Central Europe’s illiberal governments are celebrating after EU leaders decided who they want to fill the bloc’s top jobs.
But they won’t be laughing for long.
They are happy with two of the EU’s top jobs going to pro-migration, pro-gay rights liberals committed to the rule of law in the European Union. That’s because Ursula von der Leyen, the German defense minister nominated to be European Commission president, and Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister chosen to be chief of the European Council, could have been someone even worse — Frans Timmermans.
The Dutch Socialist who is the Commission’s first vice president came within a whisker of being chosen as Commission president, but was blocked by the Visegrad Four countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — along with Italy and a group of mostly eastern rebels within the European People’s Party.
In Warsaw and Budapest, Timmermans is seen as the personification of Brussels busybodies interfering in the internal affairs of member countries thanks to his role as the official responsible for cracking down on democratic backsliding by the Polish and Hungarian governments. Timmermans is also disliked by politicians who fear they could one day face similar rule of law inquiries, like Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.
The EPP’s lead candidate Manfred Weber was a no-go for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“He paid a severe price for building a political career on attacking Poland,” Ryszard Czarnecki, an MEP from Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, told Poland’s Radio 24. He added that von der Leyen’s candidacy has “a clear advantage” over Timmermans.
At the same time, the EPP’s lead candidate Manfred Weber was a no-go for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian leader became openly hostile to Weber after the ruling Fidesz party was suspended from the EPP and Weber became more vocal about concerns over the rule of the law in the country.
At home, Orbán and his allies have for months repeatedly accused Weber of insulting the Hungarian people. Weber “has become intolerable as a candidate,” the Hungarian prime minister said in an interview in late May.
Central European conservatives point to von der Leyen’s seven children, her piety and her stint as a defense minister as reasons why she may be easier to deal with than Timmermans and Weber.
Charles Michel during the EU summit in Brussels | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he had met with von der Leyen, and her selection is “a good choice.” He called Timmermans a “radical” candidate “of the extreme left,” who would have divided Europe. “We showed that we need candidates who have the potential to unify Europe, not to antagonize Europe,” he said after the leaders’ summit.
Orbán also presented von der Leyen’s nomination as a win for the region, and for his own government.
The Hungarian prime minister “is very happy,” said a senior official from Fidesz. “The only thing that is important for him is that Weber and Timmermans are out,” the official said, adding that “it was personal for the Visegrad Four — or at least for Poland and Hungary — to take revenge on Weber and Timmermans.”
Timmermans remains a threat
But they shouldn’t get too excited in Warsaw and Budapest.
Donald Tusk, the outgoing Council president, made it clear that Timmermans is not going anywhere, likely staying on as the Commission vice president in charge of efforts to bring the Polish and Hungarian governments to heel over issues of rule of law and democracy.
“If someone thought that a choice of someone other than Frans Timmermans as head of the Commission would weaken the will and the determination of the EU that the law be followed everywhere and that the rule of law be observed in the whole of Europe, then they were mistaken. In my view, it’s exactly the opposite,” Tusk told Poland’s RMF radio.
Warsaw’s celebration over von der Leyen’s candidacy is forcing the government into some PR contortions.
Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who is reviled by Law and Justice, pointed out that comments in Poland that Timmermans has “been defeated or eliminated are, delicately speaking, very exaggerated.”
It’s not clear that a shift from current Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who was slow to turn on Warsaw and Budapest, to von der Leyen will change much.
Von der Leyen has tangled with Law and Justice in the past. In 2017, she appeared on a German talk show where she praised demonstrators marching against PiS, saying: “We have to support this healthy democratic resistance of the young generation in Poland,” and adding that there is a need to “argue” with the governments of Poland and Hungary.
An angered Polish government complained, and the German defense attaché in Warsaw was summoned to explain the comments.
“We are outraged that German politicians, who in recent years maintain that they aren’t interfering in the situation in Poland, for the first time admit that they have a policy of supporting the opposition in Poland,” said the then Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski; he is now an MEP and will get to vote on von der Leyen’s candidacy.
Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber arrive for a meeting | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
Von der Leyen’s comments were something of a rarity for German politicians, who are uncomfortable about the direction taken by PiS but for historical reasons are wary of interfering in Poland’s internal affairs.
The German defense minister was also vocal about Hungary’s treatment of asylum seekers at the height of the migration crisis.
Speaking on CNN in 2015 after Hungary used water cannons and tear gas to drive asylum seekers at the Hungarian-Serbian border, von der Leyen said that “this is not acceptable and this is against the European rules we do have,” adding that “it is very important that we really stick to the respect [where] human dignity and human rights are concerned.”
Her comments prompted Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó to publicly defend Hungary’s actions.
The Polish government has succeeded in getting an actual German who is Merkel’s longtime ally into the top job.
Michel is also going to be something of a problem for Central Europe. Last year he threatened countries that have refused to take in their share of asylum seekers — which includes the Visegrad grouping — with being ejected from the passport-free Schengen zone.
“By stubbornly, repeatedly, systematically refusing to show a minimum of solidarity, these countries automatically open the political debate about the Schengen area, they in fact open the question of their own place in the Schengen area,” Michel said in December.
Michel’s government, together with Germany, has also proposed a new EU-wide rule of law peer review mechanism.
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Germany
GermanyWarsaw’s celebration over von der Leyen’s candidacy is forcing the government into some PR contortions.
Many senior PiS officials and their media backers have spent years denouncing Tusk as a Germanophile puppet of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The right-wing Gazeta Polska magazine put Tusk on its cover two years ago, photoshopped into a German military uniform with a leering Merkel in the background; Polish state television, which actively supports the ruling party, in May tried to undercut Tusk by juxtaposing his image with those of Hitler and Stalin.
Now the Polish government has succeeded in getting an actual German who is Merkel’s longtime ally into the top job.
Gazeta Polska on Wednesday trumpeted von der Leyen’s candidacy with the headline: “Poland’s success.”
Radek Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister who is now an MEP for the opposition Civic Platform party, tweeted: “I must admit that I didn’t foresee that a PiS government would see it as a victory to choose a liberal German federalist as head of the CE.”
Zosia Wanat contributed reporting.