Why I have lost faith in Ursula von der Leyen.
The European Commission President has let the EU down, but refuses to take responsibility.
This week, Ursula von der Leyen finally addressed the fierce criticism that the European Commission has faced over the past two weeks. Her appearance was illustrative for a leader who fails to lead, who shuns democratic accountability, and who only wants to come out when the sun is shining.
Anyone with the aim to drive the European project in the right direction must realise that criticism is democracy’s fuel, reflection its gas pedal, and scrutiny its gears. Turning a blind eye to failure, on the other hand, is its greatest impediment, especially for the EU.
A Promising Summer
Last summer, the future was looking bright for the EU. Brussels took two leaps forward: not only had the member states reached an agreement on the European Recovery Fund, but the Union would also take charge of the vaccine rollout. Both results were unparalleled. The EU was going to issue common debt for the first time, and member states would join efforts to seize the most important remedy against the pandemic.
Yet, these far-reaching responsibilities went hand in hand with accountability, and that is precisely what the President of the European Commission is steering clear from now that her boat has capsized.
A Month of Mistakes and Misfortune
On the 22nd January, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced it would deliver far less vaccines than initially promised. The supply to the United Kingdom, nonetheless, continued imperturbably, because our friends on the other side of the Channel had closed their deal months earlier than the EU did. As a result, the European Commission came under fire.
Yet, as things went south, the Commission President was nowhere to be found. When the first Europeans were vaccinated in December, Von der Leyen had still seized the opportunity to pat herself on the back for ‘Europe’s Moment’. Now that the tide had turned, however, she shunned scrutiny, and smoothly shifted responsibility to Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health.
A Preposterous Proposal and A Game of Hide-and-Seek
Then, on Friday 29nd January, a policy proposal popped up: the EU was going to regulate the export of vaccines, to prevent ‘our’ shots from being shipped abroad. In addition, Ireland had to close its border with Northern Ireland to fill a potential loophole for the UK. The Irish government, however, had not been notified of this decision.
At breakneck speed, this creative solution turned into a political disaster. After a few ballistic calls from the other side of the Channel, President Von der Leyen made a U-turn and quickly withdrew its thoughtless provocation. Yet, the Commission’s recklessness on this highly sensitive subject had already harmed Irish and European interests, damaged our relations with key allies, and embarrassed the continent.
Who was responsible for this ruinous miscalculation?
On Monday 1st February, it turned out that President Von der Leyen had not sat still when she was shunning the camera; she had concocted this tactless response, top officials told the New York Times. Moreover, the Commission President had, ‘per her habit’, only obtained information from a small group of confidants, excluding experts as well as some senior cabinet ministers from her deliberation.
In the same article, The New York Times called President Von der Leyen out for staying ‘away from the limelight’ and ‘letting subordinates take the blame’. When her chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, was confronted with the matter on the same day, a new victim was appointed: ‘What I can tell you is that there is one cabinet which was in the lead on this, that is Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis because he is in charge of trade’.
Facing Parliament and the King of Non-Apologies
Only after her own party members (including Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party) had requested an apology, the Commission President faced the European Parliament Wednesday morning. Finally, she would take responsibility, face opposition, and get back to work with a clean slate.
Instead, her appearance was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yes, she accepted a tiny bit of blame for the nickeling-and-diming of the Commission in the negotiations. But when it came to the diplomatic debacle for which she was personally responsible, she uttered no apology, and instead resorted to a phrase epitomic for her approach:
‘Mistakes were made and I deeply regret that. But in the end we got it right.’
Mistakes were made. It happened. Matters occurred. Affairs came about. Things took place. This phrase is the king of non-apologies. Did I harm anyone? No, harm was done. Did my dog urinate on your couch? Nah, a leak was taken on your couch. And I deeply regret that. But in the end, we got it right.
Nothing New
This empty gift, wrapped in apology-paper, is nothing new. In 1973, Nixon’s spokesman Ron Ziegler apologised to The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein saying that ‘mistakes were made in terms of comments’. Fourteen years later, in his State of the Union address, President Reagan conceded that ‘mistakes were made’ as his administration had sold arms to Iran and lied about it. When President Clinton was asked about a fundraising scandal (not the other one) in 1997, he conceded that ‘mistakes were made here by people who did it either deliberately or inadvertently’.
This phrase is not an apology; it is what five-year olds say when they get caught stealing a candybar, or what seasoned politicians say when they seek to evade any direct admission of responsibility.
And Then She Left
Unfortunately, that is not the end of it. In the debate, Von der Leyen did not respond to any of the queries from Parliament, including an Irish MEP specifically asking ‘who made the decision, and why?’.
Instead, Von der Leyen left the debate soon after her statement.
As a result, Chris Macmanus, the first Irish MEP to speak in the debate, addressed an empty chair as ‘Madame President’. In his speech, he called the blunder ‘unacceptable’ and emphasised that ‘we must ensure that the fiasco isn’t repeated, and part of that is picking up the phone to Dublin and Belfast.’. But there was no Commission President to hear it.
A Democratic Deficit
Make no mistake: any national head of government in Von Der Leyen’s position would not have gotten away with this. They would have paid a high price. For these occasions, members of parliament take off their gloves, the national press puts you on the firing line, and broadcasters drag your name through the mud.
But the buzz disappointed; national media were occupied with regional matters. Brussels is not sexy enough. The Commission President, who, as a matter of fact, was never voted in as a Spitzenkandidat by the European public, knew this, which is why she thought she could get away with leaving the debate after a half-baked apology. Had she stayed, she would have heard MacManus address the ‘democratic deficit’ that she is rapidly deepening.
If this had happened in any national parliament, it would be front-page news. But it happened in Brussels, so, apart from a few political enthusiasts, no one noticed.
A European Public Space
That is why I am writing this piece. I deeply care about the EU, and I have realised that it will not evolve without scrutiny. If the democratic deficit is to be filled, we need a strong European public space. Our media should shift their attention away from the disproportionally covered Anglo-Saxon world, towards the continent with which our interests are intertwined. Anyone who cherishes the EU should not turn a blind eye to political representatives who refuse to take responsibility for their failures. Our leaders must be guiders, not duckers.
If you think that eurosceptic populists pose the biggest existential threat to the European project, think again. It is the EU’s pseudo-religious believers who pose the biggest danger to it. Those who believe that the EU will flourish when it is shielded from public debate, civil society, and critical scrutiny are its biggest threat.
If we truly value the EU, we must criticise its mistakes, dig deeper than the empty rhetoric presented to us, and hold our representatives accountable for the mistakes they made.
