Inside the rotten heart of the EU

The newly-appointed Justice Commissioner (whose role involves ensuring compliance with the rule of law) insisted it was a harmless tradition. Fair enough, but after listening to endless speeches at the European Parliament achingly flaunting their anti-racists credentials, and calling for legal sanctions against hate speech, this hypocrisy is hard to take.

Perhaps he is a quality politician and is worth the grief? Perhaps, except that he recently failed to become President of the Council of Europe and was passed over for the Commission in 2014, making it third time lucky for a seat on the gravy train. But then he does have solid credentials, having previously worked in the Belgium government under its then Prime Minister, the anti-Brexit, friend-of-the-Lib-Dems  Guy Verhofstadt.

These new members of Ms Von der Leyen’s cabinet have been given new titles, supposedly to focus on their goals, but with a tinge of Orwellian doublespeak. So, we have a Commissioner for “A Stronger Europe in the World” and a Commissioner for “An Economy that Works for People”. One particularly creepy rebrand involves Greece‘s Margaritis Schinas – a former MEP, LSE alumnus and spokesman for previous President Jean-Claude Juncker – who has been given the migration portfolio and now revels in the title of Vice President for “Protecting our European Way of life”.

Jeez! Even in the supine world of EU bureaucracy this sobriquet has already led to some queasiness. A Dutch liberal MEP, Sophie in ‘t Veld, told The Independent that implying “Europeans need to be protected from external cultures is grotesque and this narrative should be rejected”. Other Europhiles denounced the title as “grotesque” and reminiscent of “fascist” rhetoric, but for me it shows up the two-faced nature of the claims that the EU is an internationalist enterprise. The truth is, it is a protectionist bloc, only committed to freedom of movement within its borders, at the expense of pesky foreigners from without.

What is most galling is that so many Remain champions here in the UK have the nerve to label those who want democratic control of national borders as xenophobic, when the more racist dynamic resides in Fortress Europe; it is a circling-the-wagons mentality that savagely polices its own borders to protect it from non-European immigrants, who are posited as a threat to “our European Way of Life”.

Another appointee is Spain’s Josep Borrell, who now heads up European diplomacy. This is the same Josep Borrell who entered Spain’s foreign ministry with one main aim: to defeat the Catalan independence movement. In 2018, he withdrew the diplomatic credentials of the Flemish government’s delegate in Spain in response to criticisms by the Flemish parliament speaker, Jan Peumans, about the jailing of Catalan leaders.

As this “diplomat” regularly defends the imprisoning and exile of elected Catalan politicians, maybe the SNP MEPs – who make much of their support for Catalan independence – will oppose his appointment? But… maybe not, as Borrell has been diplomatic enough to pander to Scottish nationalism, indicating that an independent Scotland should be allowed to join the EU, even while endorsing locking up those with similar views closer to home.

On the economy, there’s France’s appointee Sylvie Goulard, who is in charge of Domestic Markets. Ms Goulard is a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron, and quit as an MEP to join his government as Armed Forces Minister in 2017. However, she lasted less than a month and was forced to resign when an investigation was opened into how her party had misused EU funds; she had to reimburse the European Parliament Є45,000 euros (£40,200) in a case involving fake Parliamentary assistant jobs.

But please don’t worry about her. The following January, Ms Goulard was back with Mr Macron as deputy governor of the Bank of France! Barely a year later, she has now landed a plum job at the Commission. Nominated with no discussion. Nice work if you can get it.

That said, I’m sure that most of the Commissioners are upstanding. Although, only last Friday, the European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) revealed that they had begun an investigation into the Polish candidate, Janusz Wojciechowski. OLAF said that the investigation into the 64-year-old former MEP, and former president of the Polish Court of Auditors, concerns financial “irregularities”. Even if MEPs challenge his appointment (as much because of his politics, being a member of the Right-wing Law and Justice Party) von de Leyen will simply pull another name from a hat of non-discussed allies for us to “choose”. This smacks of an Xi Jinping version of democratic accountability.

I could go on. And on. There are so many examples of the essentially undemocratic and unaccountable nature of the Commission, but perhaps nothing better illustrates this than the new president herself. A gigantic poster of Ursula von der Leyen has just been erected in Brussels that reads: “In fair free elections, the power of the people determines the people in power”. Fine words, but simply not true. Juncker’s successor did not get her elevated position as a result of people power, but was appointed to the top job after secret negotiations in July that followed a row when the candidates put forward by the European Parliament were turned down by EU heads of government.

An unpopular politician at home (as defence minister she was dubbed by one wag as the German equivalent of Chris Grayling), I was there when she was confirmed as president after a fierce fight and lots of opposition in the European Parliament, only scraping home by nine votes (she won by 383 votes to 327, needing the support of 374 MEPs for an absolute majority). She played down the narrowness of her win, insisting that a “majority is a majority”. On that, I agree with her, and so do 17.4 million others: they are the real embodiment of “power of the people”. She and her new Commissioners should show a genuine commitment to people power, and stop keeping us tied to their dictats against our will.

Claire Fox is Brexit Party MEP for North West England

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Claire Fox is the Brexit Party MEP for North West England, and Director of the Academy of Ideas. She is the founder of the annual Battle of Ideas festival, which takes place at the Barbican in London 2 – 3 November 2019.

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