Meet Stéphanie Riso, the EU’s budget brain and ‘toughest cookie’

BRUSSELS — The ink is barely dry on the European Commission’s €1.8 trillion financial package but the EU’s 27 governments are already plotting to dismantle it bit by bit over the next two years of painful negotiations.

While others took the spotlight, and much of the criticism, it was civil servant Stéphanie Riso — the consummate backroom operator — who has quietly pulled the levers for years. She needed all her powers of diplomacy when, late at night before the budget’s unveiling last month, Commission infighting forced a swathe of late-night concessions.

The muddled launch of the post-2027 budget was the chaotic finale to months of internal wrangling, political turf wars and last-ditch attempts to torpedo Riso’s work.

A French Commission veteran with scars from the eurozone crisis, Brexit and the EU’s pandemic recovery, Riso has quietly become one of the bloc’s most influential — and polarizing — civil servants. At 49 she’s heading up the mother of all assignments: steering the EU’s next budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), away from farmers’ subsidies and regional payouts toward more modern pan-European industrial projects.

Now that the budget draft, with Riso’s fingerprints all over it, has been published, it will shuttle between capitals and the European Parliament as a final version is nailed down. It’s a gargantuan task.

In a city where compromise is usually the order of the day, Riso’s unyielding style has already put some noses out of joint.

“The MFF has been written by three people locked in a room,” one EU official said, referring to Riso, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s head of cabinet Bjoern Seibert, and Céline Gauer, who oversees the post-Covid recovery fund. Like most of the others quoted in this article, the official was granted anonymity because they don’t want to breach confidences.

Internally in the Commission, Riso has ruffled feathers by sidelining departments, slashing budget lines, and pushing through controversial reforms with little regard for process or consensus. Officials said her tactics had sparked a mini-rebellion among commissioners, who banded together to block her most radical proposals in a dramatic 11th-hour showdown earlier this month inside the Berlaymont, the Commission’s headquarters.

What is normally a technocratic, dull process devolved into a late-night political knifing.

“It was an almost physical fight,” said one EU diplomat briefed on the discussions.

People are afraid of her

Riso’s supporters argue there was no other way. The EU’s budget is notoriously unwieldy, a patchwork of national interests, political sensitivities and decades-old entitlements — from farm subsidies to culture grants. Reforming it requires a certain disregard for Brussels etiquette.

“She doesn’t have many enemies,” said one official. “But many people are afraid of her.”

Another called her “the toughest cookie” of the lot.

The latest budget fight is a case in point, having revealed a power struggle with European Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin. | Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Riso defies the Eurocrat stereotype. Allies and colleagues say she’s intense, sharp-tongued, funny — and utterly relentless. Known for her no-nonsense wardrobe of dark blazers and buttoned-up shirts, she has earned nicknames like “the war monk” for her singular devotion to whichever EU crisis is at hand.

“She can keep a whole table laughing,” recalled a former colleague. “But she’s also overwhelming — you feel like you need to breathe after an hour with her.”

Another Commission veteran described her as “restless and fearless” — a new breed of official who isn’t afraid to cross swords with elected politicians, even her nominal superiors.

The latest budget fight is a case in point, having revealed a power struggle with European Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin. A close ally of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Serafin has voiced concerns over von der Leyen’s budget reforms, which tie payments to economic overhauls and reduce regional discretion — measures Riso had pushed hard during the drafting on behalf of her boss .

“It was obvious Serafin’s team wasn’t in the loop,” one diplomat said. “Riso was working directly with von der Leyen.”

Riso declined to be interviewed for this profile.

Building a castle

In her office on the outskirts of the EU quarter — housed in a brutalist black building notorious for being “too cold in winter and too hot in summer,” according to someone who has worked there — Riso and her tight-knit team churned out what some call a fortress budget: meticulously planned, tightly guarded, and fiercely defended.

Those who tried to get a preview of the proposal hit a wall of silence — a Mafia-style omertà, as one diplomat put it.

She was “building a castle” and didn’t want it to collapse before she presented it, said an official involved in the talks.

This secrecy, combined with the sweeping nature of her reforms, unnerved commissioners and national leaders alike. Protests erupted from researchers, farmers and regional governments — all alarmed at the cuts or conditionalities proposed.

“When the Commission talks about coherence, they mean centralization,” said another EU diplomat. Critics call it a power grab.

Brexit power

Riso’s reputation as a crisis fixer was cemented during the Brexit talks, where she played a behind-the-scenes role in brokering compromises in 2020.

Stéphanie Riso has quietly become one of the bloc’s most influential — and polarizing — civil servants. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

“If it wasn’t for Stéphanie taking charge of the EU side in the final weeks, I’m pretty sure the whole thing would have collapsed,” said a former member of the U.K. negotiating team. “Her skills and professionalism saved it.”

Since then, her star has only risen — even as her methods remain controversial.

“Over the next few months, she’ll be the most powerful civil servant in Brussels,” predicted one diplomat.

The proof of the pudding

Ultimately, Riso’s legacy will hinge on whether the new budget sticks — and survives the gauntlet of national parliaments, EU lawmakers and vested interests.

“If she succeeds, she can become the next secretary-general of the European Commission,” the EU’s top civil servant position, a Commission official said.

The outcome won’t be certain until shortly before 2028.

“If you’re on the opposite side of the table, you’d better have a good argument,” said a former colleague. “Otherwise, you’ll lose.”

Many more are about to discover that for themselves.