Just when the European Union was supposed to forge ahead as a more united bloc, its three big institutions are weakened and at war with each other.

This was meant to be the year the EU drew a line under the triple crises of the eurozone, migration and Britain’s vote to leave the union. Following May’s European election, it pledged to take heed of its electorate and tackle global problems such as climate change, trade wars, digital transformation and migration with timely and effective action.

Instead, as November 1, the date incoming Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was due to take office, comes and goes, the EU’s capacity to act — let alone to reinvent itself — looks increasingly elusive.

Instead of leading the EU into a more integrated post-Brexit era, three major institutions that have to cooperate to make the Union function effectively — the Council, Commission and Parliament — are fighting each other.

When von der Leyen takes office on December 1, barring further delays, her authority will have been undermined by clashes with Parliament, disagreements with national capitals and controversy about her appointments and the division of labor in her team.

The EU’s capacity to fulfill the ambitious goals it has set itself has never seemed more unsure.

Fragmented Parliament

The surge in turnout in May’s European election showed that more citizens look to the EU for solutions, but the vote also yielded a more fragmented legislature. That means political coalitions will be harder to build, and policy will be harder to implement.

The center-right European People’s Party and the center-left Socialists no longer command a majority together. The emergence of Macron’s liberal Renew group — an ambitious centrist rival to the EPP — as the indispensable third partner in any pro-European coalition has disrupted their cozy duopoly and destabilized the system.

The new Parliament is still smarting from seeing its Spitzenkandidat method to determine the choice of Commission president thrown out the window. Its power brokers are not interested in making things easy for a Commission president picked in backroom negotiations among EU leaders.

They have exacted revenge with tit-for-tat rejections of three candidates for the Commission, dealing a heavy blow to von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron with the disqualification of his protegée, Sylvie Goulard.

Many now seem to fear French hegemony in a post-Brexit EU more than they fear collective impotence in global affairs.

“The Commission will have to spend much more time trying to forge compromises on substance,” one veteran EU official predicted.

That’s bad news for von der Leyen, who won appointment by only a narrow nine votes in Parliament and whose flagship program — a so-called European Green Deal designed to speed up the EU’s halting transition to a low-carbon economy — will prove especially hard to steer through fragmented, feuding institutions, given the radical changes in lifestyle, habits and costs that it implies for citizens and businesses.

Deadlocked Council

While the Parliament acts out, the Council is paralyzed.

Riven by north-south and east-west divides, the grouping of national governments — which still control the purse strings and national economic and social policies — has been unable to agree on a range of key decisions to strengthen the eurozone, underpin the bloc’s banking system, reform failed asylum and immigration policies, combat global warming and stabilize the Western Balkans.

Ironically, the EU’s united and sure-handed conduct of the complex and potentially divisive Brexit negotiations provided a rare model of political and interinstitutional cohesion. But that unity — which Michel Barnier, Europe’s chief Brexit negotiator, predicted EU leaders will “utilize” to tackle big challenges and set a “positive agenda” — shows no sign of spreading to other other issues.

Barnier’s patient consultation and consensus building stand in stark contrast to Macron’s strong-willed effort to capture Brussels by the sword. Many now seem to fear French hegemony in a post-Brexit EU more than they fear collective impotence in global affairs.

After being burned by Parliament, the French leader is now trying to put a lid on the interinstitutional conflict that threatens to blight von der Leyen’s presidency.

Alas, he may be making things worse. During the last European Council, Macron sought to negotiate a truce over breakfast with von der Leyen, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and national leaders from the three main political groups to try to ensure his nominee to replace the fallen Goulard would secure safe passage.

But parliamentary leaders do not wish to take orders from national leaders or accept any interference in their right to scrutinize candidates for the Commission.

Bermuda triangle

Some Brussels insiders predict a Hobbesian war of all against all in which each institution fights for its own turf and forces within each institution battle their rivals — net budget contributor states versus net recipients; ambitious Commission vice presidents versus von der Leyen and versus each other; EPP versus Renew Europe and vice versa.

The first major test of whether there’s hope of getting much done in the next five years will be if EU governments and the Parliament can agree on a long-term budget for the period between 2021 and 2027 after the U.K. leaves the bloc.

So far, things aren’t looking good. Talks stalled at the European Council summit earlier this month, where leaders acknowledged they were still far from a compromise on the size of the budget, how it’ll be spent and who might get a rebate.

The issue of whether to link funding to criteria such as adherence to the rule of law is also exacerbating the split between camps, raising the possibility that the budget could be delayed.

The European voters who turned out in record numbers in May will be hoping leaders in Brussels and other national capitals find a way to work together. There’s some reason for hope.

Past bouts of interinstitutional fighting have often ended in constructive compromises after a period of tests of strength. The “Eurosclerosis” of the early 1980s preceded a major breakthrough, when a French Socialist Commission president and a conservative U.K. prime minister worked in lockstep to build the single market.

Britain’s looming departure is changing the balance of power within the Council, which will need to find its new footing.

The same rapid shifts in power that have set the institutions against each other also offer opportunities for breakthroughs.

Britain’s looming departure is changing the balance of power within the Council, which will need to find its new footing. The new Parliament, in which more than half of the members are newcomers, will also take time to get used to its three-or-four-way power-sharing. One way of doing so would be to negotiate a joint policy platform similar to a German coalition agreement to build mutual trust and give MEPs a constructive rather than an obstructive role.

Whatever they ultimately decide, whether we’re talking the Council, Commission and Parliament or the EPP, the Socialists and Renew Europe — in post-Brexit Europe, it will take three to tango.

Paul Taylor, contributing editor at POLITICO, writes the Europe At Large column.