The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s second term in office has just begun. It will unfold within a political landscape that’s dramatically shifted since she was first elected in 2019: a change reflected in the composition and responsibilities of the 26 commissioners who have been nominated by their national governments, and who will oversee specific policy areas.
“There’s no question that issues around democracy and the rule of law are not one of Ursula von der Leyen’s main priorities. She wasn’t very visible or vocal on these issues in the last Commission, and left most of the heavy lifting on them to the Commissioners responsible for them. The progress that was made was largely due to pressure from the European Parliament, where there was agreement across pro-European parties that rule of law and democracy were a red line.
The rightward tilt in the European Parliament’s composition means that the centre-right will be tempted to make alliances with the far right in search of a majority. These far-right MEPs are notoriously skeptical of the EU’s rule of law agenda. Consequently, in terms of the Parliament’s influence on the next Commission’s agenda, you would expect that protecting civic space will be less of a priority.”
Does the new Commission have the political stomach to fight for the rule of law?
The modus operandi of the Commission in the past has been to avoid political fights over the rule of law. What is certain is that the bureaucratic mechanisms that the EU is very good at will continue.
The Annual Rule of Law report will carry on.
The Article Seven hearings, which have been going on for six years and which in theory can strip Hungary of its EU voting rights for being in ‘serious and persistent breach of EU values’, will also continue (fruitlessly, sadly).
The EU Council also has its own rule of law monitoring system. These can descend into absurdity at times though. We recently had a Council meeting about rule of law failures in a number of countries including Hungary, which was chaired by Hungary in its current role as president of the Council.
These bureaucratic mechanisms and monitoring systems that the Commission has set up will continue, but whether the Commission has the political stomach for a fight on any of these issues remains to be seen. It is telling that its most significant sanctions, the billions of EU funds withheld from Hungary over rule of law concerns, were partly relaxed in return for Hungary lifting its veto on funding for Ukraine.”
Blowback for civic space
In von der Leyen’s previous major speeches, defending democracy is always synonymous with external rather than internal threats, such as Chinese or Russian influence operations. This one-sided view of the threats to our democracies comes with potential blowback for civic space. We saw this when von der Leyen unveiled her signature Defence of Democracy package, and the main legislation within it, the Transparency Act.
The idea was that any organisation that is perceived to be acting in the interests of foreign governments outside the EU will have to register for reasons of transparency. This means in practice, because money is seen as a proxy for influence, that many civil society organisations which receive funding from the US, UK or elsewhere will need to register.
This seems benign. But we’ve seen how these registers can be twisted by other governments, such as Hungary’s or Russia’s, and used to stigmatise civil society organisations as essentially being foreign agents.
So the attempt to defend democracy from external threats can actually damage and weaken civic space within the EU.
Paying lip service to human rights
In von der Leyen’s first term as President, her worldview was formed mainly by Covid-19 and the Ukraine war – and the belief that everything is about great power competition and EU security. The belief that it’s now up to the EU to come up with its own security guarantees will be amplified after [Donald] Trump’s election [in the US Presidential election].
In that context, it’s going to be even easier for the EU to overlook human rights abuses and democratic failings in countries it deals with around the world.
We have some evidence for that already in the EU’s scramble to secure gas supplies from countries with poor human rights records like Qatar and Azerbaijan in the immediate aftermath of Russia turning off the gas tap [after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022].
And we see it carrying on today in the very controversial deals the EU has concluded with countries such as Tunisia and Egypt in the Mediterranean, where large sums of money have been handed over to countries with very poor human rights records. Deals are concluded in the name of security and migration management, and only lip service is paid to democracy and human rights.
Funds to fight corruption
A possible opportunity [for civil society] is that there will be more funding for fighting corruption in the EU. The relevant Commissioner has signalled that there will be more funds for national watchdogs and said that the issue is linked to protecting the EU’s financial interests.
Under the last Commission, a lot of money was spent under what’s called NextGenerationEU, a fund which supported Europe’s recovery from the pandemic. It proved to be very vulnerable to fraud: a €600 million fraud scheme was uncovered in Italy earlier this year, for instance.
The hope is that NextGenerationEU is the blueprint for other rounds of EU funding.
But if they’re going to get political support for it, the Commission needs to signal that they’re going to be very tough on fraud and corruption.
Focusing on the cultural roots of mistrust in government and its impact on democracy
Many of the bigger civil society organisations focused to a large extent on policy and legislation during the last Commission. But with the emphasis on defence, security and competitiveness, it’s going to be very tough for organisations to get their policy and legislative agendas through, especially on issues related to human rights, international development, climate or democracy.
Instead, I think we should be looking at working more on cultural issues. One of the biggest is mistrust in political authority, and its impact on democracy.
This flagship democracy initiative for the new von der Leyen Commission is going to be the European Democracy Shield, which is going to focus on stopping the spread of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). There’s going to be a lot of funding for fact checking, media literacy and monitoring foreign disinformation online.
But there are two important prior questions.
Why are people so susceptible to this information? In other words, what is it about their relationship with government and authority that makes them so receptive to conspiracy theories and disinformation, maybe more so now than ever?
Secondly, is the Commission well-placed to do this kind of work?
I think civil society organisations, and to some extent foundations, have much deeper roots in their societies than the Commission or European institutions.
So working on the cultural dimensions of mistrust in government and mistrust in authority, is something that would be very important for the long term health of our democracies.
Stopping burnout in civil society
This is more of a plea to donors than to civil society organisations, but another thing we could focus on is improving CSO’s resilience. They’re coming under increasing strain and external pressure, and there are huge rates of burnout within them.
Organisations have to become more resilient if they’re going to stay the course. We need people to rest, recuperate and come back into the fight.
We see in countries like Hungary, where there’s huge turnover in civil society organisations, people are leaving in droves because they simply don’t have the ability to allow staff a break, something as simple as that.
What that means is that there will have to be a lot of funding for making organisations better adapted to these times, and that requires the kind of open, no strings attached funding that foundations or donors can provide.
The focus can’t just be on getting results or project deliverables, but on investing in the long-term health of organisations.”
