by Paolo Valentino
The coldness between the two highest offices of the European Union, Commission and Council President, has persisted since the time of the rudeness in Erdogan’s chair. But in this way the Union, which should have appeared united, appears divided
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping will be the protagonists of the G20 that will open tomorrow in Bali, Indonesia. Both revived by victories of different kinds, the first democratic and unexpected, the other dictatorial and planned in detail, the American President and the Chinese leader are already reviving a bilateral summit where the future of the Indo-Pacific depends on the new hub of the world.
The Indonesian island will also feature a rather battered stone guest, Vladimir Putin, struggling with a serious military and political defeat in Ukraine, who chose not to go to the Asia summit for fear that it would endanger his status as an international pariah visually sanctioned would be the refusal of many to even shake his hand.
And Europe? Well, Europe is ready to do itself harm again, fueling the age-old and still current dilemma of Henry Kissinger asking for his phone number to no avail. Not that we can have any great illusions about the hard power of the European Union in the forums of international governance, from the G7 to the G20, where it usually only plays a role in funding aid and reconstruction projects. But in Bali, the EU is preparing for another political-diplomatic catastrophe, publicly displaying its misery and ridiculous quarrels.
We are talking about how one of the most important bilateral talks on the sidelines of the G20 will be between Xi Jinping and European Council President Charles Michel.
A meeting on the way to Beijing that was crucial in view of the divisions within the Europeans was also disputed on the occasion of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent trip to China, leading a delegation of German entrepreneurs. It is a pity, however, that Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, was not invited to the tête-à-tête. The reason is unbelievable but true: Michel wants to take revenge with her omission because von der Leyen refused at the G7 summit in Elmau, Bavaria, in June to allow the former Belgian Prime Minister to his meeting with Prime Minister Indian Narendra Modi.
Arsenic and old hatred have shaped the relationship between Michel and von der Leyen since the Sofagate times in 2021 at the latest, when in Turkey the “Sultan” Recep Tayyp Erdogan, mindful of the misogynist rites of the Sublime Porte, only placed a chair next to him which Michel very quickly took his place, leaving the dazed President of the Commission with an inch of his nose, who was forced to take his place on a sofa not far away. It took the President of the European Council a few months to apologize.
One hasn’t been well since then. End of the weekly lunchtime rituals, little or no communication between the two employees, information that the Presidency of the Commission refuses or keeps secret about the dossiers until just before the ministerial meetings. Last but not least, the respective offices in Bali have studied the agenda so that the two do not overlap at all.
Now, while there is a structural tension in the EU’s complicated institutional architecture: the Commission proposes, but the Council of Ministers decides where Michel has a coordinating role. Recently, he did not hesitate to send von der Leyen a theoretically confidential but not so mysteriously handed letter reproaching the media for not yet presenting the proposal for a gas price cap, as she had been busy with ministers.
In the previous Commission, however, the tension had been alleviated, if not entirely resolved, by the good personal and professional relationship between Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk. Charles Michel – boundless self-esteem and the greatness of his mentor Macron as a role model – instead suffers from the growing role of von der Leyen, who never misses an opportunity to take on him. At the expense of Europe, which should show itself and act as one, at least through its two highest representatives. Which won’t happen at the G20.
November 14, 2022 (Change November 14, 2022 | 07:31)
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