Von der Leyen personally pays PR firm for social media advice

Critics say arrangement raises ethics and transparency questions.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is personally paying a PR firm founded by an-ex editor of Germany’s Bild tabloid to advise on her social media presence, a spokesperson said Friday.

Von der Leyen first hired the company, Storymachine, to advise her in the transition period before she took over as head of the EU executive last December. The Commission disclosed von der Leyen is still using the agency following a report by Switzerland’s Aargauer Zeitung.

Ethics campaigners criticized the arrangement, which they said is not transparent and raises questions about whether von der Leyen is trying to circumvent rules on hiring external advisers.

In confirming the arrangement, Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer sought to dismiss those concerns. He said the agency’s role is limited to giving suggestions for improvement about every 6 weeks on items such as “how her personal appearance and range of her posts can be improved, e.g. via tags and links” and how to achieve the best mix of “text, video, images, templates, graphics, etc.”

“The service provider has no influence whatsoever on the political content of the social media presence. It also plays no role in operating the [social media] accounts,” he stressed.

Critics questioned von der Leyen’s decision to retain the firm, given the Commission’s extensive in-house expertise and communications services.

Storymachine was co-founded in 2017 by Kai Diekmann — a longtime editor-in-chief of Bild who also previously served in the same role at weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag — and two associates.

The Commission declined to provide details about the contract, including its cost.

Critics questioned von der Leyen’s decision to retain the firm, given the Commission’s extensive in-house expertise and communications services.

“It is very strange for the Commission president to hire a PR firm in her private capacity,” said Olivier Hoedeman, researcher and campaign coordinator at Brussels-based civil society organization Corporate Europe Observatory. “The president engaging an adviser in ‘private capacity’ could appear as a way to bypass the governance around special advisers.”

The Commission has a procedure for hiring external special advisers, who are disclosed on the institution’s website. But Mamer said those rules did not apply to an individual retaining a company privately.

He also insisted the arrangement did not raise any questions of conflict of interest. “She is paying the company for their advice, not the other way around,” said Mamer. “Conflicts of interest generally works in the other direction.”

Neither Storymachine nor Diekmann responded to a request for comment by the time of publication of this article.

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