Klaus Welle and Martin Schulz. | EP Parliament’s heavyweight bout: Schulz vs Welle President and secretary-general are battling over how to run the institution — to the point that “it’s getting out of hand.”

For years, the two most powerful men in the European Parliament — its president, Martin Schulz, and its secretary general, Klaus Welle — have at least pretended to get along.

But a recent series of political power plays between the two men have mushroomed into a full-fledged feud that is starting to have public repercussions.

Welle, the Parliament’s top staffer, has suffered several bruising losses to Schulz on administrative matters. The infighting between the two men has become so intense that some now even question whether Welle will remain in his post for the remaining two years of Schulz’s term as president.

The internal power struggle goes beyond the fact that the two are from separate political groups; Schulz is from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Welle is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP).

It’s a battle over how the institution should be run.

No matter the root cause, parliamentary sources say Schulz has succeeded in creating the impression that Welle is a lame-duck secretary-general by taking over many of his administrative duties and exercising veto power over key administrative decisions.

Neither man would comment directly for this article, though Schulz’s office, in an email response to inquiries, called their relationship “constructive and professional” and said it was the president’s responsibility to oversee the political and administrative work of the Parliament.

But their recent battles have a lot of other people talking. POLITICO spoke with 15 different people about the conflict, although most declined to speak on the record given the political sensitivity of the topic.

“Schulz makes Klaus Welle’s job more difficult,” said Ingeborg Grässle, a German MEP from the EPP who, as chair of Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee, has been a frequent irritant to both men. “Imagine the tension. There are mines everywhere. When you touch them, they explode.”

Grässle added that “[Schulz] takes on the responsibility of the secretary-general and the president. And of course, it’s a power play.”

Parliament sources said Schulz had largely ignored many of the assembly’s administrative workings during his previous term as president, from 2012 to 2014, because he was focusing on his campaign to run the European Commission. But in his current term he is spending more time on Welle’s turf.

The battle took its most recent turn last week, when Schulz shot down Welle’s “New World of Work” — a plan to create open working spaces in the Parliament’s Brussels and Luxembourg offices and to equip each MEP with an iPad in a quest to go paperless. The proposal had generated controversy because it was perceived as Welle’s way of strengthening the power of the assembly’s administration at the expense of the political parties.

The decision by Schulz came at a meeting with top Parliament staff in Luxembourg — a meeting to which Welle was not invited, and was announced in a curt message from Welle to staff.

“As already announced on Monday, the president has decided not to continue the New World of Work programme,” Welle wrote in an e-mail sent to Parliament directors-general in Luxembourg, and obtained by POLITICO. “We will do our utmost to create the modern work environment colleagues are hoping for.”

Officials said Welle was overreaching with the plan, and may have doomed it by not working with parliamentary employee trade unions, which were opposed to it.

“Welle did not consult anyone in the administration on NWoW,” said a parliamentary source. “He tried to push it through and then the whole administration turned against him.”

Despite both being middle-aged German men with long careers in EU politics, Welle and Schulz are fundamentally different in more ways than just political ideology. Welle is tall and skinny; Schulz is neither. Welle gives off an air of composure and speaks softly with preciseness; Schulz often slouches and blurts out his opinions. Schulz is a political animal who craves the spotlight and Welle is a behind-the-scenes operative who avoids it.

But many say despite the personality differences, the tension is purely political. Even in his administrative position, Welle is perceived as an agent for the EPP group, for which he worked as secretary-general from 1999 to 2003 and has been dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” for his political maneuvering. He got his current job in March 2009.

The efforts by Schulz to clip Welle’s wings have had an impact, with some MEPs now complaining that it has harmed the effectiveness of the secretary-general. MEPs say he’s much more cautious about responding to their requests and more reluctant to get involved in political issues.

Members of his party say he is doing his best in a tough position.

Make him look like a lame duck

“He’s very professional for an impossible task,” said Hungarian Jozsef Szajer, a European People’s Party MEP, of Welle.

The feud between the two leaders was brought up at a meeting of German MEPs from the Christian Democratic Union in Parliament last week, where a source in the room said it was agreed that “it’s getting out of hand.”

In addition to taking over duties that fall within the purview of the secretary-general, Schulz has been accused of undermining Welle’s influence by planting key aides in permanent director general posts.

Grässle accused the president of favoritism last year when Schulz appointed his deputy head of office Herwig Kaiser to the directorate-general for human resources, his former advisor Maria José Martinez Iglesias to director in the legal service and former aide Lorenzo Mannelli to the finance department.

“The underlying strategy is to make Klaus look like a lame duck,” said a parliamentarian from the EPP. “Telling everybody that the secretary-general has no consequence.”

In a statement to POLITICO, Schulz’s office said the president had “no intention to replace his secretary-general.”

The Schulz-Welle rift also surfaced recently after the secretary-general asked the European Parliamentary Research Service — the in-house think-tank he created to function like the U.S. Congressional Research Service research — to prepare a report on a potential Greek exit from the euro.

Schulz has the say

“When Schulz found out about the report, he jumped out of his seat and ordered Welle to ‘Stop this right away!’” said a Parliament administrator.

At the root of the problem is a strong difference of opinion about how Parliament should function.

Welle’s vision of a Parliament similar to the U.S. Congress — with independent bodies like a research service and a budget analysis office — runs counter to Schulz’s vision of a legislative body led by the political groups. By sending staffers to the U.S. to strengthen their expertise and ripping out toilets and showers in MEP offices to make room for more staff, sources say Welle has been aggravating the president’s office.

“Welle wants to imitate the American Congress,” said a source in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe party group. “He invites people from Washington to tell us how to run a Parliament. We have six parties [instead of two]; it’s not the same.”

When the Parlamentarium, the assembly’s new interactive visitor center, opened three years ago in Brussels, there were fears in Schulz’s camp that Welle was winning the battle to make Brussels more like D.C. The secretary-general had championed that project.

But lately the tide seems to have turned. And MEPs know they have to live with the conflict.

“You’re either of the Welle camp or the Schulz camp,” said an S&D party leader. “But at the end of the day, the president has the last say, so it’s not surprising that there’s a little difference of opinion.”

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