Right-wing lawmakers in Berlin are set to confront the Commission president over what they view as excessive EU power and regulation in a closed-door meeting Monday.
BERLIN — German conservatives are preparing to confront European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with a stark ultimatum: Rein in Brussels control and red tape or face a new push to curb the Commission’s powers.
Von der Leyen is set to attend a gathering of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives in Berlin on Monday, where the group plans to face her with tougher demands on fast-tracking cuts to what they see as burdensome EU regulations weighing on German businesses, two of the lawmakers told POLITICO.
Drafts of a new strategy paper by the conservative parliamentary group, which were obtained by POLITICO, lay bare the increasingly hardball tactics German lawmakers are deploying to get what they want in Brussels. The most recent draft dated last Thursday, titled “agenda for sustainable reduction of bureaucracy at EU level,” included a list of 27 demands directed at the Commission.
One proposed measure included in Thursday’s draft is to put the EU executive under the supervision of an oversight body that would wield a “fundamental veto right over any new legislation proposed by the European Commission.”
The draft strategy paper suggests establishing this oversight body either as a new entity at the European level or by expanding the competencies of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, which currently serves as an advisory body to the Commission. However, such an overhaul of the EU’s institutional setting would likely require a change to the European treaties.
Another proposed measure calls on the European institutions to “adopt a more restrictive interpretation of their powers,” and to consider scaling back their activity more broadly by “cutting staff numbers in the European institutions.”
Until recently, von der Leyen and Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party — ideological counterparts in the European People’s Party — often saw eye to eye on the need to boost competitiveness and slash regulation. But the conservative pressure tactics in Berlin show how the Commission president’s ostensible German allies are now losing patience with what they see as the slow pace of reforms.
The push comes as Merz and his governing conservatives face a growing urgency to fulfill their election promises to revive Germany’s long-struggling economy by undertaking sweeping reforms, including cutting regulations both at home and in Brussels. But so far their efforts have largely failed. Last week, the German government slashed its 2026 growth forecast by half, as the economy faces additional headwinds amid the fallout from the war in Iran.
Struggling to impose sweeping domestic reforms with his center-left coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party, the chancellor has increasingly taken his ire out on Brussels.
“This EU Commission machine just keeps going on and on and on,” said Merz at a September business event in Cologne. “Let me put it in somewhat vivid and figurative terms: We need to throw a spanner in the works of this machine in Brussels now, so that it stops.”
A proposal in an earlier draft of the conservative strategy paper went even further than the latest version, threatening the EU’s purse strings by making member countries’ budget contributions conditional on the Commission’s success in cutting regulation. That proposal — which was likely deemed too radical — has since been dropped.
For its part, the EU’s executive arm has attempted to cut back on regulations by putting forward a series of omnibus packages meant to simplify existing laws, especially regarding the Commission’s Green Deal. However, the German conservatives argue those measures are far from enough.
Von der Leyen already clashed with capitals over cutting red tape ahead of the February EU summit in Alden Biesen. After Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz blamed Brussels’ regulations for the EU’s poor economic performance, the Commission president pointed the finger back at the member countries instead.
“We must also look at the national level, there is too much gold-plating — the extra layers of national legislation that just make businesses’ lives harder and create new barriers in our single market,” she said at the time.
But according to the conservatives’ draft strategy paper from Thursday, these Commission initiatives are thus far “unsatisfactory in terms of both scope and speed.”
The latest draft is near completion and reflects the results of the second round of internal consultations within conservative parliamentary group in the Bundestag, during which all relevant working groups are able to propose amendments.
For it to become official conservative policy in the Bundestag, the parliamentary group will still have to formally vote on the final draft, which is expected to take place on Monday, a senior CDU source told POLITICO.
This article has been updated. Rasmus Buchsteiner contributed to this report.