Kaja Kallas, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy and vice president of the European Commission, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, November 12, 2025. NICK IWANYSHYN / AP
"The story is worthy of Game of Thrones," said an observer of the European bubble. At the end of October, a chill ran through the hallways of the European Commission headquarters: The "Berlaymont monster" was rumored to be returning to Brussels. Martin Selmayr has carried this unflattering nickname since his tenure as chief of staff, from 2014 to 2018, to Jean-Claude Juncker, then president of the Commission, and then for a year as secretary general of the European Union's executive arm. At the time, this brilliant, highly political German lawyer, known for the ruthlessness of some of his decisions, was described as the most powerful man in Brussels.
In 2019, upon taking office as president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and her loyal chief of staff, Björn Seibert, promptly decided to send their compatriot far away – first to Vienna to lead the EU delegation there and then more recently to Rome at the Holy See. But this autumn, Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign minister, decided to recruit him as deputy secretary for geoeconomics and institutional affairs at the European External Action Service (EEAS).
