Ursula von der Leyen has begun her second term as European Commission president with a lightning-fast deregulation drive — and almost no one in Brussels knew about it until it was already happening.
Under pressure from right-wing governments, von der Leyen has hinged her second term as president on an agenda of cutting red tape to make Europe’s economy more attractive.
POLITICO spoke with figures across the Brussels policymaking world, from Commission officials at different levels of seniority to national diplomats, European Parliament lawmakers, industry and NGOs.
The picture they paint is of a sweeping, rapid and centralized agenda to “simplify” European Union rules and slash burdensome regulations on businesses large and small, reflecting a rapid shift in priorities away from the environment and toward industrial competitiveness.
From Commission staffers “depressed” to see years of work being speedily undone, to Cabinet officials straining for influence under von der Leyen’s centralized working style, the speed and top-down nature of the new deregulation drive has transparency alarm bells ringing in Brussels.
“When we’re going that fast, how can we be sure we’re getting it right?” said a senior national regulator, who, like others in this piece, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.
All decided at the top
Von der Leyen’s deregulatory push began in November in Budapest, when, following a meeting with European heads of government, she announced a drastic change on green policy that would undo much of the work of her first term.
It’s a goal backed by business groups, EU members including France and Germany, and von der Leyen’s own political family, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP).
Her plan was for an “omnibus” bill that would simplify a collection of laws designed to hold companies to account for environmental and social damages. Von der Leyen insisted the bill would not weaken the laws, but merely streamline them to get rid of unnecessary duplication and paperwork, making the EU a more attractive place to do business — though others warn reopening the files will inevitably lead to them being watered down.
Pretty much no one had been informed. Four Commission officials told POLITICO they learned of the plan — which directly affects their work and which they would be tasked with putting into legislation — from the Budapest speech.
Since then, the “simplification” push has been broadened to include promises of “at least” five omnibus packages in 2025 and the deletion of previous Commission proposals now considered too onerous.
The EU executive has also asked EU countries and the Parliament, who jointly negotiate rules after the Commission proposes them before they are enacted in law, to “consider fast-tracking simplification proposals, without reopening other parts of the legislation.”
“We’re never sure if it’s her, or if it’s her head of Cabinet,” the senior regulator said, referring to von der Leyen’s right-hand man Bjoern Seibert.
“It’s all decided at the top,” a mid-ranking Commission official said. They added that work on the simplification plan largely paused while von der Leyen was hospitalized with pneumonia in January — a fact the Commission was criticized for refusing to disclose.
One national diplomat said the lack of information, and the fact that the Commission’s announced plans kept changing scope, range and timeline, creates a “clear credibility issue.”
Culture of secrecy
Commission officials at different levels said they are less informed than under the previous mandate, with internal planning documents filled with blank sections for the most political policies and emails containing key policy documents now password-protected.
When key documents outlining the Commission’ future policy plans leaked, they were missing the parts on the simplification agenda.
A leak of the Commission’s 2025 work plan had a blank section instead of detailing which EU rules were on its kill list — a list of legislative proposals to be withdrawn almost always used for obsolete laws that have been replaced by fresh rules.
Another leak, outlining the EU executive’s future plans for simplification, had a blank space where details of the green finance “omnibus” should have been. Two Commission officials said they did not know whether the blanks were to block lower-level staffers from seeing the plans, or because von der Leyen’s circle didn’t know yet what would be included.
The plans for slashing legislation are clearly changing quickly. A leak of the Commission’s kill list the day before official publication showed that financial data access rules, or FiDA, currently under negotiation would be withdrawn, but a day later that proposal was absent from the kill list at official publication, meaning it is still on the table, at least for now.
Two EU officials said the move to withdraw FIDA was due to banks lobbying von der Leyen directly, while a third said “internal wrangling” at the top level of the Commission resulted in the proposal being removed from the kill list. Lower-ranking officials working on FIDA had no idea it would be pulled before the leak.
In an interview with POLITICO in January, French Socialists and Democrats (S&D) member of the European Parliament Aurore Lalucq, who chairs the Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, said MEPs were left out of the loop about what was coming from the Commission. She said it is “not the best way to work” and that the Commission should “work together” with other institutions rather than keeping them in the dark.
On Jan. 21, von der Leyen met with the chairs of EPP, S&D, Renew, and Greens to talk about competitiveness in the wake of Trump, especially about the upcoming omnibus bill that is supposed to cut down on EU bureaucracy and boost European industry. According to three senior group officials, von der Leyen proposed strengthening the Commission’s dialogue with the four political families before the bill’s presentation on Feb. 26, “to ensure that a parliamentary majority stands strong behind a key law, basically avoiding chaos as like with [the] deforestation [regulation],” one of the officials said, adding that “the idea was for relevant MEPs to work with DGs to see what are the main lines each group wants to include.”
Yet, according to one of the officials, the Commission did not formally reach out to Parliament to talk about the omnibus until Tuesday. “Three weeks ago von der Leyen promised to work with Parliament, and as of this morning we had received nothing,” the official said.
MEPs and NGOs working on sustainability files have echoed those concerns. The Greens group said it was “alarmed” when it found out about the first omnibus, flagging its “rushed process and timeline” which “goes against the principles of good governance and is inherently undemocratic.”
Trade unions, green finance groups and environmental NGOs have also cried foul, arguing that the omnibus cutting green reporting rules will represent the interests of industry too heavily and hasn’t followed a proper consultation process.
Move fast and break things
But for all the critics, von der Leyen’s push for a more agile method of agreeing EU laws has its fans.
Jean-Paul Servais, head of global securities watchdog IOSCO, said the EU is moving fast because it’s an emergency, telling POLITICO: “In wartime, speed is maybe the most important aspect.”
European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde co-authored an op-ed in the Financial Times with von der Leyen in praise of the deregulatory push, arguing that there is “too much at stake” for the EU to “squander our strengths with self-imposed handicaps.”
The op-ed pointed to the “unprecedented simplification effort” as part of a “wave of actions” designed to help the EU economy keep pace with its rivals, promising to “do whatever is necessary to bring Europe back on track.”
But as the first senior Commission official said, the EU executive is “only one player in this game,” arguing that EU governments and MEPs often water down legislative proposals in negotiations.
“If they want ambition, we give them ambition. But then they have to be ambitious.”
Marianne Gros, Giovanna Faggionato and Max Griera contributed reporting in Brussels and Strasbourg.
The post How von der Leyen blindsided Brussels with her deregulation drive appeared first on Politico.
