Commission therapy session: Von der Leyen tries to stamp out tensions in her top team

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen has summoned her team of European commissioners to a meeting to try to defuse mounting tensions and improve the way they work.

The meeting is set for Feb. 4 in Leuven and is open to all members of the College, though attendance is not mandatory, according to a Commission official involved in organizing the event.

The idea for such a meeting was conceived after tense exchanges between commissioners and frustration at the repeated late arrival of files on the desks of top officials, Commission officials said. POLITICO spoke to eight officials from different commissioners’ cabinets, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the internal dynamics.

While the meeting will focus on competitiveness and will feature a special guest — IMF Managing Director and former Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva — also on the agenda are discussions on “geopolitics in the current context and the working methods of the European Commission,” Commission deputy chief spokesperson Arianna Podestà told POLITICO.

The latter element was prompted by what staffers inside the Berlaymont, the Commission’s HQ, describe as an unusually tense atmosphere.

The spark for the idea of the meeting, according to four of the Commission officials, was a tense exchange in early December in which Dan Jørgensen, the energy commissioner, confronted Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera during a meeting of the College of Commissioners — as first reported in Brussels Playbook.

Jørgensen will be attending the Feb. 4 meeting, his team said. Ribera’s team did not respond. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Both commissioners declined to comment on the incident but one official said Jørgensen had raised his voice when confronting Ribera, while another said the Danish commissioner “made a point toward Ribera that was unusually forceful by College standards” as they discussed a key environmental file.

Jørgensen will be attending the Feb. 4 meeting, his team said. Ribera’s team did not respond.

Meetings of the full College in the new year are not unusual, and in fact have been a regular practice since 2010, Podestà told POLITICO. However, this one features a session explicitly dedicated to finding better working methods and preventing differences of opinion between commissioners from getting out of hand.

Descriptions of the meeting varied, with one official calling it “talks” rather than a formal team-building exercise, and another describing it as “a working group on working methods.”

Several Cabinets are growing frustrated with files arriving on their desk just hours before College meetings, or late at night, on the weekend, or on the eve of the presentation of legal proposals.

“This prevents us from working professionally,” one official said. “Of course emergencies happen but this can’t be the norm.”

The frustration peaked during the presentation of the EU’s long-term budget plan last July, when official figures were reportedly shared with commissioners only hours before the presentation.

According to officials close to von der Leyen’s Cabinet, the late arrival of the budget figures was justified as a tactic to prevent leaks. But the approach has only deepened irritation inside the College.

According to one official, the “altercation” between Jørgensen and Ribera also concerned fast-tracking files. To get a file presented to the College, an executive vice president must “push the button” (Berlaymont jargon for putting something on the agenda).

Faced with a tight deadline to examine the details of a file — the environmental omnibus, designed to simplify green rules — Ribera decided to wait before pushing the button, as she is entitled to do, according to her team. This led to tensions with Jørgensen, a fellow member of the socialist family.

One Commission official noted that both center-left commissioners lead teams “with strong views,” making friction likely.

“There’s a lot more infighting in [the] College than one might think,” a Commission official said.

Some of these frictions reflect genuine differences of opinion but are magnified by a highly centralized system, in which many decisions must get approval on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont — home to von der Leyen’s Cabinet. “The way it works now creates situations that are avoidable and some problems where there aren’t any,” another official said.

Jørgensen and Ribera are not the only pair under strain. Tensions have surfaced between Executive Vice President Stéphane Séjourné and Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, for example, particularly over the Biotech Act.

Várhelyi has long objected to the package’s non-health elements, and insiders say his resistance has only hardened as Séjourné pushes a broader industrial strategy.

Two officials also said Várhelyi’s behavior is sometimes interpreted as provocative — keeping his phone ringtone on or sprawling in his chair.

According to the same officials, Várhelyi has even insisted that only von der Leyen, not fellow commissioners, may substitute for him at events. Neither Séjourné nor Várhelyi responded to requests for comment.

Séjourné will not be present at the seminar, as he is taking part in ministerial discussions in Washington on critical raw materials, but will submit written contributions, according to his team. Várhelyi did not confirm if he would be attending the Feb. 4 meeting.

Commission officials say that friction between EVPs and other commissioners is almost built into the system. EVPs are meant to coordinate and oversee the work of others, whereas under EU law all commissioners are supposed to be equal. That ambiguity, one official said, is manageable on good days, but doesn’t help when tempers flare.

Von der Leyen did not respond to requests for comment.

The meeting comes ahead of an EU leaders’ retreat on competitiveness scheduled for Feb. 12.