Ursula von der Leyen’s second term from hell

BRUSSELS — She ain’t seen nothing yet. 
Ursula von der Leyen last week returned from her summer holidays to prepare for a second term at the top of the European Commission. Hopefully she had a good rest as the next five years promise to be more challenging than her first term.
For while her initial five years had the pandemic and war in Ukraine, her second term will have that same war plus a new U.S. president — and you can ramp up the uncertainty to the max if it’s Donald Trump — and an empowered far right across Europe. 
“The next five years will be a political minefield,” said one senior EU official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the European Commission president. “Within that, she will have to make key decisions on the future of the European Union and its budget, while handling the war in Ukraine and the U.S. election.”
No matter the direction you look, there are problems for von der Leyen. 
The European Parliament is more fragmented than ever. Around the table at the European Council — the bloc’s 27 leaders — sit several who are right-wing and/or openly hostile to von der Leyen, and that number could grow (hallo Austria this year and bonjour Marine Le Pen in 2027).
The war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating (and neither does the conflict in the Middle East) while the United States is hesitating about continuing to provide funding to Kyiv. Trump could well win the U.S. election in November.  
Meanwhile, Brussels is gearing up for a bitter battle over its finances as it struggles to fund both its increasing defense expenditure and the green transition. During the next five years, von der Leyen will also have to prepare the bloc for future enlargement. As part of that process, the 449 million people currently in the European Union will have to remain convinced — or be convinced — that the future of the EU does not just lie in Paris or Warsaw, but also in Kyiv, Chişinău and Podgorica.
During the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis, von der Leyen “showed she has the balls” to steer the bloc through tough times, another EU diplomat stressed. 
Still, “we’re in for a rocky ride,” a senior EU diplomat said of the next von der Leyen term.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, a European lawmaker who was a commissioner during von der Leyen’s first term, said the “second term might be much more challenging actually than the first one” as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine gave von der Leyen the room to maneuver in a way that the coming challenges might not. 
“The international environment for the EU is becoming tougher, so therefore the demand on unity and action will be at least on a similar scale [than] what we saw the last five years,” said Nicolai von Ondarza, a political scientist at the German Institute for International & Security Affairs. 
In the European Council, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, normally the twin engine that drives the bloc forward, are politically weakened following their defeats in the European Parliament election. Both are also trying to keep the far right at bay domestically. 
Other key, stable leaders, such as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, will no longer be around the European Council table, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is too domestically preoccupied to pull his weight on the European stage. 
This provides the opportunity for von der Leyen “to be a leader,” one EU diplomat said, adding that she has the political instincts to listen to others and then pitch ideas at the right political moment. 
The changed dynamics provide both an opportunity and a challenge to von der Leyen: Does she step into the power vacuum or stumble because of the new challenges awaiting her? 
Von der Leyen’s controlling and distant leadership style has annoyed leaders and their representatives in Brussels, who often felt taken aback by her rapid decision-making process. With populist and nationalist forces raging against Europe’s political mainstream, European heads of state and government risk becoming more nervous and less predictable in the decision-making process. Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán doesn’t shy away from undermining the bloc from within and hopes to gain more allies both in the bloc and outside, for example with a potential second Trump presidency. 
The poisonous relationship von der Leyen had with European Council President Charles Michel can only improve with his successor, former Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, with whom von der Leyen has an excellent working relationship.
Brussels is hopeful the duo will emulate the successful working relationship the first European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, established with former Commission President José Manuel Barroso between 2009 and 2014. “There were tensions between Van Rompuy and Barroso as well, but they always managed to keep them behind closed doors,” said another EU official. The duo steered the EU through the financial crisis, with both leaders working side by side to keep the bloc united amid grave pressure on the euro area. 
In the European Parliament, things look even trickier. The centrist forces — von der Leyen’s European People’s Party, the Socialists, the liberals of Renew and the Greens — managed to come together to back von der Leyen for another term as Commission president. But the fragmentation and shift to the right of the Parliament mean von der Leyen and her team will have to work hard to convince European lawmakers to get new legislation through. 
In the next five years, von der Leyen will have to get the EU ready for the future, by making sure it has enough money and by preparing it for becoming bigger.
The bloc’s capitals are deeply divided over what their top priority should be: bolstering their arms industry in the face of an ever-more belligerent Russia, scaling up green investments to reach climate goals, or enabling industry to keep competitive amid pressure from Washington and Beijing. Roughly two-thirds of the EU’s budget is spent subsidizing the agriculture industry and infrastructure projects in Europe’s poorest regions. Changing that would be “like opening Pandora’s box,” one senior EU diplomat said.
The negotiations over the EU’s trillion-euro-or-so seven-year budget are always fierce battles, as every figure has to be agreed by all 27 governments. Last time, the talks culminated in a five-day marathon summit of leaders. This time, EU leaders will have to agree on the next seven-year budget for the period between 2028 and 2034. This will require key decisions on finding money for the EU’s help to Ukraine’s war effort and the green transition while also preparing the bloc’s finances for upcoming enlargement. The discussions are thus set to be even thornier than before.  
This will be the crunch moment, another EU official said. “In her first term, she was the crisis manager. Now, she has to make sure the EU remains relevant by fixing the budget and getting the bloc ready for enlargement. These internal reforms have a tendency to break European politicians.” 
The battle on the bloc’s finances is linked to another key challenge for von der Leyen’s second term: preparing the bloc to widen from 27 to potentially 36 countries. Ukraine is the most high-profile of the countries hoping to join, with von der Leyen and Michel trying to outperform each other by being Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s best friend in Brussels. 
“The Commission will be in the driver’s seat, but it has never conducted accession negotiations under such a difficult geopolitical environment,” said von Ondarza, the political scientist.
Now, the hope dangled before millions of people in Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans has to be transformed into serious negotiations about money, reforms and timelines — and that will take a long time. 
Reflecting on the upcoming decisions on enlargement, another EU diplomat said: “This is where things get messy, and potentially nasty.” 
Nicholas Vinocur contributed reporting. 
Correction: This article has been updated to correct a misspelling of José Manuel Barroso.