The emotions stirred in July by the European Council’s power grab have settled. The Parliament continues to hold the future Commission to high standards and to keep a close eye on it, but no names have been put forward to replace the President elect, should the new College lose the final vote on 23 October. This suggests that the ‘retouched’ von der Leyen Commission will have a majority.
As for the appointments to the Commission posts, 25 governments have been asked to submit their proposals, the United Kingdom having decided not to send anybody and the German and Spanish members having already been appointed by the European Council. Of these 25, only two governments (Romania and Portugal) had the courtesy to put forward two candidates each (of different sexes). This is certainly the only leeway the President will have in the choice of the people she will be working with for the next five years.
The new team was announced on 10 September (see EUROPE 12324/1). A masterclass in balancing sexes, parties and nationalities, the organisation proposed boasts, on paper at least, a winning combination of symmetry and a few innovations designed to reflect the political priorities of greatest importance to the citizens. The unprecedented unwieldiness of the system, with four levels of hierarchy now in the College, will generate increased needs for internal coordination; anybody who has experienced this knows how time-consuming it can be. One might reasonably wonder how the team of two Vice-Presidents can possibly function with only the administrative support of the Secretariat General (which is, by its nature, at the service of all), whilst those who are ‘just’ Commissioners will have the assistance of at least a major Directorate General.
Allow us to observe as well that the budgetary dimension is entirely absent from the ‘von der Leyen’ rhetoric (unlike the legislative process, the digital breakthrough, communication, etc.) What was quite obvious in the political outlines and the speech of 16 July (see EUROPE 12297/1) is confirmed in the common theme of the letters of engagement to the Commissioners and in the guidebook to the new working methodologies. The enormous differentiation between the budgetary envelopes each of the Commissioners will effectively have at their disposal seems to reflect a hierarchy that is very different in nature. In particular, how will the stated ambitions, which imply the creation of new funds, be achievable with exactly the same budget? Is Ms von der Leyen championing the German position (see EUROPE 12328/3) of an upper limit of 1% of GNI? Against the backdrop of struggles to adopt the 2020 budget (see EUROPE 12319/1) and negotiations on the future MFF grinding to a halt (see EUROPE 12328/3), is this silence the stuff leadership is made of?
Whatever the case may be, the wheels are now turning. The EP will comply with the timetable of the hearings and final vote. The new Commission will take up its duties on 1 November and will decide on the changes to who does what and the necessary appointments. Within 100 days, major new initiatives will be on the table and in the meantime, the new President of the European Council, who has already been appointed, will also be starting work. It all seems to be highly organised and well-oiled: a triumph of planning!
History, however, is a series of upsets and the unexpected. We have already seen the first slip, with the expression ‘protecting the European way of life’, which sums up the mandate of Vice-President Schinas, which, as shown by his letter of engagement, features ‘a new pact on migration and asylum’ and security mechanisms. To quench the flames thus kindled, the President elect lost no time in publishing an open letter to several major newspapers with ethical connotations (see EUROPE 12328/5), but not actually announcing any rectification.
A second nasty surprise could stem from the hearings at the EP, as the cross-examinations of several of the candidate Commissioners will be highly risky. In the event of a veto – which would not be unprecedented – the governments in question (Poland? Hungary? Somewhere else?) would have to name their new candidate as a matter of damage limitation, who would then have a very tight timeframe in which to be approved. A second rejection could bring the whole house of cards down.
The major imponderable, obviously, is Brexit. Whatever anyone might say to the contrary, economic operators are ill-prepared for it, even though the European Council has twice granted the United Kingdom extra time, the President elect has added another layer by coming out publicly in favour of a further delay (see EUROPE 12297/1 and EUROPE B 12324A3) and the British Parliament is similarly inclined. If a no-deal Brexit does indeed go ahead on 31 October, the chaos will be such that it will dominate the agenda of the institutions, in spite of the preparatory measures already adopted. If, however, a further grace period is granted, it will become a matter of urgency to identify, hear and dub a British Commissioner, otherwise this breach of the Treaty would render the new Commission illegal. Either way, Brexit will have a ‘welcome gift’ for the new Commission in early November.
There are also, appropriately enough for a Commission that sees itself as ‘geopolitical’, the unknown factors of the global context, such as the consequences of the current tension in the Gulf, a probable increase in oil prices or even, in the view of some experts, a whole new financial crisis, to say nothing of an extra wave of migrants in the Mediterranean before the winter and other humanitarian disasters.
The von der Leyen Commission will be judged, in the very near future, on its ability to react to additional unforeseen circumstances, rather than on the beauty of its organisation, its ideals and its plans.
Renaud Denuit