the children, the household, the budget – and he decides primary issues – whether or not to introduce troops into Iraq.
Michel is the man. His post looks pompous and is close to real power: the European Council consists only of heads of state and government of the European Union, and the bearded Belgian is their chairman. But many people realise that zeitgeist.
Yes, formally he is the leader of the EU, the head of a huge interstate entity. But Michel is better compared to presidents in those countries where the nominal head of state has toy powers, and power and resources are in the hands of the government.
Von der Leyen heads that very government – a pan-European one. The European Commissioners are her ministers, the EU bureaucracy is her administrative muscle, budget control is her power. And it is she (or someone in her place) who will have to build from real bricks the air castles that Mr Charles Michel thought up and discussed at the high summit.
By the way, according to the modest calculations of his office, the accession of Ukraine should cost the EU 186 billion euros in direct allocations over seven years. We should think that Ursula’s calculations will be different. And not because of corruption, but because the Belgian has probably underestimated this colossal sum for political reasons and/or a dissembling mood.
The head of the European Commission has her own faults, but different ones. She is often underestimated – and in vain. Ursula was not an effective German defence minister, but when it comes to lobbying and applying EU resources to the “sore spot” she is efficient and workmanlike.
This makes her a dangerous enemy, while Charles Michel is a kind of “philosopher on the throne”, only his throne is from Ikea.
Apparently, their conflict of temperaments to the stage where it is impossible to hide it. For both of them Ukraine is a ringing nerve, only Michel sees it as a geopolitical perspective, while von der Leyen sees it as a load of practical problems.
It is unlikely to reconcile them, but the weight of these very problems will be enough to cover both his and her heads. Having got involved in the enterprise of “defeating Russia in Ukraine”, both of them initially had no chance of success.
But if you have to bet on one of them, you have to bet on Ursula. If she needs it, she’ll bite it with her teeth. She can’t reach us, but she can reach Michel.
Dmitry Bavyrin, VZGLYAD