EU foreign policy chiefs clash over Iran response as institutional rivalry deepens

Smoke was still rising over Tehran on Saturday morning when the European Union's three most senior leaders began a quiet contest to define the bloc's public posture. Kaja Kallas, the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, published a solo statement at 07:30 CET saying she was exploring diplomatic solutions. Half an hour later Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, and António Costa, the European Council president, issued a joint appeal for "maximum restraint." The sequence was not accidental. It was the latest flare-up in a structural rivalry that has dogged EU foreign policy since the Lisbon Treaty created the high representative post in 2009.

A weekend of parallel diplomacy

The disconnect went beyond competing press releases. According to five diplomats and officials involved in the behind-the-scenes scramble, von der Leyen and Kallas did not speak directly at any point over the weekend, even as Iran launched counterattacks against US bases in the Gulf and the bloc struggled to project a united front. While Kallas convened an emergency Foreign Affairs Council for Sunday, the formal ministerial channel for crisis coordination, von der Leyen's powerful chief of staff, Bjoern Seibert, was simultaneously instructing commissioner cabinets to prepare for a Monday "Security College" meeting. The body, established at the start of von der Leyen's second mandate, has until now served mainly to signal political priorities. Its activation for operational crisis management marks a shift.

The Commission president's digital footprint told its own story. In the 48 hours after the strikes began, von der Leyen posted ten times on X, a burst of personal diplomacy that contrasted with her lower-profile handling of the Venezuela unrest earlier this year, when she emphasised coordination with Kallas. Officials close to the Commission argue the volume reflects the sheer range of portfolios affected: emergencies, aid, consular protection, supply chains, airspace closures, potential migration flows, cyber threats and the monitoring of Iranian sleeper cells all fall under Commission directorates-general. "All these things are coordinated by the European Commission," one official said. "It is Kallas's prerogative to deal with diplomats, but the Foreign Affairs Council failed to produce a clear consensus, so it's now up to the Commission to work out how to move forward."

Competing mandates, overlapping crises

The Treaty on European Union gives the high representative the mandate to conduct the common foreign and security policy, supported by the European External Action Service (EEAS). The Commission, meanwhile, manages the EU's external action in areas where it holds exclusive or shared competence, trade, development aid, humanitarian assistance, neighbourhood policy and sanctions implementation. In practice the line has never been clean. As geopolitics has intruded on the EU's basic functions, energy security after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, migration pressure from the Middle East and North Africa, supply-chain resilience, the Commission's operational weight has grown. Von der Leyen's team has not been shy about using it.

The most concrete manifestation is the Directorate-General for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf (DG MENA), created in 2024 under Commissioner Dubravka Šuica. Brussels insiders widely read the move as an attempt to draw influence from the EEAS toward the Berlaymont. A Commission official confirmed DG MENA is expected to take a "central" role in discussions on Iran and the implementation of the EU's Middle East strategy, since the Gulf states and Iran sit in its portfolio. The EEAS has consistently opposed any transfer of power away from its specialist geographic desks. Kallas's frustration is documented: she strongly resisted a push to set up an intelligence cell under the Commission's remit, and at one point tried to bring back Martin Selmayr, von der Leyen's former chief of staff and a controversial figure in Brussels, in a senior EEAS role, a move several officials interpreted as an attempt to match the political heft von der Leyen derives from Seibert.

Parliamentary pushback crosses party lines

The tension has spilled into the European Parliament, where lawmakers from both of the major centrist groups have questioned the Commission's trajectory. Dan Barna, a Renew MEP who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, put it bluntly: "The EU has a high representative and she should rather be supported in doing her job." His criticism carries weight because Renew is part of the coalition that backs von der Leyen's Commission. From the Socialists and Democrats, Nacho Sánchez Amor, the committee's S&D coordinator, framed the issue as a strategic choice: "We need to decide whether we want an institutional change, whether we want to give more foreign policy functions to the Commission. Our partners around the world are right, they often don't know whom to address."

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the liberal chair of the Parliament's security and defence subcommittee, went further, calling the rivalry "evident" and tracing it to a division of competences "that is not always clearly balanced." Her intervention is notable because the subcommittee she leads oversees the EU's civilian and military missions, precisely the operational instruments that sit at the intersection of EEAS planning and Commission funding.

The personal dimension and its limits

Brussels gossip fixates on the chemistry between von der Leyen and Kallas, two women who rose through national politics in Germany and Estonia respectively, with different styles and networks. One Commission official dismissed talk of a personal split as "a media cliché of two women not getting on." The reality is more structural. Von der Leyen runs a 32,000-strong executive with control over the budget, regulatory agenda and the EU's most powerful enforcement tools. Kallas leads a diplomatic service of roughly 4,000 staff, with no legislative initiative and a mandate that depends on unanimity among 27 member states in the Foreign Affairs Council. When the Council fragments, as it did on Sunday over language concerning Iran, the Commission's machinery becomes the only vehicle that can move at speed.

That asymmetry is not new. Under Josep Borrell, Kallas's predecessor, the Commission frequently took the lead on sanctions packages against Russia, arguing that the legal and technical work belonged to its trade and financial services directorates. Borrell complained publicly about being sidelined. Kallas arrived promising a more muscular diplomatic profile, but the Iran episode suggests the same dynamic persists. The Security College, chaired by von der Leyen and attended by the heads of relevant DGs plus the EEAS secretary-general, is now the de facto crisis cabinet. Whether that is a pragmatic adaptation or a creeping institutional takeover is the question MEPs are pressing.

What the treaties say, and what they leave out

Article 18 of the Treaty on European Union tasks the high representative with conducting the CFSP and ensuring its consistency. Article 17 gives the Commission the duty to promote the general interest of the Union and ensure the application of the treaties. The overlap is deliberate: the Lisbon Treaty's architects wanted the Commission's sectoral expertise, trade, energy, climate, digital, fed into foreign policy. They did not anticipate a world where almost every foreign policy crisis triggers immediate regulatory, financial and humanitarian consequences that fall squarely inside Commission competence. The result is a grey zone where both institutions can claim legitimate authority, and where the member states, meeting in the Council, have so far declined to draw a harder line.

The next test: implementation and the June European Council

The immediate test is whether the Security College can produce a coherent operational plan, sanctions adjustments, consular coordination, airspace guidance, cyber resilience measures, without the Foreign Affairs Council's political endorsement. The next political test arrives at the June European Council, where leaders will discuss the EU's strategic agenda for 2024-2029. Several capitals, notably Paris and Berlin, have signalled they want a clearer delineation of roles before the next Commission mandate. Kallas's term as high representative runs until 2029; von der Leyen's Commission mandate ends the same year. The question is whether the next five years bring a negotiated settlement or a continued drift toward dual command. As one diplomat put it: "The Brussels bubble is focused on who should speak, and on what legal basis. Our partners are focused on whether the EU can deliver."