Who is Brussels? EU citizens don't know those in charge

This Thursday (16 July), amid the summer recess and away from the gaze of ordinary citizens, the European Parliament will decide whether to endorse Ursula von der Leyen for the presidency of the European Commission.

Common wisdom suggests that there is no European public space and that the leaders of the EU remain faceless and unaccountable.

And the way in which the last European elections in June 2024 were quickly overshadowed in the media by national elections (for example, in France or Belgium) seems to confirm this state of affairs.

However, there is little data to verify this hypothesis, as the fame of the people occupying the highest positions within the European institutions is rarely studied. 

As part of a longitudinal survey* on the legitimacy of the EU in France and Belgium carried out in December 2023 and June 2024, respondents were asked about their knowledge of the EU's current and future supranational leaders. The responses paint a bleak picture.

Citizens were asked if they knew the name and function of a list of people. The list included the current presidents of the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament (Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Roberta Metsola), the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy (Josep Borrell) as well as those expected to succeed them (in the same order, Ursula von der Leyen, António Costa, Roberta Metsola and Kaja Kallas). The two countries' commissioners Belgium's Didier Reynders and France's Thierry Bretton were also part of it.

The main results of this survey show three things: nationality is the most important factor, the main EU functions can give public visibility to the person but not necessarily to their role, and newcomers start out anonymous for most citizens. 

First of all, the pre-eminence of nationality is no surprise. For example, in Belgium, Charles Michel (former prime minister and current president of the European Council) and Didier Reynders (European commissioner for justice, but also a former holder of several ministerial portfolios in Belgian governments) are better known than von der Leyen, whereas they are far behind in France.

Secondly, knowing someone does not mean knowing what s/he does. If we take again Reynders as an example, twice as many people (58 percent) know his name due to his past national mandates than his current position (28 percent).

The proportion is the same but at a much lower level for Borrell (name known by 16 percent, function by eight percent of respondents), who enjoys a higher hierarchical role than Reynders as vice-president of the EU Commission, but who is Spanish.

Being a top official at the commission's Berlaymont HQ does not prevent him from being four times less recognised than his Belgian colleague in the streets of Brussels.

Finally, the new supranational leaders who will take office this autumn are largely unknown and will probably find it difficult to emerge as public figures outside their home countries due to the limited exposure provided by their positions.

Only three percent of respondents identified António Costa, former prime minister of Portugal, as the future president of the European Council, similar to those who identified Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia, as the future EU foreign affairs chief.

What can we learn from these results?

High-level European posts do not ex officio guarantee a strong public profile.

Their holders rely heavily on the political and media capital they have accumulated in their previous national capacities.

If they come from small or medium-sized member states (such as Maltese Roberta Metsola, Belgian Michel, Portuguese Costa and Estonian Kallas), their national prominence may not be enough to ensure them transnational recognition.

Even those coming from larger countries where European mandates are often entrusted to second-rate leaders (such as Breton in France) are far from certain to achieve European fame.

A kind of "banal Europeanism" may exist, in reference to the habituation of citizens to the omnipresence of European policies, norms and symbols in everyday life. But EU leaders are still not part of this political "business as usual". 

*The online survey was conducted by Ivox-Billendi on behalf of the Université Libre de Bruxelles on a representative panel of the French and Belgian population (n =1000, margin of error 3.02%). A first wave was carried out in both countries in December 2023, and a second one in Belgium only in June 2024. The figures used here refer only to the most recent wave in Belgium.