Ursula von der Leyen is facing an apparently difficult task as she is trying to finalise the composition of the next European Commission, as indicated by the fact that the new European Commissioners’ term of office seems to be postponed from November to December. The main cause for the likely delay is von der Leyen’s determined struggle to achieve her goal of a gender-balanced institution. In addition, despite European Parliament initially hoped to hold the commissioner hearings – hours-long grilling by MEPs – at the end of September, those hearings are not likely to begin until mid-October.
It is not only von der Leyen’s small gender games in the Commission that are a clear sign of the European institutions’ sometimes dysfunctional working. At the same time as she successfully convinced some Member States, including Malta, Romania and Belgium to replace their male candidates with female ones, another key EU body, the European Parliament, in particular President Roberta Metsola – von der Leyen’s party colleague at EPP -, has also been the subject of undesirable attention.
Favouring female candidates as a way of building personal commitment to the Commission President
First of all, it is important to note that EU treaties do not require the Commission President to assemble a gender-balanced team. The only reason why von der Leyen is playing this comedy show is that she simply does not want to present a male-dominated team… You got it, it is fully personal, not business. It must be this or that way because Madam President of Europe wishes it so.
It should right here be added, however, that some Member States simply ignored von der Leyen’s call for two names, one male and one female. The only country which nominated a man and a woman for EU commissioner post was Bulgaria.
On the contrary to those who refused to fulfil von der Leyen’s request, Romania, for example, has last minute replaced its socialist male nominee with a female candidate, socialist Roxana Mînzatu.
It is clear that von der Leyen is trying to build personal loyalty towards herself in the Commissioners’ ranks. It should also be pointed out that those female candidates she has put forward will certainly be very grateful to her, which will be a considerable help to von der Leyen in an increasingly difficult European political milieu.
The same personal commitment will undoubtedly serve as the bedrock for an effective working relationship between women in the EU’s three most important jobs: von der Leyen as European Commission President, Kaja Kallas as the head of the EU’s diplomatic service, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
It is also worth noting that the seemingly determined struggle for achieving gender balance also provides von der Leyen an excellent opportunity to get rid of her troublesome colleagues. By playing the gender card, von der Leyen successfully got rid of former Belgian commissioner Didier Reynders – who in June, lost the race for a different international top job: secretary-general of the Council of Europe – and replaced him with Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib as next commissioner.
Hiding the truth, hiding the real problems
Focusing on the gender issue is an intentional effort by von der Leyen, aiming at one thing: to distract attention from what is really important. If public discourse is about gender equality, it means that less media attention is focused on von der Leyen personally and the lack of policy results. In this case, there is also less press coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine trial. However, she mistakenly believes that news about gender equality in Commission will overshadow people’s legitimate questions about how long the EU, in cooperation with the US, intends to keep Ukraine at war an on life support. Nor can she seriously believe that the gender issue is of more concern to Europeans than their daily living problems, the housing crisis, the corruption, the challenges of irregular migration and the accompanying criminal activities.
The emphasis on gender balance, as a kind of cover-up, is also a way of reducing the attention paid to other key figures in the Brussels political elite – allies of von der Leyen – including Kaja Kallas, nominated as the next High Representive of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, whose husband has become known for his fruitful business with Russia. In addition, Kallas has a good old family friend in Commission as well: Estonian Henrik Hololei, former Director-General for Mobility and Transport. Despite his involvement in Qatargate scandal, Hololei could continue in the Commission. Although he lost his job as Director-General in 2023, currently he works as an adviser at Directorate-General for International Partnership.
The dispute about gender balance, interestingly, just in time to forget recent scandal concerning the complex business and political activities of Roberta Metsola, re-elected President of the European Parliament, and her Finnish husband Ukko, which were recently exposed in a long article by Politico. The publication also points out that, although Roberta Metsola introduced a new ethics code for MEPs following the Qatargate scandal, she did not make it binding on the President of the Parliament, i.e. on herself. Moreover, she simply does not see a possible conflict of interest between the fact that she is one of the most influential people in Brussels and her husband is a lobbyist and businessman in the same environment. European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who investigates malpractice across the EU institutions, said conflicts of interest do not necessarily need to be exploited to be a problem. Even something that looks bad to the public needs to be treated seriously.
The Metsolas are not the only ones in top EU jobs who, in line with the ethics code, have fogotten to declare those large-scale business activities that constitute the main pillar of their family enterprise. A long-time senior Commission official, Dutch national Gert Jan Koopman (Director-General of the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations), has never mentioned in his tax declaration that he runned the luxury Munduk Moding Plantation Nature Resort & Spa Hotel in Bali. What is most scandalous is that, despite this fact being well-known to many in the Commission, it somehow did not mean a problem during Koopman’s decades-long carreer.
What is truly sad is that the dispute is not about portfolios and transparency but the gender issue and all this is nothing but an attempt to disattract attention from really important questions. The issue of achieving gender parity in EU’s most powerful body cannot be compared with the distribution of portfolios, moreover, with the issue of transparency in general. While each and every episode of the gender circus takes place in the spotlight of the press, von der Leyen ensures that everything concerning the front-runners’ ongoing vetting procedures, not to mention details regarding new roles such as Commissioner for Defence, would strictly be held behind closed doors. Transparency, as von der Leyen sees it.
