Photo: Ursula von der Leyen
Von der Leyen is due to attend a meeting of a group of conservatives led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Monday, writes Politico. The group plans to present her with tougher demands for an accelerated reduction in what they see as burdensome European Union rules that hamper German businesses.
27 demands to the European Commission
The publication emphasizes that the drafts of the conservative faction’s new strategy document that have come into its possession show the increasingly tough tactics German lawmakers are resorting to in order to get their way in Brussels. The latest draft, dated last Thursday and entitled “Agenda for a sustainable reduction of bureaucracy at EU level”, included a list of 27 demands addressed to the Commission.
One of the proposed measures is to place the EU executive under the supervision of a body that would have “the power to veto any new legislative proposal put forward by the European Commission.”
The draft strategy paper proposes to create this oversight body either as a new structure at the European level or by empowering the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, which today acts as an advisory body to the Commission. However, such a restructuring of the institutional structure of the European Union would probably require changes to the European Treaties.
Another measure proposes calling on the European institutions to “interpret their powers more strictly” and to consider reducing their activities more broadly by “reducing the number of staff in European organizations”.
An attempt to turn the tables
Until recently, von der Leyen and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) – ideological allies in the European People’s Party – often agreed on the need to improve competitiveness and reduce regulation. But pressure tactics from conservatives in Berlin show how the Commission President’s supposed allies in Germany are losing patience with the slow pace of reform.
This pressure comes at a time when Merz and the conservatives in power face a growing need to fulfill election promises to revitalize Germany’s long-struggling economy through sweeping reforms, including cutting regulation both at home and in Brussels. So far, however, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Last week, the German government cut its growth forecast for 2026 in half as the economy faces new challenges from the fallout of the war in Iran.
While struggling to push radical reforms at home with her center-left coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party, the chancellor has increasingly taken out her anger on Brussels.
“This European Commission machine just doesn’t stop,” Merz said at a business event in Cologne in September. – Let me put it in somewhat vivid and figurative terms: we have to put a stick in the wheels of this Brussels machine right now to make it stop.”
