In June, the SPP was slammed for backpedaling after announcing the Commission would kill a proposed bill to curb greenwashing.
Then in July, after the Commission presented its plan for the EU’s next seven-year budget, the International Press Association accused it of “an attempt to instrumentalize and confuse, delivering PR content with no possibility of verification.” The €2 trillion proposal wasn’t even accompanied by “a basic table of figures,” the association said in a statement. The Commission denied a lack of transparency.
Earlier this year, journalists covering EU politics widely criticized the SPP for concealing information about von der Leyen’s illness. At the time, Pinho was asked directly if the president was in hospital but she told reporters there was “no update” ― despite the fact that she had been hospitalized the day before. News of her stay broke a week later.
‘Things that cannot be immediately shared’
The SPP pushed back against the criticism. “It’s only natural that in an institution like the Commission … there are things that cannot be immediately shared,” said Pinho.
Journalists should understand how much effort spokespeople make to get them the information once it’s available, she said. “If there are changes up until the last minute, then we need to make sure those changes will be accurately reflected across all the press material and this can take time,” she said. “And the more so if we are talking about numbers.”
Among the seven officials interviewed by POLITICO for this article and who have direct knowledge of how the EU communications system operates, opinions differed over what’s gone wrong. One said spokespeople are failing to communicate with the press simply because the Commission’s leadership haven’t given them the information in the first place, while two pointed at dwindling resources ― last year, von der Leyen cut the number of spokespeople.
Other officials said the main problem is that von der Leyen and the small team around her have a tight grip over how the service operates, creating bottlenecks and restricting how much the spokespeople are able to say.
