Charles Michel slams von der Leyen: ‘She’s not doing her job’

Former President of the European Council Charles Michel on the eve of the annual performance Ursula von der Leyen in the European Parliament gave an extremely harsh assessment of her work: according to him, the head of the European Commission “does not correspond to the scale of the tasks” facing Europe today.

Michel spoke on the podcast “Quel monde” French-language RTL. His words are also quoted ERTNews.

The former Prime Minister of Belgium and head of the European Council from 2019-2024 said that the current European Commission spends too much energy on “superficial communication”rather than demonstrating the necessary political ambition in the face of geopolitical and economic challenges.

“This European Commission presidency does not correspond to the scale of the tasks.”

‘Overwhelming responsibility’ for Europe’s weakness

Michel spoke particularly harshly about the EU’s trade relations with the United States under Donald Trump.

He described the weakness he believes Europeans have shown as “sad” and said the European Commission is responsible for it “absolutely overwhelming responsibility”.

We are talking, among other things, about the trade agreement that von der Leyen and Trump reached in the summer of 2025 in Scotland.

According to joint statement of the EU and the USAWashington has set maximum tariff rates for most European goods at 15%while the European Union agreed to eliminate tariffs on American manufactured goods and provide preferential access to a number of agricultural products.

It was the asymmetry of this agreement that many critics within the EU called a concession to Washington.

Athens News previously examined in detail the terms of the EU-US deal and its consequences for the European economy.

As an example – Canada

In contrast to the current course of the European Commission, Charles Michel cited the position of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In his opinion, Canada is demonstrating a more independent international approach and showing Europe the direction in which it should move.

At the same time, Michel admitted that under von der Leyen the European Commission has made some progress, in particular in climate policy.

However, the general conclusion of the former head of the European Council remained the same: The European Union, in his opinion, is again missing the point.

Old enmity or systemic criticism?

The harshness of the statement is especially noticeable given the difficult relationship between Michel and von der Leyen during the period of their collaboration.

The most famous episode was the so-called Sofagate in Ankara in 2021: during a meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the chair next to the Turkish president went to Michel, while von der Leyen had to take a seat separately.

This episode later turned into a serious institutional and media conflict.

Michel himself now claims that his criticism is not dictated by personal hostility. According to him, such assessments of the activities of the European Commission are heard much more widely today.

Why was the announcement made now?

On September 16, Ursula von der Leyen will deliver her annual State of the European Union speech in Strasbourg. European Parliament confirms that the speech will focus on key challenges and EU plans for the coming year.

Among the main topics expected are Ukraine, defense, trade relations, competitiveness, climate policy, protection of minors on the Internet and the use of frozen Russian assets.

A separate and extremely important topic is the future EU budget for 2028–2034.

The European Commission proposes a budget of almost 2 trillion eurosas well as new sources of the EU’s own revenues and changes in the principles of distribution of funds between countries. European Commission project has already become the subject of difficult negotiations between member states.

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