The two top EU officials do not travel together even when they are invited to the same event, they avoid each other, and their associates involved in organizing the trip work under strict instructions to avoid any overlap during the trip, according to Politico.
The disagreements between Michel and von der Leyen are so serious that the two officials block each other’s meetings with foreign officials, and their associates communicate with the other side only when necessary.
Politico reports that one of the most important meetings at the G20 summit will be the meeting between Michel and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which is scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the summit, but Von der Leyen has not been invited as she refused to allow Michel to attend the meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. at the G7 in Germany in June.
The European Commission is the executive body of the Union and it proposes laws. Ursula von der Leyen came to this position from the German government, where she was the Minister of Defense. She was born in Brussels, and her father was a high official of the European Commission.
The leaders of the member states meet in the EU Council, and their mission is to transform the Commission’s proposals into laws that should then be accepted by the members and implemented at home. The President of the Council, Charles Michel, is a former Belgian Prime Minister and the son of former Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel.
Their functions overlap in several spheres, but today, as Politiko points out, there are almost no coordination meetings of their cabinets, which makes the work of the Commission and the Council difficult.
In the beginning, according to an official in Brussels, there were minor setbacks and that for the first months they had an afternoon meeting every Monday.
The conflict became public during the visit of Von der Leyen and Michel to Turkey, when the chair for the president of the European Commission was not planned for the meeting with Erdogan, but Michel was.
A few days later, in the European Parliament, von der Leyen used the opportunity to say what she thought about this incident. She said she was “hurt” by the incident, which is a reflection of sexism.
During the height of the incident, which was known to the public as “Sofagate”, Politico points out that it was reported in the media that Michel contributed to the poor relationship by canceling a regular lunch with von der Leyen because of a conflict with the visit of the African head of state, but European Council officials point out that the President of the Commission canceled meetings even before the event in Turkey.
The European Commission points out that the two meet almost every week at various forums, although tete-a-tete meetings have been abandoned.
Almost a year later, a similar incident occurred again.
In February 2022, while shaking hands with African officials, Uganda’s foreign minister walked past von der Leyen and said goodbye to Michel and then to Emmanuel Macron. The French president discreetly suggested to the African politician that it would be good to talk to the President of the Commission, and Michel was left without a particular reaction.
Those unfamiliar with the animosity between the two senior officials were surprised by Michel’s harsh tone when he recently publicly, via the media, accused the Commission of not proposing a cap on the price of natural gas after national leaders called for it at their October summit.
In Brussels, there are private discussions in the corridors about who is more to blame for this situation.
According to Politika, the Biden administration has close relations with von der Leyen’s team, especially regarding the sanctions against Russia, while Michel is “struggling to break through.”
Officials generally agree that both leaders are to blame, Michel for his behavior during incidents like Sofagate and von der Leyen for his tendency to maintain close control at the expense of cooperation.
European officials with whom Politiko spoke concluded that the relationship between the two European institutions has never been at such a low level, and some stated that an “adult” is urgently needed in the institutions.
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