Ursula von der Leyen’s actions undermine her standing in Ireland

This week a call for the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to leave her position came from an unexpected source: John O’Brennan, a political scientist and the Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at Maynooth University.

O’Brennan was outraged by a European Commission decision on Wednesday to release €10 billion in funding for Hungary that had been frozen over concerns about the dismantling of the rule of law by the Viktor Orban government.

Dr von der Leyen has “simply got to go”, he wrote on social media. “The European Commission is supposed to be guardian of the EU treaties, not a body that colludes in the desecration of those treaties. Her record since September has been of one disaster after another.”

Commission officials have insisted that they are legally bound to release the money because Hungary has fulfilled the reforms of its legal system that were demanded.

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However the decision appeared rushed to coincide with the start of a summit at which EU leaders will attempt to persuade Orbán to back down from a threat of vetoing three crucial decisions about Ukraine. The timing makes it difficult not to view the decision as a sweetener offered to tempt Mr Orbán to back down.

At the last minute, the commission appeared to delay the decision for some hours after a senior aide to Orbán suggested he would not budge unless all €30 billion in Hungary’s frozen funds are released.

O’Brennan’s response caught my eye because this was someone would not be expected to rail against the commission or its president lightly.

To me, they showed the stark manner in which Dr von der Leyen has torched her image in Ireland over the space of two months, and that the disillusionment extends into even the most instinctively Europhile circles.

This is a new phenomenon for Ireland, which polls regularly show as one of the countries most positively disposed towards the EU.

“I had a positive view of Ursula von der Leyen’s leadership of the commission, up to and including September,” O’Brennan told me. “I thought she did a very good job managing the Covid crisis, managing Ukraine as well when the war broke out.”

That began to change however after the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel, when Dr von der Leyen travelled to shake hands with prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu as his government announced a total siege on Gaza and ordered its population to evacuate their homes.

“Her statements on the Middle East were very ill-advised. The unequivocal support she offered Israel, and the real reluctance to criticise Israel in any way in the intervening period since,” O’Brennan said.

The decision to release Hungary’s funds was the final straw.

“It is not in any way unfair to describe this as a kleptocratic regime,” he explained. “There are business figures who are close to Orbán who have benefited over and over again from large EU contracts, family members . . . Public procurement looks normal, but in reality many of these competitions for EU money are completely fake and designed to ensure that the favoured groups close to the regime benefit.”

Years of failure to address this has led to the “atrophying of democracy” in the EU, he believes.

“It’s been very disillusioning, as somebody who believes in the European idea and the transformative power of European integration.”

Dr von der Leyen is widely expected to seek a second term as commission president when her mandate ends with the European elections next year.

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Conversations with diplomats from various member states suggest that, though there is irritation at her high-handed style of governing that overrides traditional divisions of power and has been described as “regal”, support for her continuing in the role remains.

The decision on whether to reappoint her will ultimately be made by member state prime ministers, though the European Parliament must also approve.

The undemocratic nature of this process is sometimes exaggerated – our Taoiseach does not feature on most voters’ ballot papers at election time, either.

But Dr von der Leyen was a controversial candidate to begin with: a beleaguered German defence minister appointed in a backroom deal between France and Germany, because they were unconvinced by the official candidate named by MEPs in an attempt to give the process a more directly democratic character.

If she is reappointed in a similarly opaque manner – and this time as a widely known and unpopular figure among Irish voters – this will be seriously damaging for the image of the EU in the country.