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(Credit: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty)
The European Union is about to enter what could prove to be the most ominous phase in its troubled history. In a few weeks, Ursula von der Leyen’s new European Commission will officially take office, at which point she will have almost unfettered control over the bloc’s politics.
When von der Leyen introduced the new Commission’s lineup and organisational structure last month, even the typically Brussels-friendly mainstream media was forced to admit that what she had pulled off was nothing short of a coup. By placing loyalists in strategic roles, marginalising her critics, and establishing a complicated web of dependencies and overlapping duties that prevent any individual from gaining excessive influence, the Commission President has set the stage for an unprecedented supranational “power grab” that will further centralise authority in Brussels — specifically in the hands of von der Leyen herself.
She is busy transforming the Commission “from a collegial body into a presidential office”, noted Alberto Alemanno, EU law professor at HEC Paris. But this is the culmination of a longstanding process. The Commission has been stealthily expanding its powers for a long time, evolving from technical body into full-blooded political actor, resulting in a major transfer of sovereignty from the national to the supranational level at the expense of democratic control and accountability. But this “Commissionisation” is now being taken to a whole new level.
Consider the bloc’s foreign policy, and its defence and security policy in particular. It has gone relatively unnoticed that von der Leyen has used the Ukraine crisis to push for an expansion of the Commission’s top-down executive powers, leading to a de facto supranationalisation of the EU’s foreign policy (despite the fact that the Commission has no formal competence over such matters), while ensuring the bloc’s alignment with (or, rather, subordination to) the US-Nato strategy.
A signal aspect of this move has been the appointment to key defence and foreign policy roles of representatives from the Baltic States (total population: a bit more than 6 million), which have now been bumped up the political food chain because they share von der Leyen’s über-hawkish stance toward Russia. One particularly important figure is Andrius Kubilius, former Prime Minister of Lithuania, who, if confirmed, will take on the role of the EU’s first Commissioner for Defence. Kubilius, known for his close ties to US-funded NGOs and think tanks, will be responsible for the European defence industry and is expected to push for greater integration of military-industrial production. Furthermore, Kubilius served on the advisory board of the International Republican Institute and is a former member of the Atlantic Council’s EuroGrowth Initiative — two Atlanticist organisations whose primary objective is to promote US corporate and geopolitical interests around the world.
Kubilius’s nomination comes alongside that of Kaja Kallas, former Prime Minister of Estonia, to the role of European foreign and security policy chief; of Finland’s Henna Virkkunen to the role of executive vice-president and Commissioner for Technology; and of Latvia’s Valdis Dombrovskis, to Commissioner for Economy and Productivity.
It should come as no surprise that the Atlantic Council, which has distinguished itself for its very hawkish approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, has welcomed the formation of this “Baltic squad”, seeing it as a signal that the EU considers Russia to be its “primary threat”, and that the bloc will remain in lockstep with America on Ukraine and other key geopolitical issues, such as China.
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Subscribewe can but wish! Realistically though there is no hope of Brussels relenting as they control the currency.And since the Euro currency is a political project the nation states are effectively neutered. To use a somewhat crude expression “once you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow”
It’s going to be fun to watch.
Maybe bitcoin economy can step in and provide an alternative to the euro. I also think the euro will struggle even against the doller/stablecoins and a northern country ( holland perhaps,) will leave the euro zone in such a scenario and impossible to see the EU remaining powerful in such a scenatio
What means stablecoins?
End the EU tyranny before it further damages the people of Europe
Or before it falls back into fascism again.
I fear it is already at the proto-fascist stage. One more push and yes it will be post – modern fascism with the aid of AI
If you read the writings of Jean Monnet, Barroso and others it’s hard to escape the conclusion that a return to some kind of elite corporatism in reaction to the hated ‘anglo-saxon democracy’ imposed by the UK and US after WWII, was always the intention. Monnet’s remarks on the strategy to undermine pluralism by stealth are particularly sinister.
Fascism, in plain English.
More national EU socialism me thinks
Bit late for that!
Any suggestions?
I believe the “Victoria Nuland approach” is the best way to deal with the EU.
Happily the UK “Brexited” to a large degree and could do more if only its politicians had the nerve to do so.
The EU has evolved into what was always the intended result, an essentially Fash ist centralised system. And what shouldn’t be a surprise it is being done by a middle class German lawyer…the real backbone of a previous Party which wanted to “unite Europe”.
Now what was that phrase about history repeating itself…and I don’t mean the popular song?
That b***h Nuland is no example to follow, except perhaps for the Von der Liar creature.
But her comment about the EU is most certainly one to follow.
I’m no fan of the EU these days, but I’m absolutely committed to the conviction that things would be worse for Europe without it.
Right….forced unregulated mass immigration, unelected bureaucrats in charge, and insane “green” policies are so helpful
Worse for Europe or worse for Austria/Germany?
Really? How would it be worse? Financially or politically?
As Fazi points out – none of this is grounded in EU structures or EU law. It’s all von der Leyen and her Euroatlanticist masters exploiting the fecklessness – and to some extent the circular power relationships – of the Council of Ministers.
All of this makes von der Leyen’s methods so insidious, but it also means they are built on sand. If the Council of Ministers would bestir itself, it’d all be over.
Won’t happen so long as VDL has backing from Berlin.
Yes, things would be so much worse for this country without a massive population increase, wouldn’t it.
Care to offer specifics?
While I am happy that Britain is out of the EU, I am supportive of von der Leyen’s “uber-hawkish stance towards Russia”.
Another case of ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’?
Well, yes. Don’t forget that the UK and the US were allied with the Soviet Union during WW2. Sometimes needs must.
Had the UK “allied” with the USSR rather sooner there wouldn’t have been WW2. The Polish Guarantee was worthless without the assistance, either formal or implied, of the Soviet Union. Indeed Maisky was astonished that it was given.
True, but the USSR was to busy allying itself with Germany at that point.
It was Maisky’s failure to achieve an understanding with the UK which allowed the Ribbentrop pact. The opportunity was there for Britain to take…it didn’t.
At that point, there was probably little to distinguish Russia from Germany, so Britain might not have known who to back. Still, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
But only because UK would not commit itself to any alliance with USSR. I sometimes wonder if UK (and USA in the background) were secretly hopeful that a war would break out – but started by Germany.
Central to British imperial policy in the 1930s was the idea that the Nazis and the Soviets should beat each other to death. You can stop wondering.
Probably not a bad policy, but for the fact that Poland was in the middle.
Are you happy that the West ‘implemented’ its uber-hawkish stance, (some would say as early as 2014), with an eye watering Energy dependency on Russia, and without the necessary military strength, manufacturing capability, manpower or the public will to even eke out a draw in the inevitable bloody contest?
Good generals don’t win every battle they fight, they fight the battles they can win. And they know that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
The “energy dependency” was idiotic. I am on record as saying that if I ever find out who blew up Nordstream, I’ll buy them a beer. As to Europe “not having the necessary military strength” to deal with Russia, they had better build it up, because Russia is a “forever enemy”.
“ In many respects, the feeling is that the Labour Government has definitively entered its late-Soviet stage. Faced with the UK societal and economic breakdown, escalating geopolitical crises, collapsing democratic legitimacy and mounting “populist” uprisings, Labours’ political-economic middle managers have chosen to declare all-out war on what is left of democracy.”
Sorry Mr Fazi, couldn’t help it. Excellent article.
Excellent! Labour go from the giddy high of the 1917 revolution to late-Soviet stage in 100 days.
Yeah, and they didn’t even get to storm the Winter Palace!
But they did storm the private schools and winter fuel payments
How very dreary. Maybe they should have had the chance to storm the Alberta and Victoria.
Why storm a Canadian province? (Just kidding you!)
More likely Harrods if someone else is paying
Starmer boasted he’d be efficient, and he was right!
Uber Alles until they run out of other peoples money …
The comparison with the USSR is not apt. A more appropriate one would be with the USA, which consists of competent state governments, but under the overarching federal Presidency and common currency. Unless an organisation changes, it becomes moribund, so how should the EU progress? It is all very well to snipe from the sidelines, but how about some positive ideas? UK has chosen the solitary path of powerless self-subjection to US influence – I should prefer to be involved in the weightier substance of the EU with a European view and policy, where we should at least have a vote in the political direction of the Union.
But as the article points out the EU just follows US policy anyway. The EU has no “weightier substance”, and a vote in it none whatsoever.
It seems you would prefer the U.K. to have “powerless subjection” to the EU Commission rather than make its own decisions. Why is that ?
No, it is like the current American reality of unelected bureaucrats and appointees serving the goal of an unelected agenda.
Talking about this as if it is some sinister and unexpected turn of events is somewhat misleading. What’s happening is what was planned from the very beginnings in the form of the European Coal and Steel Community and has been maintained since at every step of the Project’s evolution.
Not only ought the process to be unsurprising, it is also necessary in order to stabilise the single currency, which in the absence of political union will continue to destabilise the Eurozone’s various economies through asymmetric capital flows and debt burdens. Political union must be achieved at least for the Eurozone if not the whole EU, otherwise the Euro itself will fail.
What appears to have changed is that Brussels is much more fearful of trying to achieve future phases of integration via the traditional forms of democratic validation: Brexit, and the rise of anti-EU sentiment in most EU nations since Brexit, has seen to that. So characters like Von Der Leyen instead adopt the tactics of gradual bureaucratic mission creep, opportunistic use of crises, and carefully-timed fait-accomplis to continue the centralisation process.
However, it doesn’t matter how this is done, in a certain sense, because while the means are one thing, the ends, which were always a matter of public record, are quite another. Europeans cannot claim they weren’t warned.
I slightly disagree – the route of march was never as deterministic as it is here made out to be.
There was always a strong push for Europe as a unitary state on the French model, transported by Eurocrats raised in centralistic bureaucratic traditions and figures like Delors. But even the Eurocrats were always for a Europe, not for the US-via-NATO militaristic policy adjunct the EU has now become.
Von der Leyen’s problem is that she has so deeply committed the EU to the failed Project Ukraine, and it is so inextricably identified with her, that she cannot go back. Like other leaders before her, her only choice is to double down again and again, and hope that some miracle will save her.
There will be no miracle, of course. Project Ukraine is a disaster, and the Americans are already positioning themselves to walk away from it and dump the mess they’ve created in Europe’s lap. Either von der Leyen is ousted, or we need to brace for the inevitability of Götterdämmerung.
I have no problem allowing that there has always been a variety of political attitudes to the ideal of the political union originally envisaged. My point is that it became set in stone, whether Europeans like it or not, by the establishment of the Euro.
It is very clear that not only did most Europeans not understand this at the time the Euro was introduced, most national politicians and even some Eurocrats themselves didn’t understand what they were really committed to at the time. (I was certainly one such person myself: twenty years ago when it happened, I was very busy with work, read a few news stories about the Euro, thought it sounded like a great idea, and didn’t ask any of the questions that the present-day, better-informed me would have asked if I’d been there).
Prior to the Euro, a variety of models were available for Europe with varying degrees of political union. Most of those, including all of the options based upon loosely-coupled nation-state democracies within a free trade bloc, were eradicated when the Euro was introduced.
The Euro was established because that was the political will, and still is, even though it is putting the cart before the horse.
Yes, but whose political will?
Please explain what you have in mind by “Project Ukraine”. Do you mean the decision to help Ukraine with armaments and financial support to defend themselves against the Russian invasion?
“Project Ukraine” is the project to instrumentalise Ukraine in order to achieve regime change in Russia and ultimately break up Russia (the EU has hosted conferences on this).
In the pursuit of this project, the EU has bankrupted itself, abandoned one of the most lucrative markets for its products, cut itself off from its most stable, cheap and reasonably green source of energy, destroyed its financial credibility, and enforced authoritarianism internally. Though the EU has no military role, Project Ukraine has also resulted in the disarmament of Western Europe.
The giddy certainty in early 2022 was that Russia’s collapse was a matter of weeks, and the EU would feast on her carcass. Instead, Russia is riding high militarily and economically, but Ukraine has been bled white, her population reduced to half, her industry and energy systems destroyed, her politics toxic.
Great job, Ursula! You’ve exceeded the destruction you wrought on the German Bundeswehr, once a credible army and now thanks to you a public joke.
This sounds rather overblown. The USA (and perhaps the European nations) see Russia as an existential threat. It is one of the 4 nations (along with Iran, China and North Korea) continuously cyber-attacking the West to disrupt public services, financial stability, elections, and national unity. Russia is ruled by a corrupt and muderous dictatorship, and can hardly be regarded as a safe trading partner. Putin planned to restore the Soviet empire by the military conquest of sovereign nations and has encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance in Ukraine. To describe Russia as “riding high militarily” when the Kursk Oblast region has just been successfully invaded by Ukraine is puzzling. The policy of abandoning nuclear energy and depending on a hostile power for the supply of natural gas (i.e. Germany under Angela Merkel) was astonishingly short sighted, as events have proved.
Can I suggest that US and European objectives in helping Ukraine defend itself against a Hitler-style invasion is partly humanitarian and partly an attempt to lessen the ability of Russia to threaten Western stability?
Would he have invaded if the EU hadn’t threatened his borders?
How did the EU threaten his borders? Actually, how can EU threaten anybody’s borders?
No. Just to get rid of the deraged megomaniac, Putin.
I’m not sure Ursula von der Leyen is responsible for the sorry state of the German military. Seems to me she did as much good as bad, leaving her effect neutral.
A very flawed view of your ideological paymaster that is called Russia.Your Eur-Asian wishes are built on the deranged politics of the AFD,and Europe would be a stronger and safer place if you and your ilk just moved to Russia and stayed there.
So the €Euro tail is wagging the Europeans dogs. Bonkers.
Continental Europeans have a choice: more Europe, or more Single Currency.
Which is what Fazi said in a slightly different way through the use of the word permacrisis. I do take your point about the Euro requiring a supranational autocracy in order for it to work as the stealth political alignment project it was intended to be. We owe a debt of gratitude to Gordon Brown for his hard-headed appreciation of that reality then.
You’re right of course. Jacques Delors recognised “ever closer union” ultimately would mean a United States of Europe, similar to the USA. (He went to considerable lengths to obfuscate this though). Knowing voters wouldn’t vote to remove their national governments EU integration was achived gradually using Treaty changes. (and avoid contact with voters)
One can argue the pros/cons of EU integration till the cows come home : its been undeniably great for some.
But there are no democratic nations on Earth who have avoided a bloody civil war in their very creation. A civil war is what defines a nation. Creating an EU state -however gradually- will not avoid that outcome. Thats the worry.
Beats me why Brussels didn’t just leave it as the EEC and avoid the political EU nonsense altogether – everyone would still have the economic benefits and likely be more competitive to boot.
This all leaves me a bit cold to be honest. If the EU really has entered its “late Soviet” phase then I’m in my “late lethargy” phase about it all.
I’ve come to accept VdL still being Commission President as a sort of necessity, continuity at this juncture being more important than the democratic merits (haha) of her holding that office.
Let it also be said at this point that I was impressed at the ousting of Thierry Breton; as a power move that was most thrilling.
And yet I still don’t believe that these changes will lead to any fundamental change in the way the EU operates or its long-term trajectory, which is downwards – economically, (geo-)politically, spiritually, culturally, the works.
But I guess this is the car that I am strapped into the back seat of as it rolls inexorably downhill, so I may as well enjoy the view streaming by and hope that I can get through the rest of my life in a reasonably pleasant and peaceful fashion.
Whenever I stop to ponder Ursula von der Leyen’s influence on the EU, I am ultimately forced to concede that I still like her more than I liked Jean-Claude Juncker.
One of South Park’s best episodes concerned an election contested by a douche and a t**d.
Yeah, but Juncker was quite simply the most repulsive human being in Western Europe. VDL will never plumb those depths.
.
Great “Slaughter House 5” reference.
Unintentional, as I’ve never read it. What was the reference?
” its long-term trajectory, which is downwards – economically, (geo-)politically, spiritually, culturally, the works.”
Well, now you’ve put your finger on something here. The famous Reformer John Calvin once said “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers”.
If he was right, then that explains a lot.
This of course will spell the end of the EU for certain nations that don’t kiss the ring of Pope Ursula. But how does a nation proceed when just about everyone under the age of 35 basically buys into the mainstream Western mono-culture, because it’s propagated through pop-culture? This is the general problem in the West is no one really believes anything more than skin deep, so they can be sold anything as long as it appears on all their digital screens, particularly if you tell them all their life problems are because of Orban, or Russia, or Global Warming, or that LGBT is too oppressed, and that the West generally has an answer through policies. Freedom, and blessings and safety are only found through them.
So they control all narratives and get to tell everyone what the problem is and what the solution is. They are judge, jury and executioner. The overarching problem is not that control has been seized by her, but that censorship rules, and the control of information is in place to make sure someone like her (and whoever is behind her) can do what she has done. There is a battle for national sovereignty going on in the EU, and the bad guys have control over what gets said. Eventually I predict that they will come after guys like Fazi, and places where so called unheard things get said. The opposition itself must be controlled, and much of it already is as we see with all the NeoCon writers that get their narratives out. They are however ultimately just one of the other heads of the monster, because we see Ursula also likes proxy wars.
Every morning, before I get out of bed, I thank God that we are out.
It makes no difference – we are following all the trends…the Trilateral Commission of which Starmer is a member has us on the same trajectory.
Ursula von der Leyen has certainly played the political power game well. And now that she has won another 5-year term (that I believe has not even started yet) her position seems impregnable. It would take a 2/3 majority of the European Parliament to dethrone her, and that’s not going to happen. Neither is the Council of Ministers likely to rein her in.
It’s a shame, really. She’s not a talented leader.
The People deserve the leaders they have elected.
Oh, hang on there …. …. 🙂
“won” a term
The EU has to go. It will be voters who see to it, thanks to Ursula’s neo-regal overreach.
I would like to offer to those who have not either read or seen it Orban’s address to Ursula von der Leyen in the EU Parliament :
https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/the-most-important-speech-of-the
Thanks for this. It confirms my assessment that while W Europe is over, there are sparks of light in Central and Eastern Europe.
Giorgia Meloni and most of the old Eastern bloc now in the EU are fighting back against Von Leyen. It won’t be so easy for her.
Funny how the people most interested in freedom and sovereignty are the ones with the institutional memory to remember what life without those things was like.
Progressive Fascism.
So much for the EU’s motto of “United in diversity”!
United in Progressivism.
It’s more progressive socialism – David Lammy must be the happiest bunny.
As an American, always thought the idea of a “United States of Europe” was a good. Naively underestimated the strong nationality that is the backbone of historical Europe, and its perennial conflicts.
Further underestimated Europe’s impulse to authoritarian leadership after all the suffering these put Europe through.
So where is the the empowered popular elected body to compromise and negotiate Europe towards legitimate union?
The European Continent does have form.
the Commission President has set the stage for an unprecedented supranational “power grab” that will further centralise authority in Brussels — specifically in the hands of von der Leyen herself.
Who could have possibly seen that coming?
The EU will now become even more attractive to Britain’s progressive elites, making their ideology even more irreversible.
Perhaps they can move there.
I would not be so dramatic about these changes, to be honest. It is a reaction to opposition from Hungary and other eastern countries that are still heavily influenced by Russia. There are not many mechanisms in the EU to control this opposition. The Vdl wants to introduce a “no democracy – no EU money” rule. Which in practice means “do what we tell you or go bankrupt”. And these changes will only take place in the 2028-2034 budget, which seems to be a very late response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So the EU is preparing for something even worse and THAT scares me.
And I do not understand this reference to the late Soviet Union at all. The late USSR was anything but centralization: “Take as much independence as you can swallow” in a nutshell.
Brexit looks wiser every day!!
We only have to persuade our MPs of this truth or, perhaps, it’s just the PM.
This Shamefaced woman is a disgrace to humanity, she is steeped in corruption, maladministration, the alarm bells should have rung after 2019 with the German defence contracts, but it seems if you are a scallywag then there’s an un-elected commissioner’s job for you! Then once her feet under the table learn how the Brussels Corruption Club work, and hey presto a £2.3 billion Pfizer secret contract signed with her good friend Bourla and of course her husband must have a share, let’s all have a slice of the un disclosed backhander, bribe or whatever you want to call it. Re-election no problem, all the votes paid for, why not she can afford it. What I cannot understand is WHY? anyone would wish to be part of the Brussels Corruption Club? (EU) The “EU” produces nothing, it sells nothing, it makes not one Euro profit. It is a government without a country. It taxes the member countries, it spends and enjoys the fruits and labours of the member countries. In the end it is worthless, no better than a Parasite bleeding its hosts dry of money, the Nationhood, the Pride and the Independence of the member countries.
In case anyone reading requires clarity on the population of the areas mentioned after reading this:
“…key defence and foreign policy roles of representatives from the Baltic States (total population: a bit more than 6 million).
Kubilius’s nomination comes alongside that of … Finland’s Henna Virkkunen to the role of executive vice-president”.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania do have a combined population of over 7.5 million.
Finland has a population of over 5.5 million people.
It’s not a huge number but still more than twice the figure Fazi quotes without clearly noting that he does not include Finland in the term “Baltic States” but does include it in discussion thereof and in the term “Baltic squad”.
Also, what does matter if they come from small countries? The commission have to be accepted by the European Parliament, which adds the majoritarian element he suddenly seem to want while rejecting it otherwise.
What surprises me about many of the comments is that people are surprised at what is happening and what UVDL has done.
As a Brexiteer with a sense of shadenfreude, I take my metaphorical hat off to UVDL for effectively pulling off what Monnet, Schumann & Salter wanted for the European Community – the effective near nullification of the nation state – not by war war but by jaw jaw.
Ok – we are not quite there but the Commission is likely in the best position for the first time to transit from proto to actual government. This will inevitably be a painful process as UVDL and her stooges reign in the non eurozone countries to give all power to Euroland in order to sustain the bast**d euro monetary system and it’s deformed progeny ‘the euro’.
For Europeans not to see this coming, it is terribly sad.
I guess one of the biggest winners is good old Blighty – Brexit did have a divided after all – just taken a bit longer to identify & enjoy.
Scary. It’s the lack of a mandate from the peoples of Europe and the lack of accountability which disturb me.
I voted Remain because I thought Brexit was unnecessary, and would show little short or medium term improvements to peoples lives. However, If asked again, I would have to think twice about rejoining. International cooperation shouldn’t require complete surrender of sovereignty – It’s not in anyone’s interests, except megalomaniacs.
Absolutely power corrupts, absolutely.
I agree Deb. The EU though in 2016 is far different to what it is now.
Great piece. Thoroughly educational.
Fazi seems to get it in my opinion at least in light of this article. Is it me or is he evolving to see more and more of the march to authoritarianism by the “Left” or the “elite” or whatever the best term is. Seems like maybe he wasn’t as clear thinking in earlier articles.
Sounds like good news.
It’s good that the EU takes a strong line on Ukraine, although the response so far has been inadquate.
Orban of course comes under pressure from the EU due to his abuse of democracy. His love of ‘sovereignty’ means he wants EU funds while ignoring its rules and norms like a free press and independent judiciary and we all know about the corruption he is associated with. It’s worth remembering that when considering ‘The EU vs Orban’.
Agreed. There is simply nothing nice that can be said about the man.
Great piece Thomas. Sadly the remainers will focus on roaming charges, jaunts for students and passport free passage to the Dordogne and Tuscany. The frog is being boiled.
Good piece. I’d love this to mere widely read. I imagine Starmer’s Stormtroopers would have anyone arrested for reading it out aloud in Hyde Park
An interesting article, but also I have to thank Fazi for reprinting the astonishing speech by Orban referenced in a Comment below.
This has been the plan since Day 1 and they have mindlessly followed it, hopefully to the demise of the EU. It’s funny, Von der Layen reminds me of Ingrid Tearney, of Slow Horses, with the coiffed hair, controlling, arrogant, uncaring, and out for just herself. Add hubris to the equation and Von der Layen will be out on her ass, just like Tearney. Does she realize she may have playing right into the opposition’s hand with this move? Love it.
Thank goodness we left! I just hope that, when the whole evil empire collapses under its own contradictions, it does so peacefully. The British people will, once again, have been proven prescient.
“the EU, through the Commission, has effectively become a quasi-dictatorial sovereign power with the authority to impose its agenda on member states and their citizens, regardless of their democratic aspirations.”
Which is exactly why I voted for Brexit.
The author of this piece demonstrates nothing more than his ignorance of how the EU machine actually works. Throwing around terms like “coup” or ” a major transfer of sovereignty” makes for provocative copy, but fails to reflect the formal constraints imposed on UvL by the reality of the EU Treaties.
Even if she has the ambition to engage in a “power grab” of the sort being alleged, UvL only has at her disposal the powers granted to the Commission by the Treaties. It doesn’t matter how she structures Commission portfolios or how many Baltic politicians she appoints to security-related roles, the actual powers of the Commission are unchanged.
Bash UvL by all means (and quite possibly with good reason), but do it from a position of knowledge and comprehension of the EU at least.
And the European Commission (or more specifically the European Commission) will meet the same fate as the Soviet Union. The collapse of political leadership in the European Union (bar Orban and maybe others) is not a permanent thing.
It will implode bit by bit at every national vote, as every nation (almost) votes in nay sayers. They will be come a disembodied head, with no body to feed them until toppled.