The changes at the top of the Commission, introduced when von der Leyen started her second term in December 2024, reflect a broader political shift away from environmental topics \u2014 the Green Deal having been a key part of her first term \u2014 toward business and defense. The Commission now has its first commissioner dedicated to defense issues, while\u00a0many European governments have shifted to the political right.<\/p>\n
As a result, said Sven Harmeling, head of climate at civil society organization CAN Europe, \u201csometimes it\u2019s not clear which DGs [directorates-general, or departments] are involved,\u201d which \u201ccreates challenges in terms of understanding where some of the discussions are.\u201d<\/p>\n
One Brussels-based consultant who represents corporate clients, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said: \u201cI think the structure [problem] is a Green Deal issue\u201d rather than one that affects industry or other areas, adding that in their specialist area of health, \u201cthings have not changed that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about Internal Market Commissioner St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9\u2019s meetings with businesses, a member of his team said bluntly: \u201cThe fact that the commissioner in charge of the industry is meeting primarily the industry representatives seems a bit self-explanatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who you gonna call?<\/p>\n
The structure that von der Leyen put in place when she secured a second term atop the Commission has six executive vice presidents, who are meant to coordinate and oversee the work of other commissioners (under EU law, all commissioners are supposed to be equal).<\/p>\n
In von der Leyen\u2019s first term it was fairly obvious whom to approach if your focus was climate: Green Deal architect Frans Timmermans and his team. Now, according to Mike Walker, a lobbyist working mainly on climate issues, it\u2019s more ambiguous: Timmermans\u2019 successor, EVP Teresa Ribera, is also responsible for competition policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The changes at the top of the Commission, introduced when von der Leyen started her second term in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,21918,3268,43708,12887,19066,26698,3590,1888],"class_list":{"0":"post-82038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-brussels","10":"tag-equality","11":"tag-european-green-deal","12":"tag-frans-timmermans","13":"tag-hadja-lahbib","14":"tag-lobbying","15":"tag-teresa-ribera","16":"tag-transparency","17":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116570582288834714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}