PARIS — EU diplomatic chief Kaja Kallas has another enemy who wants her out: Marine Le Pen. 

The far-right French leader wants to dismantle, or at the very least drastically reduce, the EU’s diplomatic arm if she wins the 2027 presidential election, according to four National Rally officials. 

“The reality is that [Kallas’s] usefulness is very limited, and she duplicates the diplomacy of member states,” said Charles-Henri Gallois, adviser to National Rally President Jordan Bardella. “No one recognizes her legitimacy, particularly not the United States, nor China.”

The comments reveal growing tensions over the EU’s power as nationalist parties from France to Germany and Poland seek to wrest power back from Brussels, with foreign policy among their top targets. They also put extra pressure on Kallas and the European External Action Service, which has been locked in a protracted turf war on foreign policy with the European Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen.

The view inside the National Rally is that the EU’s diplomatic service is not only a waste of taxpayer money but also gets in the way of European nations being able to flex their muscles on the world stage. 

One example is Ukraine, on which Kallas and Le Pen are deeply divided — although they have not clashed publicly. The former Estonian prime minister is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics and a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while Le Pen is pushing for an international peace conference to settle the conflict and says Europe has run out of money to give to Kyiv. 

Kallas has “used very warrior-like language on Ukraine,” said National Rally MEP Jean-Paul Garraud. “We support Ukraine but if we expressed ourselves like that we would be in total war” with Russia, he said.  

Le Pen has directed her most vicious attacks against von der Leyen, who has long been accused by the far right of exceeding her powers. But it’s Kallas and the EEAS that risk becoming collateral damage under a far-right presidency in France.

Le Pen is the front-runner ahead of next year’s presidential election. In a recent visit to Brussels, she vowed to downsize the European Union if she comes to power. 

“France will no longer accept that the Commission exercises diplomatic competences, and even less military or intelligence competencies,” she told reporters. This shrinking of EU institutions would include snipping the wings of the EEAS, according to the four National Rally officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely.

The move would put the National Rally on a collision course with pro-European parties, which see the EU’s diplomatic arm as an essential tool as the global stage becomes more competitive and more aggressive. 

“If Marine Le Pen becomes president of France, she will quickly realise that … France is a medium-sized country on the global stage,” said Irish Renew MEP Barry Andrews, who chairs the European Parliament’s development committee.

 “Without the collective power of Europe, France has no chance going up against the U.S. or China alone,” he said.

The EEAS snapped back at the criticism. “Across Europe, the far right is against the very idea of European cooperation,” said an EEAS spokesperson. 

“EU diplomacy defends European interests, including those of France. The EU’s global delegation network is a major strategic asset,” the official told POLITICO in response to Le Pen’s comments.

Money matters

The push against Kallas and her diplomats also comes as the National Rally limbers up for a fight with the Commission over France’s EU budget contribution, if they win the election. Last month, the National Rally unveiled its plans for a €11 billion cut to France’s EU contribution for 2027, which is currently expected to total approximately €30 billion. 

POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts Le Pen on 34% in the first round, well ahead of far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 17% and center-right hopeful Edouard Philippe on 16%. Polls also suggest she would beat most of her potential rivals in a runoff.

While France could not unilaterally cut the EEAS’s budget, the National Rally says it sees allies in Italy, in Spain’s nationalist party Vox (which could end up working with the center-right after this month’s election), and in Andrej Babiš’s Czech Republic. 

The offensive could get nasty as the Commission and Le Pen arm-wrestle over money. 

“The EEAS is great for friends of friends, who want jobs,” said one National Rally official. “The real estate bought or rented by the EEAS is a waste of money. I’m shocked to see the amounts involved in local contracts; it’s unbelievable,” said a National Rally MEP. 

Le Pen’s criticism coincides with criticism from European governments about the efficiency of the EU’s foreign policy apparatus, with France and Germany jointly pitching plans to reform the EEAS.

The concerns voiced by senior diplomats in both countries focus on the fact that the EEAS lacks policy tools to influence foreign relations. The Franco-German initiative suggests integrating the EEAS with the Commission, which has a larger budget as well as control over trade and tech policies.

It also coincides with proposals to severely cut back on the EU’s foreign policy budget. Commission officials have internally simulated slashing the bloc’s Global Europe budget — worth €200 billion in the last long-term budget — by as much as 40% in the next budget.

The EEAS itself, which has an annual budget of close to €1 billion and employs more than 5,200 people globally, is working on internal reforms that Secretary-General Kajsa Ollongren is expected to present to staff later this month.

Major budget cuts would have the effect of gutting the EU’s network of more than 100 global delegations, which are staffed by diplomats as well as Commission personnel from external-facing units like DG MENA (the Directorate-General for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf).

International organizations have pushed back forcefully against plans to slash the EU’s development aid budget, with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres writing to the heads of the Commission and Council and urging them to preserve the funding.

Giorgio Leali contributed reporting.

Night falls in the European capital. Everything’s quiet, but the nightmares are about to begin.

Viktor Orbán’s ghost haunts the Schuman roundabout; ash from the bonfire of red tape covers the Justus Lipsius building; Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of staff, Björn Seibert, chases after staffers demanding to know what “associate membership” for Canada actually means; and MEPs tremble at the prospect of construction workers uncovering the skeletons of political intrigues past during renovations.

Scared? You should be.

Here’s our guide to who is terrified of whom in the Brussels bubble. 

Everyone is scared of Marine Le Pen

The person haunting EU diplomats, officials and lawmakers is French presidential front-runner Marine Le Pen. Will she really halve Paris’ contribution to the EU budget, as promised? Will she pull Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni away from the Brussels mainstream? And will she demand von der Leyen’s head?

The bubble had warmed (slightly) to the idea of Jordan Bardella in the Élysée Palace, after his years leading the National Rally’s European operation revealed a certain pragmatism toward Brussels — only for those hopes to be shattered when a Paris appeals court cleared Le Pen to be a candidate for the presidency.

The next ECB chief is scared of Jean-Luc Mélenchon

The European Central Bank president is the euro’s last line of defense against unorthodox national economic decisions — but that could be tested by French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is on course to reach the runoff after vowing to set billions of euros of French debt “on fire.” His incendiary plan calls on the Frankfurt-based ECB to waive interest payments on a vast tranche of French bonds — an unorthodox, perhaps impossible, maneuver that critics warn could even see France kicked out of the euro.

Now that we know Christine Lagarde will step down as ECB president in February, what France’s presidential candidates want to do about its monumental debt pile will haunt the race for her successor, with Dutchman Klaas Knot and Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos as the two frontrunners.

Lobbyists are scared of ChatGPT

The number of amendments lawmakers have filed has exploded since generative AI arrived, with key EU laws now facing thousands of proposed text changes. Parliament officials don’t think it’s a coincidence, with some pointing to amendments written in suspiciously bot-like language, and others saying sometimes amendments cite legislation that does not even exist.

The growing pile of amendments is haunting lobbyists, parliamentary assistants and officials forced to track and sort through it all — along with the fear that AI could eventually replace them. Spare a thought, too, for the MEPs who may have to vote through the amendments one by one, with hands raised in plenary. 

Commission officials are scared of Austria’s Europe minister

Well-heeled Commission officials (and their families) are spooked by Austria’s Europe Minister Claudia Bauer, who has been leading a push to slash the Commission’s administration expenditure — which pays eurocrats’ salaries and offices — in the next seven-year budget. The campaign, backed by most EU capitals, resulted in an 8% cut to the admin budget in the latest budget proposal.

Bauer is so feared that EU officials joke they reduce their delegations’ size whenever they travel to Austria.

Jessika Roswall is scared of Stéphane Séjourné and Valdis Dombrovskis

Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall and her department have reason to fear industry boss Stéphane Séjourné, who is taking the lead on the upcoming Circular Economy Act, despite Roswall’s official title of Commissioner “for a Competitive Circular Economy.” Making matters spookier, Roswall’s environment department now shares the Breydel building with Séjourné’s internal market and industry department, setting the stage for some chilling corridor encounters as Roswall pushes for greater environmental protection while Séjourné prioritizes industrial growth.

Roswall is also under pressure from EU simplification chief Valdis Dombrovskis to cut red tape on several environmental laws. The Latvian commissioner, who oversees the omnibus packages, wants a deal before year-end. Meanwhile, the center-right European People’s Party continues to press the Commission to reopen laws on birds, habitats, and water — the EU’s oldest nature protection laws — so they can be simplified too.

Alexander Stubb is afraid of Kaja Kallas and António Costa

Kaja Kallas has not publicly addressed the call that Finnish President Alexander Stubb made to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but the EU’s top diplomat has made clear she dislikes such outreach. Still, if Putin offered serious talks and concessions, Kallas would be the obvious person to answer: as coordinating EU foreign and security policy is her job. “Of course I will talk if such an opportunity presents itself,” she told Estonian media in September when asked about speaking with Putin or his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Also reaching for the phone: António Costa. EU diplomats note that the European Council president represents the bloc at the leaders’ level abroad. That institutional turf war may explain why Stubb stressed that he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Støre spoke only for their own countries — not for Europe.

Manfred Weber is scared of his own group …

What keeps the leader of the European People’s Party — Europe’s largest political family — up at night? Divisions within his own ranks. So far, Weber has kept a tight ship and wants to reunite his troops ahead of the 2029 EU election, which he is casting as a battle against the far right. But that may prove tricky as the EPP’s national delegations increasingly clash over whether to work with the far right or isolate them.

… and the group is scared of Ouarda Bensouag

Central to Weber’s strategy is Ouarda Bensouag, the group’s secretary-general and his chief of staff. One of his most trusted lieutenants, she has a reputation as a smart but ruthless operator who EPP staffers fear when crossing paths in the Parliament’s labyrinthine hallways.

No one is scared of the Parliament … but they should be

Parliament’s attempts to spook capitals over the next long-term budget have been borderline tragic so far: It keeps threatening to kill the budget, but nobody seems to care or believe it will.

They should care. When it comes time to pass the budget, 361 of 720 votes will be needed, and the margin could be razor-thin in a fragmented chamber that’s hostile to plans to pool farm and regional funds. The louder MEPs protest — and the longer the Council ignores them — the more determined they become to prove the threat is real.

By Max Griera, Gregorio Sorgi, Kathryn Carlson, Nick Vinocur, Jakob Weizman, Fiona McNally and Eliza Gkritsi