The Brief – Brace for EU’s Perestroika

Every five years, the EU revamps its institutions. Faced with enormous global challenges, this time, the EU needs to reinvent itself, but instead, we are witnessing a timid Perestroika.

Perestroika was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy reform.

The word Perestroika is difficult to translate. It means “reconstruction”, but in the sense of building something new by using old material. Nobody explained it, but many of us at that time understood that there were going to be reforms, those were unavoidable anyway, but under the same leadership.

Perestroika was a positive development for Russia, but it was messy. In hindsight, we now know that inside this vast country, these reforms were reversed. Arguably, today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin is not better than the USSR under Leonid Brezhnev.

On the other hand, the Russian Perestroika led to irreversible changes in the periphery of the Soviet empire—11 Eastern European countries, three of them former Soviet republics, joined the EU and NATO.

With a big delay, this enlarged EU realised that it had powerful enemies as a geopolitical entity and that, despite its economic weight, it lacked superpower attributes. Until the last day of Angela Merkel’s reign, the EU naively thought such were not needed.

Politicians still believed in the “dividends of peace” until 24 February 2022, when those lost all their value as Putin invaded Ukraine.

When EU heads of state and government gathered to reset the leadership of the EU institutions back in 2019, they were not aware that the world would change that much.

In 2019, Russia and Germany were still building Nord Stream 2 despite sanctions imposed by Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron was receiving Putin at his official summer residence of Bregancon, the then Italian PM Giuseppe Conte was helping mend relations with Moscow, while his coalition partner Matteo Salvini claimed he was feeling like at home in Moscow.

This was the background five years ago, when Ursula von der Leyen was nominated for Commission president and then got narrowly approved by MEPs. If she gets re-elected, this means that the EU heads of state and government, as well as the newly elected MEPs, believe that “staying the course” is enough to preserve the EU from harm’s way.

Von der Leyen takes advantage of the argument that if she is voted down, this would be a present for Putin, Xi Jinping, and even Donald Trump. If MEPs reject her, the EU leaders would need to convene again, propose another candidate, and ensure that their nomination doesn’t get rejected by Parliament for a second time.

That would look like a political crisis and would certainly please the EU’s enemies.

Others reject the view that voting down VDL is a present to dictators, they see such a vote as a recipe for the EU’s democratic renewal. The EU needs such revival under the stewardship of someone new and with a European Parliament that is not a rubber stamp to the Council.

And possibly Putin and Xi would prefer if VDL stayed, because they believe they have been successful against the EU she represents.

Ideally, a visionary Commission president should be able to obtain the absolute majority of votes in Parliament just because of what he or she represents, without backdoor deals, some of them with Eurosceptic forces.

To take but one example: How could VDL deliver on her Green Deal promises, made on the one hand to the Greens, who want it to continue, and on the other, to Giorgia Meloni, who wants it reversed?

We bet that with VDL at the helm again, the EU will likely undergo a messy Perestroika, not a regeneration or renaissance, as some had dreamed.

Many journalists are sceptical about VDL’s chances of bringing success to the EU during her new term. That said, as MEPs cast their votes, many colleagues are crossing their fingers for her re-election. We all booked our holidays and we would hate to change plans.

The Roundup

Read our latest articles analysing Ursula von der Leyen’s speech to the European Parliament today, from a policy perspective,  outlining her aims for the next five years.

Ursula von der Leyen was re-elected as European Commission president on Thursday, after a long speech in the European Parliament where she reached out to the centrist and left-wing parties but excluded the far-right. 

Von der Leyen aims to boost Europe’s competitiveness through tech, implementing existing regulations while boosting investments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday announced she would create a separate portfolio to deal with the Mediterranean, as part of her next team, signalling her next term will pay more attention to the region.

Ursula von der Leyen pledged to guarantee a fair income for European farmers in her address to the European Parliament on Thursday, dealing with one of the main demands emerging from the protests that swept across the EU in early 2024.

Ursula von der Leyen walked a fine line in her speech to the European Parliament plenary on Thursday, signalling support for an enlarged EU budget and looser competition rules whilst remaining vague enough to appease both sides of the political spectrum.

Ursula von der Leyen recommitted to climate action and an accompanying reindustrialisation of Europe, in her re-appointment pitch to the European Parliament, but restricted herself to only positive rhetoric about nature protection.

Von der Leyen aims to boost Europe’s competitiveness through tech, implementing existing regulation while boosting investments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to fight both cyberbullying and addictive design in a speech to the European Parliament ahead of her confirmation vote on Thursday.

In other news:

Amid a Europe-wide slump in 2023 heat pump sales, the industry’s outlook is bleak – putting pressure on the next European Commission to reinvigorate the key sector. 

The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation begins today, mandating Digital Product Passports by 2030 and requiring extensive data management infrastructure across supply chains.

As some 50 European leaders gather in the UK on Thursday under the helm of the European Political Community, it is increasingly clear that the format is struggling to justify its existence

Look out for…

• European Commissioner Janez Lenarčič meets President of the VOICE Pauline Chetcuti
• European Commission Didier Reynders is in Washington DC, US, meeting with Gina Raimondo, US Secretary of Commerce, launching the review of the DPF
• European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič participates in the Critical Raw Materials Summit, in Belgrade, Serbia, alongside Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany, and senior representatives of financial institutions and industry

[Edited by Rajnish Singh/Alice Taylor]