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Tired of the slow COVID vaccination campaign in the Community and the unexpected spontaneous errors of export restrictions that gave the UK a political advantage for the first time since Brexit was launched, von der Leyen found himself in a situation difficult before the disturbing events in Moscow.
The people of the EU institutions in Brussels and the national capitals that have entrusted her with this position around her are considering how the first woman president of the European Commission (EC) will be able to distance herself from these mistakes and move the Community forward.
Two diplomats told the Bloomberg news agency that they watched the EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell’s press conference in Russia in the wake of recent unfortunate events. According to them, von der Leyen has lost the trust of some EU governments and it will not be easy to regain it.
Answers to emerging questions will be requested shortly. Von der Leyen is likely to receive a grim reaction from MEPs in Brussels on Wednesday as he faces them for the first time since the latest series of failed challenges.
Lawmakers with the highest powers to remove presidents and all their committees no longer hide their discontent: more than 70 MEPs signed a letter this week calling for Borrell’s resignation.
An unstable future
The Community is entering a crucial phase as the EU’s most influential leader, Angela Merkel, prepares to step down in September and French President Emmanuel Macron is hot on her heels as the next elections approach. presidential. Faced with uncertainty about when the situation will return to normal after a pandemic, and faced with a sumptuous economic recovery, the EU cannot afford to make any more wrong decisions.
Vaccination of people against the coronavirus in the European Union is slow compared to the process in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the Commission has come under fire for negotiating with pharmaceutical companies. Although the health system was previously considered a national responsibility, bloc leaders agreed on the need to centralize the vaccination process so that members of the smaller bloc are not left out.
Despite poignant criticism of the EU’s foreign policy and vaccination campaign, von der Leyen still trusts Borrell and Stella Kyriakides, the EU health commissioner, according to a source familiar with his reasoning.
Angela Merkel also expressed her support for the Commission, which told reporters last week that the EU’s strategy to buy vaccines had not failed.
The confusion was compounded by the Commission’s January 29. A plan was announced, canceled a few hours later, to temporarily restrict exports of vaccines against coronavirus infection to Northern Ireland.
By interpreting one of the most sensitive points of the divorce agreement, which has been in painful negotiations for a year and a half, the Commission has been able to unite the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as the opposition groups in Belfast.
Out of field of view
Critics argue that a series of public statements by von der Leyen will not help counter a growing group of Eurosceptic politicians. On February 4, he gave an interview to several European newspapers in which he acknowledged that the bloc had “underestimated” the challenges posed by vaccine production, and on the same day he spoke about what the EU’s “digital decade” should be like through of a video conference.
The last time he appeared at a press conference was on January 21, after a summit of national leaders of the bloc.
The president of the Commission strongly supported Mr. Borrell’s visit to Moscow, the first visit of its kind since his predecessor’s visit four years ago, sources familiar with the situation said and asking that their names not be made public due to a private matter. .
But critics have been dismayed by its overly stormy public congratulations on the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, which is not yet approved in the European Union, as well as the way it has been criticized for US policy toward Cuba. But perhaps the biggest criticism it has received is its silence when Lavrov described the EU as “unreliable”.
Borrell had already received harassment of harassment in the European Parliament on Tuesday when he told MEPs that his visit was “inseparable from the obvious risks”, but that he “took them”.
He described the situation as an opportunity to assess the Kremlin’s willingness to cooperate constructively with the bloc. “I had no illusions before the visit,” he said. “And when it ends, it worries me even more.”
The crisis is maturing
But Borrell’s visit casts doubt on EU decision-making, at a time when the bloc is in so much trouble and the Commission is struggling to communicate effectively, an EU official said. Each misstep, taken in isolation, could be explained, but the whole could be treated as a crisis, the official said.
During the fourteen months of von der Leyen’s reign, the situation was far from normal. The UK became the first country to leave the bloc nine weeks into its mandate, and the region is undergoing various levels of quarantine as the pandemic has only broken out since.
And while EU-27 leaders realize that the President of the Commission has faced an extremely difficult challenge, she will need to be able to convince them that she is in control of a situation where everyone comes together in one meeting. two-day virtual at the end of February.
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