It was less about grabbing power than keeping it.
The move was classic Martin Selmayr — deeply shrouded in secrecy, designed to bulldoze any and all opposition, and catching even some of the most senior EU officials by complete surprise. Only this time, the Machiavellian machinations of President Jean-Claude Juncker’s powerful chief of staff were decidedly personal: springing a vote on European commissioners to install him as secretary-general, the Commission’s top civil service job.
Selmayr has won fame and disdain and spurred envy and fury by deploying ruthless autocracy in the name of European democracy. His sudden election ensures the German lawyer and avowed European federalist will retain a perch at the apex of power in Brussels beyond the end of Juncker’s mandate in 2019 — for as long as he desires, or until a new set of commissioners dares to try to remove him.
Selmayr’s elevation was so sudden that even Juncker seemed not quite sure of the choreography. The Commission president, who rarely holds long press conferences, found himself back in the press room Wednesday to make the announcement just a week after he had been there to present proposals on EU governance.
Selmayr has shown time and again that he would fit in well with the cast of ruthless characters in the political drama “House of Cards.”
“I didn’t know I would be coming back quite so quickly,” Juncker admitted. He also didn’t seem to know the whereabouts of outgoing Secretary-General Alexander Italianer, who was watching the news conference with Selmayr on television.
“Is he not here?” the president asked, searching for him in the audience. “But anyway, I have known him for 25 years.”
The Commission tried to use slicker spin later in the day, sending out a tweet comparing the switch from Italianer to Selmayr to the handover between captains of Star Trek’s starship Enterprise. In doing so, however, the Commission bolstered a widespread belief in Brussels — that Selmayr is its real captain, not Juncker.
One senior EU official referred to another TV series when describing their first reaction to Selmayr’s sudden promotion: “House of Cards life.”
In more than three years as Juncker’s chief of staff, Selmayr has shown time and again that he would fit in well with the cast of ruthless characters in the political drama. He has steamrolled higher-ranking commissioners, blocked legislation, upended negotiations and picked fights with officials from national governments.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Selmayr | European Commission
In the upper-floor suites of the Berlaymont, the Commission’s headquarters, Selmayr’s election as secretary-general and the appointment of his deputy, Clara Martinez Alberola, to succeed him as Juncker’s chief of staff, were regarded as affirmation of the status quo.
“Martin holds all the power in the future,” one senior Commission official said. “And she is deputy in the future as well. Period.”
However, the move gives Selmayr a bigger institutional title and means he is guaranteed to retain influence even after a new Commission takes office following the European Parliament election next year.
“He takes all the power — completely,” said another senior Commission official, who works closely with Selmayr. “But he now has more legitimacy and rules-based authority for using this power.”
“He will secure being the most powerful man in the town for the time being, over the elections over the change of the Commission,” the second senior official said. “Even the president-elect cannot fire him. It needs to be the new Commission at some point if they want to make changes in the senior management.”
Selmayr’s consolidation of power sets the stage for more clashes with the European Council, the body representing the governments of the EU’s member countries. A number of Council officials view Selmayr as poisonous and claim he created a fight in his own mind between the institutions over who would lead the Brexit negotiations, leading to the rushed appointment of Michel Barnier as chief negotiator.
Berlin connection
Selmayr is widely acknowledged as an excellent strategist, making it unsurprising that he was thinking about his next job a year and a half before his current one ends. A senior German official said Selmayr had tried to line up a job as a state secretary — a de facto deputy minister — in the German government but the move did not pan out. A Commission spokesman dismissed this assertion as “nonsense.”
Selmayr has not always enjoyed good relations with Angela Merkel’s chancellery, but German officials acknowledge he has helped Berlin on a variety of issues — including the refugee crisis — and they appreciate having him at the heart of the Brussels bureaucracy.
That link with Berlin, however, also carries risks for Selmayr.
Selmayr will be only the seventh person to hold the secretary-general’s job since it was created in 1957.
Some EU diplomats griped angrily that Selmayr’s election will concentrate too much power in the hands of Germany — already the predominant power in the EU. The secretary-general of the European Parliament, Klaus Welle, is also German, as is Helga Schmid, the secretary-general of the European External Action Service.
One senior EU diplomat, while recognizing Selmayr’s commitment to the Commission, nonetheless complained, “There needs to be a balance of nationalities. Three Germans is too much.”
Selmayr will be only the seventh person to hold the secretary-general’s job since it was created in 1957. The first, Émile Noël, served for 30 years. Italianer, the incumbent who is retiring, has been in the job only since September 2015. His was widely viewed as having little power — largely because of Selmayr’s domineering force and Juncker’s effort to impose a more top-down, politically-driven management system.
Selmayr is now expected to restore the broad authority wielded by Catherine Day, an Irish civil servant who worked in the Commission for 26 years before being named secretary-general in 2005, and then held the top job for a decade.
Selmayr at the European Parliament in Strasbourg | Patrick Seeger/EPA
Unlike his predecessors as secretary-general, Selmayr does not have extensive experience in the upper ranks of any of the Commission’s directorate generals. Day, for instance, led the environment department, while Italianer headed the department for economic and financial affairs, and competition.
But few would expect that to pose any problems for an operator so shrewd that some officials compared his move to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2008 job-switch, when he became prime minister to circumvent the constitutional term limits that prevented him from seeking reelection as president.
Matthew Karnitschnig, Florian Eder, Maïa de La Baume, Jacopo Barigazzi and Ryan Heath contributed reporting.