Disarray
at European Commission as greenwashing flip-flop triggers doubts about its grip
Center-left
allies briefed against her while far-right opponents celebrated. It’s been
quite a week for Ursula von der Leyen.
June 24,
2025 9:35 pm CET
By Max
Griera and Marianne Gros
https://www.politico.eu/article/european-commission-doubts-ursula-von-der-leyen-press/
BRUSSELS ― A
farcical few days at the European Commission has raised questions about the
communications effectiveness of President Ursula von der Leyen, with
contradictory press statements, evidence of infighting and accusations that she
bowed to external pressure all contributing to the sense of an institution in
disarray.
Friday’s
announcement by spokesperson Maciej Berestecki that “the Commission intends to
withdraw” a proposed greenwashing law sent shockwaves through EU politics ―
outraging centrist political groups who had supported von der Leyen's
leadership bid and prompting some of her colleagues to brief against her.
In the hours
after the announcement, commission officials claimed behind the scenes that the
EU executive would not, in fact, withdraw the bill as long as the European
Parliament and the Council ― which is composed of national governments ― agreed
to exempt small businesses from complying. Yet spokespeople doubled down on
their statement to the contrary later that same day.
The public
outcry from the Socialists and the liberals, who accused von der Leyen of
yielding to the political demands of her own European People's Party, as well
as, crucially, forces from the far right who have always hated the law,
triggered a frenzy of phone calls over the weekend. Those twists and turns
ultimately led to the Commission's officially backtracking on Monday.
"If
microenterprises are exempted from the scope of the directive, we will not
withdraw it," Berestecki said.
On Tuesday
officials also let it be known that von der Leyen never wanted the law canceled
in the first place, despite one of her Socialist executive vice-presidents,
Teresa Ribera, appearing to express frustration with the turn of events and
seeing the need to lobby internally to try to salvage it, according to
officials. She even made a less-than-subtle plea on social media.
What is not
clear ― and what no one seems to want to answer ― is whether the fiasco was a
genuine communications error or, as many observers believe, the result of
confused politics, or at least shock over the unintended consequences those
politics triggered. In private, whispers abound that communications officials
are being made the fall guys for bad decisions by those in power, but no one
will go close to saying that on the record.
On Tuesday
evening, Commission spokesperson Stefan De Keersmaecker didn't directly answer
a POLITICO question on whether there had been a communications error, and said
that fellow spokesperson Paula Pinho's "explanations clarify our position
quite well."
Those
comments, made on Monday, were that the Commission will "wait until the
next inter- institutional discussion" on the law and see if the Parliament
and the Council agree to exempt very small businesses from the scope of the
law. If so, the Commission would reconsider its position. This was a
"suggestion" and not, as was said on Friday, an
"intention," according to her remarks.
As for
Berestecki, he was unrepentant. "It is not something that we did not want
to say or we wanted to avoid saying," he told POLITICO on Tuesday night.
"We did not say it explicitly on Friday but, in my view, this can be
understood from my statement. You can interpret it in this way. Then on Monday,
when discussing this matter with journalists during [the] midday [Commission
press briefing], Paula [Pinho] said it explicitly."
The Italian
angle
The
uncertainty over what the Commission was up to led national diplomats and
European Parliament lawmakers to spread a theory ― which at this stage no one
seems able to prove and which the Commission vehemently denies ― that von der
Leyen was in cahoots with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The idea was
that when von der Leyen visited Meloni in Rome last week she pushed Italy to
cancel its support for the law, thereby taking the pressure off the Commission.
Italy has indeed done so ― making the law even less likely to become a reality
― but everyone denies von der Leyen had a hand in it.
What the
incident has undoubtedly done is to set off fireworks in all sorts of different
directions. It has raised serious concerns about von der Leyen’s grip on power;
triggered one-time allies and her own commissioners to move against her; and
emboldened the far right, which last week celebrated the apparent axing of the
greenwashing law.
The missteps
and confusion of the past few days seem to have let a genie out of the bottle.
Whether it's a matter of negotiations over climate rules or the EU's
seven-year-budget, politics in Brussels is heating up.
This article
has been updated.
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