It should be objectively difficult not to be very amused at the wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters at the behaviour of EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel.
For those of you living under a rock and who missed the row – lucky sods – then the basic gist of it is that Von Der Leyen trooped off to Tel Aviv last week in the company of EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola and pledged her full solidarity – and that of the EU – to the Israeli people in the aftermath of the attacks. This naturally outraged some, including by all accounts the Irish Government, who would have preferred a little bit more equivocation between supporting Israel on one hand and criticising it on the other hand. The Irish Times was thunderous in noting the disapproval over the weekend:
“Her approach has caused deepening unease within European institutions and in national capitals as Israel undertakes what the Taoiseach has described as “collective punishment” against the people of Gaza, cutting off water, food and electricity, and now ordering over a million people to evacuate in 24 hours to the alarm of the United Nations.”
For clarity, the criticisms of Von Der Leyen are fair, no matter what one thinks of the substance of the particular issue involving Israel and Gaza. And those of us who tend to take her side on that issue, and deplore that of the Irish Government, shouldn’t rest too easily in our beds. After all, there’s nothing impeding the next EU Commission President from being a younger version of Michael D. Higgins, and wandering the globe endorsing the worst excesses of anti-western extremism, all in our names. If you can’t see the dangers of an EU Commission President acting as if they have the power to speak for all of Europe with one Imperial voice on all matters of global concern, then just imagine that power in the hands of the worst person you know.
And yet, the EU, and the Irish Government, and almost all of Von Der Leyen’s europhile critics on this issue have nobody to blame but themselves. They created this monster.
In the first instance, Von Der Leyen is not answerable to the Irish Government, or to any national Government. She cannot be removed by the member states. She can only be removed by a vote of the European Parliament, where she commands the support of a stable majority.
In the second instance, the EU member states themselves have fed this monster (the position, not the woman holding it) for years: They permitted Ms. Von Der Leyen to be, in effect, the voice of a common EU position on the Russia/Ukraine war, where she was permitted to express a common EU foreign policy. Her alleged right to do so was not challenged for the simple reason that most EU states (though not all, just ask Hungary) agreed with that policy. Go figure then that she would think it acceptable to repeat the trick when it came to the middle east.
But more than that, I am reminded of comments made by the then UK shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, when debating the Lisbon Treaty in the house of commons in 2008. In a very funny speech, which you can watch online here, Mr. Hague made the following point about the notion of an EU President:
There is, of course, a serious point to be made. Occupied by someone with the political skill of our former Prime Minister, that post would become, in not so many years, a far more substantial one than the Government pretend. The President would be seen as the president of Europe by the rest of the world, with the role of national Governments steadily reduced and the role of national democracy and accountability steadily weakened. The naivety of Ministers, who think that by signing the treaty they are agreeing to a static constitutional position, is alarming in people with such senior responsibilities. “Ah,” they say, “look at the enhanced role of national Parliaments set out in the treaty.” If a majority in half the Parliaments in the EU object to an EU measure, they might be able to block it.
Mr Hague was talking, as it happens, about the Presidency of the EU Council – the job presently held by Charles Michel – and not the Presidency of the EU commission. That said, the point remains well made and applicable, as it turned out, more to Von Der Leyen’s position. Over time, the position has come to be seen as “The President of Europe” by the rest of the world, and the role of national Governments has indeed been steadily reduced when it comes to things like EU foreign policy.
This “Imperial Presidency”, so to speak, remains far short of the power held by its American equivalent. But it should be noted that the US Presidency holds very few formal powers either: Technically, Joe Biden’s role is only in foreign policy and the administration of the theoretically limited US federal government. Yet, over 200 years, the Oval Office has accumulated a vast array of informal powers, and political prestige, which grants the President far more influence than the US founders probably intended. The same is true of the UK Prime Minister – a job which began as simply chairing meetings of the cabinet and now extends to approving all UK Government policy.
If Von Der Leyen is exceeding her constitutional remit – and she is – then that should not be a surprise. It is the natural consequence of creating her position in the first place. And though they won’t admit it, the idea that she would exceed her remit over time and gain more and more influence was probably the intention of those who created the position.
So it’s a bit churlish, unfortunately, to complain about it now.