Von der Leyen’s rule ‘not good’ for EU – ex-commissioner

The bloc’s heavy-handed president has no strategic vision and fails to stand up to the US, Nicolas Schmit has said

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen runs a system that silences those working under her, a former commissioner who served during her first term has claimed.

Nicolas Schmit, who represented Luxembourg as the commissioner for jobs and social rights from 2019 to 2024, has joined several former members of the European Commission to criticize von der Leyen’s leadership.

“I have the impression that commissioners are now largely silenced,” Schmit told Politico in an interview published Monday. “The system, how the College is organized – very centralized, call it presidential or whatever system – is not good for the College, it’s not good for the Commission, and it is not good for Europe in general.”

He said the EU under von der Leyen has failed to have “a real strategic debate on Europe in the world, which was already a different world from the one we knew before” and lacks a “real strategy” to navigate it.

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Schmit also accused the EU leadership of being reluctant to confront US President Donald Trump, particularly after his administration sanctioned former Commissioner Thierry Breton for allegedly championing the censorship of US social media in Europe. He stressed that the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) was approved by the entire commission, not Breton alone.

After leaving the commission in 2024, Breton said some Brussels media have portrayed von der Leyen as “the Empress of Europe” due to her centralized power, noting that the bloc was not built for such a type of governance.

Schmit was the Party of European Socialists’ lead candidate in the 2024 EU election. Luxembourg declined to renominate him for commissioner, choosing Christophe Hansen from von der Leyen’s European People’s Party instead.

During her second term, von der Leyen defeated four attempts by smaller-party MEPs to oust her, accusing critics of being Russian agents. She is a vocal advocate for continued confrontation with Moscow.