A recently published report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) indicates that Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Union (EU) Commission, has neglected the EU’s founding principles and guidelines on human rights in the mission letters she issued to the European commissioners for the 2024 to 2029 mandate. In her statement and goals for her second term, von der Leyen concentrated on immediate EU interests such as migration management and resource augmentation, while human rights considerations were conspicuously absent.
The HRW report criticized von der Leyen’s approach, pointing out the lack of integration of human rights into the EU’s foreign policy. Her mission letters to the new EU commissioners and her speech at the European Parliament emphasized “short-term interests” at the expense of human rights, according to HRW. This overlooks the EU’s own Article 21 of the founding treaty, which mandates foreign actions to align with principles such as democracy, the rule of law, and the universality of human rights.
There were also references to previous controversies, including the Memorandum of Understanding with Tunisia, criticized for overlooking humanitarian concerns in favor of the EU’s interests. Additionally, HRW highlighted von der Leyen’s new commitments which focus heavily on economic and technological advancements, such as deepening the European single market, promoting the European Green Deal, and combating cybercriminality, while failing to incorporate human rights standards.
HRW’s findings stress that by ignoring human rights, von der Leyen’s vision and policy for the EU’s future could be fundamentally flawed and counterproductive. They call for the reintroduction of human rights into the EU’s policy framework for the new mandate period.