Von der Leyen’s plan to sleep on the job

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Hold the bunker mentality jokes: Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen intends to spend her time in Brussels living in a permanent state of “personal retreat.”

Rather than keeping a home in Brussels or even temporary quarters in an apartment-hotel like her predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, von der Leyen intends to sleep in a roughly 25 square-meter bedsit adjacent to the president’s 13th floor office in the Commission headquarters, her spokesman Jens Flosdorff said Thursday.

“We can confirm that the president-elect would like to use an existing personal retreat next to the president’s office to stay overnight during her days in Brussels,” Flosdorff told POLITICO, following a report in the German newspaper Welt.

The president-elect’s “main residence was always and remains Hannover, where her husband still lives and works,” Flosdorff said, adding that von der Leyen and her husband have seven children who are working or studying in other cities.

The decision by von der Leyen to live on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont stands to save money on security measures, as the Commission headquarters is always protected — and will also save time by keeping her and her staff out of rush-hour traffic jams.

Close confidantes said that such living arrangements also fit with von der Leyen’s workaholic tendencies, which have long kept her at the ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week — not least when she was overseeing Germany’s 250,000-strong military and on call to manage emergencies at any moment.

But the decision to sleep in her office also suggests that von der Leyen is reluctant to re-embrace life in Brussels, where she lived as a child when her father worked for the Commission.

While some might see merit in not becoming a creature of the so-called Brussels bubble, it could open her up to charges of aloofness — literally by refusing to come down from the executive suite even to go home for the evening. For certain EU countries, it could raise fears she is willing to carry German fiscal austerity a bit too far.

Von der Leyen slept in her office while serving as German defense minister, and before that while in other ministerial posts in Berlin, Flosdorff said.

“She [like other ministers of the German government] stayed overnight in all her Berlin offices during the working week in the respective ministries,” he said.

Her proposal to continue this arrangement in Brussels risks reinforcing an early impression among some officials inside the Berlaymont, who described privately a “bunker” mentality among von der Leyen and her small transition team, with a tight core of longtime aides including Flosdorff, who came with her from Berlin.

One senior official said von der Leyen’s team appears to have purposefully isolated themselves from existing Commission officials and infrastructure, creating a “toxic” atmosphere inside headquarters as they sort through résumés to fill posts.

Her decision to commute from Germany could also raise some other prickly questions.

Von der Leyen has pledged a Green New Deal as part of a far more ambitious effort by the Commission to combat climate change. But commuting weekly between Brussels and her hometown of Hannover will not serve to reduce her own personal carbon footprint.

Aides did not say whether von der Leyen intends to fly commercial (there is one direct flight daily, Monday through Friday), fly in a private plane or take the train — a more than five-hour trip. POLITICO last week reported the EU plans to raise spending on private plane travel for top officials.

It is also unclear if von der Leyen intends to decline or refund any portion of her salary intended as an allowance for housing and entertaining.

Stephen Brown contributed reporting.