It was a supremely audacious move, even by the standards of Martin Selmayr, whose audacity often seems to know no bounds.
On the day after European Council President Donald Tusk put forward compromise proposals on migration policy in draft conclusions for next week’s EU leaders’ summit, Selmayr, the European Commission secretary-general, issued a rival document — far more sweeping and ambitious — in preparation for a “mini summit” on migration at the Commission this weekend.
And in the EU version of a gloating, post-goal cartwheel routine on the football field, the Commission also issued a slick “note” by its President Jean-Claude Juncker on migration policy, which proved, among other points, that the Council is heavily outnumbered by the Commission when it comes to graphic artists.
Overall, it was a stunning usurpation of the Council’s institutional role as convener of EU summits and, more personally, of the role of Piotr Serafin, Tusk’s chief of staff. Adding to the chutzpah, the Commission noted the document was distributed to prepare for a meeting of EU sherpas. Running such meetings is part of Serafin’s basic job description.
Welcome to another round of Selmayr vs. Serafin: Battle of the Bureaucrats.
They are the right hands of the most powerful men in Brussels. And they keep their own left hands clenched so they can punch each other.
At the center of the latest battle is one of the most difficult issues facing the European Union — mass migration, over which member countries have sharply differing interests and strongly held points of view. Leaders’ reelection prospects, not to mention the very survival of the Schengen common travel area, potentially hang in the balance.
Selmayr, the steamrolling secretary-general, is the closest counsel to Juncker. Serafin, the soft-treading sherpa’s sherpa, fills the same role as chief of staff to Tusk. And together they are the faces of a remarkable institutional rivalry that has been a running sub-plot to some of the biggest crises in EU history: the eurozone meltdown, the migration crisis, Brexit.
The fierce struggle burst into public view again this week as Brussels wrestled once more with the contentious migration question.
After Tusk turned down German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s request to organize a mini-summit of EU leaders ahead of next week’s traditional Council summit, Selmayr saw an opening — and effectively drove a tank through it. Juncker not only put himself forward as host of the gathering, but Selmayr then issued the draft leaders’ statement clearly intended to push aside the traditional Council conclusions proposed a day earlier by Tusk.
Italy reacted furiously to the document on Wednesday, saying it appears to prioritize Merkel’s own domestic political problems on migration over Italy’s longstanding complaint that frontier countries bear too much of a burden in accepting and processing migrants. On Thursday, Merkel shifted into damage-control mode and told Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that the draft text would be ditched. As a result, Conte said that he would attend the mini summit.
Such squabbling within the Brussels bubble typically infuriates leaders in national capitals, and — based on Merkel’s swift willingness to ditch Selmayr’s document — this week’s conflict seemed to be no exception.
“With just a few exceptions, member states … don’t like to see these institutional fights, especially when they take place in public,” said a senior EU diplomat. “But since [the migration crisis of] 2015, many positions have changed and tensions have been rising.”
One of the biggest shifts concerns Tusk himself.
A former Polish prime minister, Tusk has been accused of not paying enough attention to Southern Europe, and of siding with Eastern Europe. A signature example occurred at the peak of the migration crisis, in June 2015, when hours before the start of a crucial European summit on refugees, Tusk posted a tweet appearing to side with hard-line countries like Hungary over frontline countries like Italy.
“No consensus among MS [member states] on mandatory quotas migrants,” he wrote. “Voluntary mechanism only credible with precise & significant pledges by end July.” Diplomats from Italy and several other countries were furious, saying that Tusk preemptively helped torpedo the plan.
Based on this experience, and also sharp criticism from EU leaders who were not included in a March 2015 meeting about the Greek debt crisis, Tusk — with Serafin as his point man — has worked to avoid the appearance of favoring any subset of EU countries over others.
The battles between Selmayr and Serafin are on some levels not a fair fight. Selmayr is a self-declared warrior for the cause of European federalism, which means he has enemies among national governments who see him trying to usurp their power. National leaders often complain that the Commission should remember it works for them not the other way around. There are no such complaints about the Council.
Grenades launched
Merkel’s outreach to Conte seemed to defuse tensions, at least among some EU leaders. But there was no mistaking that the latest shots in the long-running feud across Rue de la Loi have been fired, and there is no putting the grenade back in the launcher.
In a way, it was a throwback to previous years, when Selmayr and Serafin, serving as proxies for their bosses, clashed repeatedly for control — and later for credit — as the EU navigated a series of storms, including the Greek debt crisis, and the opening stages of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
Among the many examples was Selmayr’s rush to hire Michel Barnier as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator amid fears that Council officials were conspiring to take control of the negotiations.
The institutions have also tussled for control of a so-called leaders’ agenda, traded barbs over digital policy, and even bickered back and forth over the precise date on which to schedule a special post-Brexit leaders’ summit in Sibiu, Romania.
But even then, the confrontations were rarely as open and obvious as the one this week, and some officials suggested tensions might be rising as Juncker and Tusk maneuver to seal their legacies before the end of their mandates next year.
Two diplomats noted that it is clear Selmayr intended his draft leaders’ statement to be fully adopted by the Council because otherwise a document agreed by just a handful of leaders would not have the force of EU law.
Selmayr is both feared and admired as the most devastatingly effective EU policy aide in recent memory, but critics say his federalist enthusiasm sometimes creates a blind spot when it comes to the political implications for national leaders — for instance, in inviting only some leaders to a meeting on a topic that is of intense interest to all.
“What the hell?” one EU diplomat said, shaking her head in disbelief. The diplomat noted the quagmire created for her country’s prime minister. “Should he just come without an invitation? Should he request an invitation?”
As is usually the case after inter-institutional tensions boil over into public view, neither Commission nor Council officials wanted to comment on Thursday.
A Commission spokesman, Alexander Winterstein, seemed reluctant even to acknowledge that a draft leaders’ statement had been issued to capitals.
“It is clear that the Commission is helping this process along,” Winterstein said at the Commission’s daily news conference when pressed on the matter. “The president of the Commission is inviting leaders here. What is important to note is that the drafts you are seeing are exactly that, drafts. And what will happen to these drafts will be seen at the end of the process.”
After Merkel’s effort to squash the draft text, one Council official couldn’t help but claim a bit of a victory for Serafin. “It was an error in judgement,” the official said of Selmayr’s document. “It was a very, very serious error in judgement.”
Another EU diplomat, clearly in the spirit of the World Cup, said it is Italy that has come out ahead in this match. “Selmayr: 0, Conte: 1,” the diplomat wrote.
Of course, the final score will only be known when the leaders’ make their decisions on migration policy. Until then, the hard tackling will continue. And there’s bound to be another match before too long.