Great Expectations, Structural Limitations: Ursula von der Leyen and the Commission's New Equality Agenda

Exactly 40 years ago, Simone Veil was elected as the first female President of the European Parliament … I can say with great pride that we finally have a female candidate for European Commission President. I am that candidate thanks to all the men and women who have broken down barriers and defied convention. I am that candidate thanks to all the men and women who built a Europe of peace, a united Europe, a Europe of values. It is this belief in Europe that has guided me throughout my life and my career – as a mother, as a doctor and as a politician. It is the courage and daring of pioneers such as Simone Veil that are at the heart of my vision for Europe. Ursula von der Leyen (2019a). Ursula von der Leyen's election as the European Commission's first woman president in July 2019 confirms the fundamental transformation of the Union, as well as its politics and policies since the 1950s. Her first speech to the European Parliament invoked ‘A Union that strives for more’, promising to make gender equality a key component of her agenda (von der Leyen, 2019b). She generated great expectations by declaring that her Commission would consist of equal numbers of women and men, a plan immediately thwarted by two member states refusing to designate female nominees. Consisting of 12 women (44 per cent) and 15 men, the new Commission fall just short of parity, but her simultaneous appointment of the EU's first Commissioner for Equality, coupled with a new Gender Equality Strategy launched in March 2020 (marking International Women's Day and the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Action Platform), indicates that this Christian Democratic mother of seven is serious about advancing women's descriptive and substantive representation, by claiming a leadership position for herself, for the Commission and for the EU. Limited to an analysis of her ‘first 100 days’, this study focuses on the new President's promises to ‘complete, deepen and enlarge’ the EU gender equality domain not only in relation to substantive policies but also with regard to European institutions per se. We argue that von der Leyen has already recognized the gendered nature of leadership, linking it to more gender-inclusive policy ambitions and leadership requirements. Changes in policy performance can also affect wider perceptions of the EU's democratic legitimacy at a critical juncture. The new President will certainly face significant political-institutional obstacles. Member states inevitably place national interests above supranational politics in times of crisis, but crises also present great opportunities for exercising different kinds of leadership; Commission presidents can operate as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ by way of their agenda-setting power for the EU at large (Tömmel, 2013, 2019; Müller, 2017, 2020). What kind of difference could a female President make as a pro-active leader? Von der Leyen's effectiveness at the national level provides grounds for feminist optimism, but her chances of turning her ambitious equality agenda into measurable policy outcomes are qualified by our second argument: structures matter when it comes to judging how leadership can be effectively exercised, but so do fundamental differences dividing decision makers at the national and EU levels. Each Commission sets its own goals and work-plan for advancing European integration, but von der Leyen will encounter significant challenges, owing to a fragmented European Parliament, a polarized Council, and new fault lines within the Commission itself. These arguments fuel our efforts to incorporate a gendered leadership perspective as well. Having pursued national interests for 14 years, von der Leyen must undertake a supranational U-turn in order to champion European interests. This raises the question as to whether leadership skills accumulated at one level will automatically transfer to a multi-level governance framework. The ability to lead derives from a combination of personal skills, the institutional context and policy-specific factors; little EU scholarship has focused on leadership per se, much less on its gender dimensions. Prior to 2019, women accounted for 35 of 183 Commissioners, less than 20 per cent of the total across seven decades – hardly a women-friendly organization in relation to descriptive representation (Hartlapp et al., forthcoming). Leading in transitional times is particularly demanding: ‘great ambitions’ not only raise great expectations but also greater national resistance to change. Concentrating on the transitional 100-day period, we raise the question: Would it be better for Ursula von der Leyen to aim very high, in hopes of achieving more, or should she avoid undermining her own credibility, and that of future women leaders, by overshooting the mark with promises she cannot keep? We first consider gendered leadership, von der Leyen's successful transformation of the German gender regime, and potential disadvantages linked to her controversial nomination. Next we address the ‘great expectations’ she has raised, based on the bold promises of the 2020 Gender Equality Strategy, then zoom in on political-structural limitations inherent in multi-level governance. Finally, we address the imbalance between these great expectations and structural constraints, concluding with reflections on the proverbial ‘glass half-full/half-empty’ conundrum. Assessments of European governance from a leadership perspective are fairly new; even more rare are investigations of gendered leadership across all EU institutions, given women's lack of critical mass outside the European Parliament until 2019. Critical mass is linked to positional leadership, while the gendered way in which it is exercised centres on behavioural leadership (Müller and Tömmel, forthcoming), At issue is the link between descriptive and substantive representation: Will more women in power produce a reconfiguration of policies essential for gender equality? Establishing a correlation between the two is not a simple process in a multi-level system. In terms of symbolic representation, the first female President is certainly an important expression of the EU's ambition for stronger gender equality. The EU involves a ‘gender-specific environment moulded by “masculinist” norms and expectations’ (Sykes, 2014, p. 691), forcing us to ‘unpack’ the role of gendered agency across all institutions, at all levels, to determine how it interacts with other gendered structures driving European integration processes. Contemporary European integration theories are often blind to the gendered nature of leadership (Abels and MacRae, forthcoming). There is a general consensus that ‘[C]risis leadership differs from leadership in routine times’, because its ‘stakes are much higher, the public is much more attentive, its mood more volatile, and institutional constraints on elite decision making are considerably looser’ (Ansell et al., 2014, p. 418 f.). The current, crisis-ridden EU offers a unique opportunity for analysing if, how and by whom leadership is exercised. Existing scholarship stresses leadership crises, and/or the inability of the European states to ‘lead’. The Commission President occupies a prominent place in such studies, due to the Commission's hybrid nature as a technocratic-administrative body and a political institution. Commission Presidents can exercise strategic leadership by transferring ‘political ambitions of a Pan-European scope into consensual agendas … [that] can be effectively mediated through the intra- and inter-institutional arenas of decision-making at a European level … and gain support among European public spheres’ (Müller, 2017, p. 130). Three types of leadership – ‘agenda-setting’, ‘mediative-institutional’ and ‘public’ – guide our analysis, which we link to representation issues. EU leadership is clearly multi-dimensional, multi-level and complex. Commission Presidents often act as policy entrepreneurs, linked to that body's agenda-setting power; they function as brokers in inter-institutional negotiations and as top managers within the Commission, given their power to reorganize an ‘administration’ consisting of 33,000+ employees. Supranational agenda-setting is likely to be more successful when there is an effective outreach strategy, pushing the main agenda items at the beginning of a new term, when public attention is at its highest (Müller, 2017, p. 139). Juncker was the first to label his College a ‘political Commission’ (Kassim and Laffan, 2019); von der Leyen has proclaimed hers a ‘geo-political Commission’. Her unique status as the first woman President, with high symbolic value, allows us to pose new questions, not all of which can be answered here. First, can a female-directed Commission provide strong leadership under crisis conditions (resurgent refugee waves, corona pandemic)? Second, what potential equality advances might we realistically expect from near-parity leadership in the Commission? Third, what particular legitimacy or credibility challenges will she face vis-à-vis the other institutions and the public? The European Council's nomination of von der Leyen's in July 2019 contravened efforts to democratize the presidential selection by way of a Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidates) system. That mechanism's democratizing effect was viewed with scepticism when it was introduced in 2014 (Hobolt, 2014). While the conservative Manfred Weber (EPP) proved unacceptable to France, the Visegrad countries rejected social-democrat Frans Timmermans (PES), who had initiated infringement proceedings against Poland for rule-of-law violations. Margrethe Vestager's party group (RENEW) had too few votes to cobble together a majority. The Parliament failed to rally behind any of the candidates. Christian Democrat von der Leyen did represent the EPP's winning plurality, as foreseen in Article 17 TFEU. Greens and social democrats refused to support her, requiring her to solicit votes from Europhobic MEPs as well as from right-wing rulers in the Council. She squeaked by with 383 of the 733 votes cast. Progressives should have reviewed von der Leyen's policy-record regarding gender equality and social inclusion in Germany. Her promulgation of a national anti-discrimination law and monitoring agency in 2006, her ‘radical’ calls for family-work reconciliation policies, and a 40 per cent female quota on corporate boards subjected her to criticism of her content and style within her own male-dominated party. Her push for guaranteed child-care for infants and toddlers, paternal leave and internet regulations against child-pornography was closely aligned with EU mandates vetoed by chancellor Gerhard Schröder under an SPD–Green government (1998–2005). Even as defence minister, von der Leyen established child-care portals, part-time/tele-work options and time-off ‘savings accounts’ for deployed parents. Basic training for all soldiers now includes modules on human rights, cross-cultural competence, diversity, equal treatment, sexual harassment, unconscious bias and other forms of discrimination. Mocked by military hardliners, she moreover upgraded family accommodations, introduced new uniforms for pregnant soldiers and ensured that family re-deployments would not occur in the middle of a school year, reforms that are quite popular among the troops (Bulmahn et al., 2014; Kümmel, 2015; Richter, 2016; Wullers, 2016). These reforms underlie our argument that a leader's past performance is the best predictor available for anticipating her future behaviour. Von der Leyen's first speech as the presidential candidate emphasized the need for a ‘Union of Equality’, according gender equality a strategic, visible place on the supranational agenda and highlighting her ambition for more inclusive, gender equal leadership. The evolution of EU gender equality policies has been well documented, emphasizing three stages dating back to the 1957 adoption of Art. 119 EEC (‘equal pay for equal work’) (Abels and Mushaben, 2012; Jacquot, 2015; Ahrens, 2019). The Commission promoted multi-year Action Plans, Strategies and Road Maps, moving from equal treatment to positive action, to gender mainstreaming, codified in the 1996 Amsterdam Treaty, the failed to to the Equality policies status among the Commissioners, and EU about its status as of the institutions in the and 2014, p. by presidents was at with the of a of equality linked to the and the of the European Women's to p. at of member states women's for to the College of women's in the Commission (Hartlapp et al., forthcoming), its on Gender reforms gender equality institutions, the equality from to and p. European Parliament efforts to and policy often with resistance 2019; Jacquot, 2020). by the European Parliament, Juncker but failed to raise the of female Commissioners, due to national resistance p. policies child-care to level the between women and Juncker for a Road equal public and pay in his Action for but by the Council. 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