Jourová speaks plainly in a soft voice
Vera Jourová knew that she would not only hit fans during her visit to Poland. Also before the final of the Polish Constitutional Court ended, ended in recent months and Brussels between the past few months. But when the Czech European Commissioner refers to it at the end of August, in the anniversary of the trade union agreement, she smiles again and lists the core values of the EU: freedom of the press, independent of the law, equal treatment. “I know that today in Poland this base demands different,” says Jourová. But: „We all have to play by the rules of the game. We want to call those rules: the rule of law.”
It is the calm determination for which Jourová, Vice-President responsible for ‘values and transparency’ since 2019, is known in Brussels. Those involved call her hardworking and honest, but critics point out that in recent years she too has endorsed a mainly wait-and-see attitude on the part of the European Commission.
After Poland climbed a new rung on the escalation ladder last week, eyes are on her. Will Jourová indeed cut the country on EU subsidies? This legality of the European Court of Justice, brought by Poland and Hungary.
Even for people who have been working with her for a long time, Jourová, who has been in Brussels for seven years now, finds something elusive. With a soft voice she is modest, hasty about it, but at the same time the approach surprises with firm, not back for the confrontation with authoritarian politics and tech companies, and she already has several eye-catching files under her.
It is now Jourová who is the target of politics in Poland and Hungary when they lash out at Brussels. Last year Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demanded her resignation, especially after calling his regime a ‘sick democracy’. “I have said what I have said”, Jourová. Previous data on China openly of the news of disinformation and information about Facebook a “highway of hate”. According to her, the fact that UEFA started to show rainbow flags during the European Championship this summer was “a lack of courage”
Nevertheless, the rule of law crisis has only escalated further in recent years. But, says the Christian Democrat Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský: ,,That is not a personal failure of Vera Jourová. It can only act within the confines of the current Commission. And I note that the rule of law is not a priority for that Commission.”
“Her extension to democracy and the rule of law are, says Daniel Hegedus as a rule of law and Central Europe expert associated with The German Marshall Fund. Among other things, he points to the leading role that Jourová played in the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. „But it is clearly limited, by a hierarchical Commission in which [voorzitter] Von der Leyen mainly focused on dialogue. Jourová has accepted that: she has never openly questioned that line.”
“Lonely admitted”, the Romanian liberal MEP Ramona Strugariu her, who had a lot to do with Jourová in recent years. “She does not always have the full support of her Commission.” Yet Strugariu seems: “She seems vulnerable, but when you talk to her, you notice how strong she is. I myself come from a former communist country and I recognize the strength you build by growing up in such a regime.”
False Settings
Jourová’s life story probably contains an excellent film script. Born in 1963 in the poorest quarter of the town of Třebíč, she witnessed her parents being marginalized by the Soviet regime after critical data about the collapse of the Prague Spring. From the 1990s, she slowly climbed up through local and regional politics, to become Deputy Minister for Regional Affairs in 2003. Then comes the main plot twist in 2006, being executed for corruption with EU funds and spending over a month in jail.
All charges were eventually dropped and years later Jourová was awarded a generous compensation. But the episode left deep marks. In her autobiography Cesta z panoptika she will write later that she thought of thoughts in the cell. After her release, she finds it difficult to find work and decides to study law. “When you have experienced, you begin to understand what injustice begins,” she will say later. “That’s why I’m not so about defending the freedom of individuals.”
This time for the ANO party of billionaire Andrej Babis.
That choice does not surprise political scientist Vladimira Dvorakova. “After the falsehoods against her, she really hoped he would do something about corruption. Many people believed that ten years ago, but most of the good ones have since left. The question is why she is still with his party.” Dvorakova has heard that the Czech Prime Minister, of conflict of interest in EU subsidies, is frustrated with what Jourová is doing in her current position. “He sees that she passes all kinds of reports, she owes that job to him.”
Mmv Emilie van Outeren
A version of this article also in NRC in the morning of October 11, 2021