European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has come under fire for allegedly using EU funds for a sympathetic media campaign highlighting her record in the Brussels top job. Legal experts claim that the 65-year-old German Christian Democrat has contravened strict rules on campaign financing while running for a second term in office.
The controversy stems from von der Leyen’s use of Commission funds to publicise the supposed achievements of her presidency, including a 56-page colour booklet documenting her role in various crises such as COVID, Ukraine, and in legislating for the EU’s Green Agenda.
The decision to print the publication using taxpayer money—coincidentally a week before von der Leyen formally began her reelection—bid was called into question by Associate Professor in Political Science Giulia Sandri who labelled the decision “ethically questionable behaviour, albeit politically understandable” by von der Leyen’s team.
Von der Leyen has been in office since 2019 when she was elected with the backing of the centrist European People’s Party (EPP) faction within the European Parliament. Since the start of her presidency, she has been mired in crisis after crisis, with the German politician coming under particular attack for her handling of the EU’s disastrous vaccine rollout. Her text messages with Pfizer officials are still under lock and key away from media and institutional scrutiny.
Heavily criticised during her stint as German Defense Minister for radically undermining Berlin’s military preparedness, von der Leyen now faces a power struggle within her EPP political group in Parliament for her ironclad commitment to green policies, often to the detriment of rural voters.
Very few of these policy mistakes were mentioned in the glossy document published by the EU’s Directorate-General for Communication at their office in Luxembourg, with von der Leyen’s team keen to highlight her performance during the pandemic as well as her green credentials. While the EU has defended the use of EU resources, saying that it falls under the standard promotional remit for a Commission President, many journalists have taken exception to Brussels funding being used for what could qualify as partisan campaigning, considering the tight rules on MEPs.
Despite escalating asylum numbers, the von der Leyen press team commends their boss for rolling out “robust and fair migration and asylum management” through the much-lambasted EU Asylum and Migration Pact, with zero mention of the record refugee numbers reaching the bloc in 2023 alone.
Additionally, while the booklet lauds the von der Leyen Commission for directing funding to farmers to prepare for “climate events,” there is zero mention of the Europe-wide farmers’ protests triggered by the EU’s green policies on Ukraine and green austerity.
Not surprisingly, von der Leyen’s focus on alleged “rule-of-law” violations in Hungary got a sympathetic page in the booklet, with no mention of the new Polish Europhile government’s clampdown on its opponents done with the backing of Brussels and friends.
The overall legality of the booklet has also been questioned, given the EU’s harsh impartiality rules. European Union Law Professor Alberto Alemanno cited Article 10 of the EU’s Code of Conduct of Commissioners, which expressly prohibits “using the Commission’s human or material resources for activities linked to the electoral campaign.”
A greater insight into the production and manpower used for the production of the booklet was given by Commission communications advisor Michael Bruton who praised his “great colleagues who have dedicated long hours and weekends to bring all of this content together.”
Rather ironically, von der Leyen could be in breach of her very own campaign rules, launched in January, that expressly ban the use of EU resources for reelection campaigns, as well as careful ethical guidelines on using official social media accounts for campaigning.
Answering media questions about the ethics and timing of the brochure Monday morning, Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer was quick to contextualise the publication as part of the EU’s information policy and said that other senior Eurocrats could avail themselves of a similar service.
The publication of the booklet comes days before her reselection as the EPP’s candidate in Romania this week with Commissioners traditionally being raked over the coals for violations of strict impartiality rules around conflict of interests and national biases.
Commission President von der Leyen’s press team did not respond to questions from The European Conservative at the time of publication.
