Ursula von der Leyen tightens grip before unveiling her team

In response, von der Leyen booted him out before the start of her second term as Commission President.

“It’s a huge deal. This is a good old power play,” said one senior official from von der Leyen’s own center-right European People’s Party. The official, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a tense and ever-evolving situation. 

Von der Leyen, who has helmed the influential European institution since 2019, has developed a reputation for a top-down approach with a penchant for centralized power among a small group of trusted advisers. Getting rid of one of her staunchest critics from one of the most powerful countries in the bloc is an unequivocal power move to cement von der Leyen as a power player on the global stage, EU officials told POLITICO.

Breton — well known for his public spats with Elon Musk, interest in boosting European defense, and key role in von der Leyen’s Covid response — is not the first European Union official to take on the Commission president, and lose. Of the handful of commissioners who were the toughest on von der Leyen, there are none left. 

In April, the now-former French commissioner for EU’s single market and industrial policy was one of a handful of Commissioners who took down von der Leyen’s handpicked special envoy for small- and medium-sized enterprises, Markus Pieper.

That group included the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell along with Breton and fellow commissioners Nicolas Schmit and Paolo Gentiloni, who wrote to von der Leyen expressing their concerns about the appointment. The appointment “triggered questions about the transparency and impartiality of the process,” they said.