DAVOS DOWN-LOW …
LEO’S A MAMMA’S BOY: While all the world leaders, CEOs and hangers-on at Davos were hoping just to brush shoulders with Leonardo DiCaprio, the A-lister actually requested a meeting with a B-list leader, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg. The actor was in town to announce his $15 million commitment to sustainability and conservation projects. Instead of squiring one of the bevy of supermodels with whom he’s often photographed canoodling, he chose to bring his mother to the international confab. Leo’s mom is now close to an A-list Grand Slam: She’s been on Leo’s arm at the Golden Globes and at Davos, and Playbook hears it will be the same again at the Oscars.
U.S. actor Leonardo DiCaprio
KEVIN SPACEY, CYBERSECURITY EXPERT: That’s right, the fictional Frank Underwood was left in the security queue and instead Spacey put on his cybersecurity hat for Davos. The actor has just taken up a job as a studio head in Hollywood, at Relativity Media, and told Playbook that after the Sony hacking scandal he wants to bone up on the ever-shifting sands of IP protection and data security. He’s also including 6 a.m. breakfasts with world leaders in his punishing schedule.
MISSED YOU, MICHEL: Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel was slated to speak at Davos on Thursday as part of a public-relations blitz to repair Brussels’ image with investors as a war-torn terrorist nest. But he had to cancel at the last minute because his pregnant girlfriend has yet to give birth. She’s five days past her due date. Michel’s deputy, Alexander De Croo, was already in town as a member of the Young Global Leaders group and was asked to fill in.
EU LETS THE COMMISSIONERS LOOSE: Any support staff to the Davos elite knows that getting your boss around the World Economic Forum is like herding a very popular talkative cat through a bunch of other popular talkative cats. On ice. So it’s very surprising indeed that the Commission has decided to cut down the number of officials accompanying the 12 commissioners in Davos this week. One poor cabinet member was left in charge of three commissioners. Give him a medal!
STATUS ENVY AT THE ELITIST CONFAB: If you regularly attend Davos, you already know you’ve made it. But alphas will be alphas and the latest cause for jockeying this year has been whether you have a “V” (for veteran) on your Davos badge, recognition of attending 10 World Economic Forums. First-timers or “newcomers” were branded with an “N.” “Strategic Partners” (who pay up big time to attend Davos en masse) had a discreet dot on their badges. The bottom-feeders of the system had a “hotel badge” that looks totally different from other participants, and limited their access to a particular hotel for a particular fringe event.
NOT SO SNAPPY SOUNDBITES: Playbook breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that EU commissioners would be equipped with one-line answers they could use on 20 hot topics. Perhaps we might get some straight talk that could actually be delivered before deadline, we thought. Turns out we were wrong. The snappy soundbite guide came in at 148 pages. Whoever edited that one should open a Waffle Shop in their next career.
BORIS CHURCHILL TO THE RESCUE: Newly published diplomatic correspondence shows that Boris Johnson, former student at the European School of Brussels and now London mayor, made quite a scene on a trip to Iraq in 2015. British papers reported that Johnson failed to pay his bar tab, tried to drive a sports car out of a showroom, and attempted to visit the frontline of the fight against ISIL and had to be lured to a training camp instead. “Who needs Davos when you have Kurdistan?” Johnson told Kurds attending an economic forum during the trip, the emails show.
WE HARDLY KNEW YE: The European Parliament’s Bureau of Presidents turned off the EU spigot this week for the Euroskeptic transnational party the Movement for a Europe and Liberties and Democracy (MELD) and its affiliated group the Foundation for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy (FELD). Sources tell us that the breakup was due to infighting between the pan-European groups, which included the Danish People’s Party. The party needed members from at least seven national political parties for EU funding. “It was sort of inevitable,” a parliament source said. “But they could always have scrambled around to find an MEP of another nationality to keep the show on the road, and the money flowing.” And it was a big lump to give up; the EU funded the two groups to the tune of €1.5 million a year.
POWER PLAY OF THE WEEK: When Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi sacked his widely respected EU ambassador Stefano Sannino, he broke a 70-year tradition by appointing a non-career diplomat, Carlo Calenda, to the post.
A STAR TO DESCEND ON BRUSSELS: Calenda isn’t just a civilian in political clothing; he’s also a former child actor. The newest permanent representative to Brussels was once in a 1984 Italian TV miniseries called “Cuore.”
COPYRIGHT THAT MITZVAH! Is nothing sacred? The Israeli mission to the EU and NATO, seemingly worried someone would steal the contents of an invitation for their New Year’s dance party, made sure to note the message was copyrighted. “Are you a shaker and a mover? Come prove it on the dance floor,” the invite to the très chic Cercle de Lorraine stated. The kitschy invite didn’t feature the most brilliant of taglines, but nonetheless the Israelis wanted “All Rights Reserved.”
FIVE STRIKES AND YOU’RE OUT? To warn staffers about the penalty of receiving too many professional incompetence reports, the European Parliament is using the phrase “five strikes and you’re out” in its Newshound newsletter. We’re not sure if this tagline illustrates the Parliament’s limited knowledge of America’s national pastime, baseball (It’s “three strikes and you’re out!”) or their uber-generous disciplinary practice. Either way, it seems like you really have to try to get sacked from the EP.
WHO’S UP
Andrzej Duda
The Polish president succeeded in calming the waters a bit on debate about his government
Leonardo DiCaprio
He won an award in Davos, but then again … is he ever down?
WHO’S DOWN
Jean-Claude Juncker
How many times can the Commission president say this is the last chance?
Polish diplomats
After dismissal of the country’s permanent representative to the EU, they’re nervous.