“A big part of it is the arrogance of power,” the EU official continued. “She mistakenly thought she could get away with everything. So some smaller mistakes are now being used against her.” Like other officials quoted in this article, the EU official was granted anonymity to speak freely about the powerful German politician within the Brussels bubble.
At the heart of the matter, there are two prime forces that could torpedo her in the post-electoral horse-trading.
France — whose relations with Germany are rocky — is still highly ambiguous about its support, probably to extract concessions, though it could spy a late opportunity to rejig the top table. If she passes that potential hurdle of dissent from Paris, she will also have to worry about whether she can secure confirmation from the new-look European Parliament, in which the far-right is likely to be a larger player than today. Even the support from her own center-right European People’s Party looks lukewarm.
The prospect of an upset only seems to be growing after a series of a series of slip ups in recent weeks, stressed EU officials and diplomats. That’s quite a turn-around from the beginning of the year, when she had seemed rock solid.
“Von der Leyen’s periodic missteps, from Pfizergate to her trip to Israel, are taking on new meaning as we get closer to the election,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of law at HEC business school in Paris. “They acquire a pattern.”
“What this boils down to is that we are moving away from TINA – there is no alternative – to a situation which is more fluid, and where we are essentially opening Pandora’s box,” he added.
