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The New EU Leadership: the Von Der Leyen Commission Focuses On NOVEMBER 2019 274 THE NEW EU LEADERSHIP THE VON DER LEYEN COMMISSION FOCUSES ON EUROPE’S GEO-ECONOMIC POWER Niklas Helwig NOVEMBER 2019 274 THE NEW EU LEADERSHIP THE VON DER LEYEN COMMISSION FOCUSES ON EUROPE’S GEO-ECONOMIC POWER • Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to make the European Commission a “geopolitical” player under her presidency. • She announced a Commission that would be strong on the economic aspects of the EU’s external action. This more aptly labelled “geo-economic” focus of her presidency comes at a time of increased global competition in the economic sphere and poor performance in respect of the EU’s traditional diplomacy. • The main goal of earlier EU reforms, to integrate the economic and political pillars of the EU’s external action, is fading. Instead, the European Commission and the Council now plan to prioritize their particular strengths. • The new emphasis on the EU’s geo-economic power promises a stronger global position for Europe, while risking a decline in the coherence of external action. • The geo-economic emphasis is more likely to pay off if the EU leadership coordinates closely on a limited number of priority areas, such as China, Iran and the Middle East, as well as the Western Balkans. NIKLAS HELWIG Senior Research Fellow European Union research programme Finnish Institute of International Affairs ISBN 978-951-769-625-8 ISSN 1795-8059 Language editing: Lynn Nikkanen Cover photo: European Union 2019/EC Audiovisual Service The Finnish Institute of International Affairs is an independent research institute that produces high-level research to support political decisionmaking and public debate both nationally and internationally. All manuscripts are reviewed by at least two other experts in the field to ensure the high quality of the publications. In addition, publications undergo professional language checking and editing. The responsibility for the views expressed ultimately rests with the authors. THE NEW EU LEADERSHIP THE VON DER LEYEN COMMISSION FOCUSES ON EUROPE’S GEO-ECONOMIC POWER INTRODUCTION foreign policy and diplomacy. As Vice-President of the Commission, he will have a subsidiary role to von der When Ursula von der Leyen presented her team in Sep- Leyen in coordinating its external relations. Instead, he tember 2019, she underlined that under her presidency announced that he would elevate the policy work with the European Commission would be a “geopolitical” member states and drive a more ambitious diplomatic player. In her letters to the new class of Commission- agenda with a focus on the EU’s neighbourhood. ers, she declared that the “European Union needs to be The Commission’s geo-economic focus suggests a more strategic, more assertive and more united in its return to the two-pillar approach of EU external ac- approach to external relations”.1 tion, with the Commission focusing on its economic Looking at the international challenges of recent strength, while the Council pushes the EU’s politi- years, one can hardly dispute the reasoning behind cal profile. The two-pillar approach could represent von der Leyen’s thinking. The US has evolved from a turn away from the previous priority to implement the EU’s closest ally into a difficult partner. Washing- the Lisbon Treaty and link the different dimensions of ton’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran ex- the EU’s external action. Whether the new division of emplifies how the US pursues its interests with little labour will yield better results will depend on the co- attention to European partners’ concerns. Despite the ordination in the upper echelons in Brussels on specific EU’s will to engage with Teheran, European businesses issues. Commission President von der Leyen, European were forced to comply with US sanctions on Iran. Chi- Council President Charles Michel and High Represent- na has evolved from an opportunity into a challenge for ative Borrell will together have to ensure that member the EU. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative reveals global states’ policies and EU instruments are aligned. ambitions and reaches into the EU’s heartland. Even now, some EU member states are hesitant to stand up to China given its heavy investments in European THE CHALLENGE OF ‘ONE VOICE’ infrastructure. This Briefing Paper analyses how the new EU lead- The two-pillar approach – a focus by each EU exter- ership plans to adapt to these international chal- nal action actor on their particular strength – marks a lenges. It concludes that von der Leyen’s response is sharp turn away from the EU’s external strategy in the “geo-economic” rather than “geopolitical” in nature. last decade. Since the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, the leitmotiv Given the European Commission’s vast competencies of reforms was the coherence of EU external relations. on economic matters, she has streamlined its struc- The institutional innovations that the member states tures to make the best use of areas where the EU’s pushed, such as the European External Action Service powers are strongest and most likely to make a dif- (EEAS), were designed to bring the economic and for- ference: fostering innovation, consolidating the sin- eign policy dimensions of the EU’s external relations gle market, and protecting and promoting European closer together.2 The High Representative should have trade and economic interests. Supporting the Common been the external face of the EU. The post not only Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is a lesser priority manages the CFSP and the foreign policy work of the in the new Commission. The change comes at a time member states in the Council, but also coordinates when the political and security pillar of the EU’s ex- the external relations and actions of the European ternal action has struggled to make an impact. Commission. While the Commission focuses on the EU’s eco- The ‘one voice’ approach had its difficulties from nomic power, the attention of the EU High Representa- the start. Commission President José Manuel Barro- tive Josep Borrell will shift more squarely to traditional so dwarfed the first EU foreign policy chief Baroness 2 Niklas Helwig, ‘Fine-tuning EU foreign policy: A joint approach between the new 1 See Ursula von der Leyen’s mission letters to the Commissioners-designate, Commission and the European External Action Service?’, FIIA Briefing Paper 10 September 2019, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/interim/commission- 168, 26 January 2015, https://www.fiia.fi/en/publication/fine-tuning-eu-for- ers-designate_en. eign-policy. NOVEMBER 2019 3 Catherine Ashton, with the baroness struggling to international agreements is facing limits as the case of carve out a role for herself in the notoriously inflexible Iran has shown. The US, China and Russia often want Commission bureaucracy. to see EU member states divided rather than unit- Partly as a reaction to this, Barroso’s successor ed. Turkey’s recent invasion of Kurdish-held areas Jean-Claude Juncker made a point of delegating large in north-eastern Syria and the subsequent ceasefire parts of the Commission’s external relations to High agreement negotiated by Russia and Turkey revealed Representative Federica Mogherini. She was able to that the EU has little political influence in an important guide the work of a large group of Commissioners, part of its neighbourhood. which included the portfolios for neighbourhood and In this challenging environment, the different tasks enlargement, development cooperation, crisis man- of the High Representative – to find common policies agement, as well as trade. In addition, she received among member states as well as to coordinate the the go-ahead to tap into the resources of other port- external relations of the European Commission – are folios including climate action and energy, transport, generally seen as too much for one person to handle. as well as migration and home affairs. She took the The new EU foreign policy chief Borrell could risk ap- Commission job so seriously that foreign ministers pearing as if he were “juggling hats while someone is in the Council started complaining that she was not throwing balls at him”.3 spending enough time caring for their needs. Under Instead, the structure of the new EU leadership this arrangement, the work of the High Representative brings to mind a different image: EU actors strap their was always a balancing act between the post’s different hats on tightly, in order not to lose them in the roll- ‘hats’ in the Commission and the Council. ercoaster ride of global competition. In reality, this President Juncker also changed the Commission means a clearer separation of work between the Com- structures and agenda, abolishing the purely techno- mission and the Council on EU external action. cratic approach and encouraging his team to be more political. Commissioners such as Cecilia Malmström for trade or Pierre Moscovici for economic and financial A GEO-ECONOMIC EUROPEAN COMMISSION affairs had an important representational role in fora like the WTO and G20. The Commission pursued an Von der Leyen wants to take the Commission’s inter- ambitious trade agenda, finalizing free trade agree- national economic profile to the next level. The struc- ments with Canada, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and ture of her new leadership reflects this priority. She Vietnam. Juncker’s efforts to ease trade tensions with introduced three “Executive Vice-Presidents”, rep- the US with a visit to the White House in summer 2018, resenting the three key political groups of the Euro- or the anti-trust efforts of Competition Commissioner pean Parliament, as a new layer in the Commission Margrethe Vestager that led to multibillion-dollar fines hierarchy. In addition to guiding the work of other for Google, were also signs of this new ambition. Commissioners, they have the authority over a direc- While the economic profile of the Commission torate-general in the large bureaucracy.
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