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In recent years, a succession of crises for the EU has seen an accompanying expansion of the power of the European Commission. The sovereign debt crisis, the refugee crisis, the Brexit vote, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war have all invariably led to an increase in the scope of the Commission’s competences. Has the Commission used these crises as an excuse to forge a more supranational and centralised EU? Or has this merely been a “natural” response to serious crises?
At the centre of this process sits Ursula von der Leyen. She has been particularly active in transforming the EU governance into what Politico once called an almost “US-presidential style understanding of executive power” and garnering von der Leyen the nickname of “Queen Ursula” in Brussels. How has VDL been able to affect this transformation of EU power?
This report shows that this has mostly occurred surreptitiously, through various forms of “competence creep”. In the absence of formal treaty changes, and outside of the realm of democratic debate, we have witnessed a game-changing transfer of sovereignty from the national to the supranational level, at the expense of democratic control and accountability. This is what scholars call “integration by stealth”, “covert integration”, or, in the words of political philosopher Perry Anderson, “the coup”.
This paper demonstrates how the VDL Comission used the Covid-19 and Ukraine crises to enact a creeping transfer of competences from the national to the supranational level through a series of “silent coups”. It further investigates the shift in power dynamics between the Commission and the European Council, and the paradox of how this process has often been promoted by member states themselves, at the expense of their sovereignty. Finally, it raises concerns about the erosion of national sovereignty and democratic accountability that this process has entailed.
