With its collection of councils, clubs and commissions, the EU is like an unruly family, but Ursula von der Leyen is a good mom, writes Andreas Kluth
With its collection of councils, clubs and commissions, the EU is like an unruly family, but Ursula von der Leyen is a good momEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Picture: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN
She stretched that point into an extended metaphor. A mother of seven, she has almost super-humanly balanced her career and her sprawling, often unruly family. The EU is like such a family, she told me. It’s not a nation, and therefore won’t ever have one “leader”, but it shares a common destiny, even if it’s always at risk of being pulled apart. That’s why it needs a uniter. A mom, basically.
She can only announce such visions, however, not execute them. That’s because she has a surprisingly fluid role, one that’s badly understood outside of Brussels. The commission is often called the EU’s executive. But it’s less like a government and more like a civil service that also participates in ambassadorial rites.
First, there’s the European parliament, which Von der Leyen got off to a bad start with because of the way she got her job. She was chosen by EU leaders in several rounds of back-room horse trading after French President Emmanuel Macron dropped her name. Parliament was so miffed at being sidelined, it confirmed Von der Leyen only by a nail-biting nine votes, then rejected three candidates for her commission, delaying its inauguration by a month.
Underneath such rivalries hums a constant din of general bickering — within the parliament, among national leaders, and between the institutions. The cast ranges from bone-dry eurocrats to wanton gadflies and flamboyant prima donnas. The relationship currently being watched is that between the “Jupiterian” Macron and the matter-of-fact pastor’s daughter Merkel. Brussels really is like an unruly family.
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