Ursula von der Leyen’s tiny fiefdom

The best of POLITICO’s coverage selected by Editor-in-Chief Jamil Anderlini.
By JAMIL ANDERLINI
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Dear readers,
I’m writing this from a Eurostar train en route to London and then Liverpool, where I will attend my first U.K. political party conference. I slightly regret choosing the Labour Party conference, rather than Nigel Farage’s madcap Reform UK party conference in Birmingham, which one official told POLITICO’S London Playbook would be the “biggest piss-up in modern political history.” 
I’m still hoping for some newsworthy Labour cock-ups, in the great British tradition of party conferences that go awry.
This week was incredibly busy on the news front. In the Middle East, Israeli intelligence agencies pulled off perhaps the most stunning covert technological operations in history. The exploding pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon have not just massively disrupted Hezbollah operations, they raise questions about the safety of supply chains everywhere.
In Ukraine, our opinion editor makes an unpopular but important point about the need for Western media not to fall into an information trap when it comes to the war.
In the capital of Europe, we had a week of great excitement as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen publicly executed her French Commissioner nemesis Thierry Breton and then unveiled her new cabinet.
It was immediately clear how cleverly “Queen Ursula” and her top advisers have concentrated EU power in her hands. The overlapping portfolios of her college mean none of them have real authority and guarantees a centralized imperial court system that revolves around the woman POLITICO just elevated to the status of “Empress.”
But the extreme weakness of political leaders in the most important European capitals — especially Paris and Berlin — means Empress Ursula may rule over Brussels but fail to get anything done. A close Japanese friend of mine once insulted me in the cutest way possible by describing me as the “king of a small hill — home to three rabbits.” That may be von der Leyen’s fate too.
To prove this point, we published a really good piece on the very real danger facing hapless German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his teetering coalition government and we also explained how French President Emmanuel Macron has eviscerated his own political “Macronism” movement.
With both leaders so focused on their domestic woes and the rise of populist, far-right, anti-EU movements, it seems unlikely the Commission can advance a strong agenda — especially since nothing really gets done at the EU level without approval from national capitals.
If you are confused by what just happened in Brussels but are too embarrassed to admit it, don’t worry, we have just the thing for you.
We plan to do much more explaining of the fiendishly complicated (and some might say stultifying) processes and structures of the EU in the coming months as we wind our way through Commission confirmation season. 
Since everyone in the end is a news narcissist, I will end on a topic that caught the attention of POLITICO employees this week.
On Thursday, POLITICO’s parent company Axel Springer announced it was hiving off its digital classifieds business under majority ownership of private equity investor KKR and the Canadian Pension Plan and creating a new company consisting of its main media brands — POLITICO, Business Insider, Bild and Welt Group among them. 
When I joined POLITICO in Europe exactly three years ago, the CEO, executive chairman and major shareholder of Axel Springer, Mathias Döpfner, told me the company was a rocket ship and I was making a smart decision by climbing on board. 
It feels to me like this ship just got a major injection of rocket fuel. 
You can read more about the deal here.
Until next time, bon weekend,
Jamil
Meet JD Vance’s English philosopher king   
In a deeply enlightening interview, our Power Play podcast talked to two friends of JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, who have shaped his thinking from this side of the Atlantic: James Orr, a professor of religion at Cambridge University and a leading figure behind the National Conservative movement in the U.K., and Rod Dreyer, a former American Conservative columnist who has links to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Read the story. 
‘Anyone but him’: Inside Ursula von der Leyen’s long breakup with Thierry Breton
It was a huge week in Brussels and POLITICO had every angle of the new Commission covered. This piece provided a riveting, indispensable account of how Ursula von der Leyen pushed out the Frenchman who’d been the most colorful and controversial commissioner in her first College. Read the story. 
How Teresa Ribera became the second-most-powerful person in Brussels
Another essential part of our reporting on the new Commission was the insightful profiles of the new key players. Among them was this definitive story about Teresa Ribera, the Spanish climate expert who is now among the EU’s most influential figures, responsible for charting its course toward a future that is both greener and more prosperous. Read the story. 
When freedom means exile: Inside the Russian prisoner swap 
In the West, the prisoner exchange deal that saw the release of Westerners, including American journalist Evan Gershkovich, from Russian custody was widely cheered. But the Russian democracy activists who were freed as part of the swap are still grappling with the implications of their release. Those who have spoken out described a bitter cocktail of gratitude and guilt. Read the story. 
West funding Putin’s soldiers with growing Russian fuel purchases, report warns 
Ordinary people across the EU are helping Vladimir Putin pay for his war every time they fill up their car, get on a plane or put the heating on, we revealed, after getting our hands on a new report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the Center for the Study of Democracy. Some of Kyiv’s key Western allies, in the first half of this year alone, have bought $2 billion of fuel made from Russian oil from three Turkish refineries, the report reveals. Read the story. 
You cannot be serious! Europe’s next migration chief was a tennis hotshot 
We served up a smashing profile of one of the next European commissioners, even netting an interview with a tennis champion he’d beaten as a junior and lobbing in a set (Ed: OK, that’s enough) of background info that provided a lovely well-rounded picture of the next migration chief. Read the story.
Volkswagen is the anti-Tesla and China is to blame
Volkswagen (and the wider decline of German car manufacturing) is one of the big stories of the moment and this article by our automotive reporter smartly compared the travails of VW to Tesla and how their paths have diverged over the last half-decade — thanks in large part to China. Read the story.
EU Confidential: The EU’s new power pyramid and migration escalation
Live from Strasbourg … and Paris … and Berlin … and London, it’s EU Confidential. In this week’s episode, we catch you up on a dizzying week of news. We start with the inside dish on Thierry Breton’s high-drama departure from the European Commission, followed by analysis of who’s really in charge now that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has debuted her new team, with POLITICO’s Marion Solletty and Eddy Wax. Host Sarah Wheaton also sits down with current (and likely future) climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, and we debut our new series of mini-profiles, Berlaymont Who’s Who, with an introduction to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s next foreign policy chief. Listen to the episode.

Westminster Insider: Inside Labour Together: the project behind Keir Starmer
The red half of Westminster will shortly decamp to Liverpool for the first Labour conference since the party’s general election landslide. Host Sascha O’Sullivan looks at a group which played a key role in that victory — the left-wing think tank Labour Together.
Sascha pieces together the fascinating origin story of Labour Together, speaking to ITV Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana, author of a new book which details the group’s influence, and Keir Starmer biographer Tom Baldwin.
Andrew Cooper, political pollster and member of Labour Together advisory board, tells Sascha how Josh Simons, former director of the think tank, built on the work of Morgan McSweeney by using deep voter analysis to help Labour HQ. Listen to the episode.

Power Play: Meet JD Vance’s surprising European support network 
From Hillbilly Elegy to vice presidential candidate, JD Vance has come far since his  hardscrabble roots in Ohio to shape the Trump doctrine for the millennial generation. He’s also gained notoriety for upping the temperature of America’s heated political discourse. But there’s also a philosophical side to Vance, shaped by a network of advisers and supporters on the other side of the Atlantic.
As noted above, host Anne McElvoy talks to two friends who have watched Vance’s rise closely. Anne is also joined by Jonathan Martin, POLITICO’s politics bureau chief and senior political columnist, to reflect on Vance’s career prospects. Listen to the episode.

A new Commission minus Thierry Breton is a much less fun Commission. Read this week’s Declassified column.
Caption competition
“Mom, Dad … I’m 16 years old! You no longer have to drop me off at school. All my friends make fun of me.”
 Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque
Last week we gave you this photo:
 Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.
“Olaf Scholz inspects new automated border patrol unit,” by Stefan De Koning
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