PARIS — The European Union’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is accusing his former boss Ursula von der Leyen of overseeing an “authoritarian drift” during her tenure leading the European Commission.
In a new tell-all book out Wednesday chronicling his time in Brussels and brief stint as France’s prime minister, the 74-year-old said the drift “has increased a notch in the last six years with Ursula von der Leyen, who wants to decide everything.”
Speaking to POLITICO before the book’s release, Barnier said that under von der Leyen, commissioners increasingly behaved like “super technocrats” rather than politicians.
“There isn’t enough listening [in the Commission]. There isn’t enough listening to the people,” he said.
Von der Leyen has long been accused of sidelining critics, promoting allies, governing through close aides and employing a Machiavellian divide-and-rule strategy during her years running the EU’s executive arm, which is made up of representatives from the bloc’s 27 member states.
Barnier singled out excessive regulation and slow progress on integrating capital markets across the EU as major failures of the Commission during the von der Leyen years. The former French prime minister did, however, credit von der Leyen with successfully responding to the crises she faced, which have included the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Though Barnier and von der Leyen belong to the same political family, the conservative European People’s Party, they have bad blood that dates back to the last days of the Brexit negotiations. According to Barnier, von der Leyen sidelined him as talks with then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reached the endgame in 2020.
“I thought it would be normal, after the work I’d done, to be by her side in the last hours. But it was not the case,” he said.
A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment.
Fishy business
Barnier’s book, “What I Have Learnt from You,” mostly chronicles his long political career in Brussels and Paris, though there are brief mentions of his short stint leading France’s government last year.
Barnier lasted just three months in that job, the shortest prime-ministerial tenure in modern French history. With the release of his book, his name is increasingly being mentioned in the French press as a possible, albeit long-shot, contender for the presidency in 2027.
In Brussels, Barnier is best known for his work leading the Brexit task force and his catchphrase aimed at the British: “The clock is ticking.”
As the Brexit deadline neared, Barnier wrote, von der Leyen appeared ready to sacrifice European fishermen in her quest to secure a trade deal with the United Kingdom. He observed that fishing became “a secondary, possibly even marginal” topic for her.
Barnier goes on to describe how he had to get French President Emmanuel Macron to threaten to veto the deal if von der Leyen failed to get an agreement on fishing.
Von der Leyen, he writes, also ignored his departure from the Commission in 2021.
“Decidedly, we do not have the same concept of work and human relationships,” he said.
Barnier, however, praised the EU-U.K. reset agreement signed last month, which will make it easier for British food to be imported and extended the fishing agreement for EU trawlers.
“It’s a good idea, it’s in the common interest. We’ll need to get the details but on fishing it is balanced and correct,” he said.
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