Last Updated on Thursday, 25 July, 2024 at 10:59 am by Andre Camilleri
Now that the EU top posts are about to be filled, the next step is the remaining nominations and approval of EU Commissioners, which includes, among others, the post of High Representative currently designated to Kaja Kallas.
By now, you all know what I think of Ursula von der Leyen. During the EU election campaign, I declared how I would have voted had I been elected. Surely, I would have voted to reject Ursula von der Leyen’s nomination. For the sake of political maturity, my disagreement with von der Leyen relates to her modus operandi, and it is not personal. Nothing more and nothing less. To me, von der Leyen comes across arrogant and faux. Also, von der Leyen, lacks an inspiring vision for Europe. The only vision that she managed to offer for the EU, at least in her first term, rests on defence reinforcements and divisive politics. Honestly, I never thought she would get more votes than last time round.
It was indeed hilarious to watch the President of the European Parliament Dr Roberta Metsola auguring von der Leyen, by going to the length of uttering that she truly deserved being re-elected. My reading is that they do not like each other, with von der Leyen forced to guzzle the fact that Dr Metsola is much smarter than her when it comes to EU politics. Analysing the result, I genuinely think that von der Leyen desperately needed Dr Metsola’s full support to garner the number of votes that she managed to attain for her reappointment. And let’s face it, I would have done the same, for many reasons which I can’t explain in this weekly column.
Let me recount some of von der Leyen’s political errors. Let’s leave the visit to Israel for a while. Personally, I do not agree on the way von der Leyen handled the pandemic. The level of detail and the granular data requested at EU level, which is found in the vaccination certificates is quite autocratic. When you think about the way it was handled, it’s actually chilling. These were the first signs why I got interested to follow von der Leyen’s next political steps. Indeed, it occurred to me that we are dealing here with a manipulator, who applied practices tantamount to autocratic procedures. Frankly, I truly hope that those EU parliamentarians who voted her in, at least, they managed to skim through the vaccination court judgment before deciding about her accomplishments. Obviously, there was only political agreement on her nomination and that does not cancel any court rulings. The intelligent, who are currently sitting in the EU Parliament, would go to further lengths.
Also, I do not agree on the way von der Leyen took centre stage during the invasion of Ukraine, making the outgoing HRVP Josep Borrell redundant, while appointing herself as minister of defence for Europe. Again, it looked more like personal political unfinished business with the Russians rather than the unwavering believe to aid Ukraine and to resist the aggressor. von der Leyen’s push to aid Ukraine does not come out of her strong EU values and the West’s believes of freedom. To me there is more to it, and I will explain why. Indeed, I never understood the reason why von der Leyen ingratiated a dictator while she was trying to fight another dictator. And this is why it kept me thinking that it must be something connected to Russia rather than autocratic systems.
On one hand, von der Leyen was calling Vladimir Putin, a dictator, which is true, and at the same time courting another dictator to the length of signing an MoU. It is indeed self-contradictory. Again, dubbing Ilham Aliyev and legitimising him as a reliable partner at EU level, through the social media platform, Twitter – now, officially known as X – is actually sickening. Ironically, the announcement of her trip to Baku came through the same social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who is also accusing the EU Commission of asking him to have a tacit deal to discreetly remove content from X, in exchange to not being fined. It is an entire political circus.
Two years ago, I wrote an article termed values in freefall. In fact, I wrote, that “logically, if Russia invaded a sovereign state, that is Ukraine, we must also admit that it is not a false equivalence if we compare that to the arms conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and does not makeAzerbaijan a more trusted partner than Russia, at least in the eyes of Europeans”. Honestly, I do not know what the French President thinks, now that the reliable partner of von der Leyen, Ilham Aliyev, is also meddling with the French colonies in the South Pacific. Dr Michael Piccinino, please take note of this, as you might have missed it two years ago when I wrote about it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, President Joe Biden pulled out of the race endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Surely, the EU Commission needs the Democrats in power to be able to execute von der Leyen’s plans. They cannot be accomplished if Donald Trump is re-elected. The EU Commission and the rest of the EU leaders know, that if Donald Trump is re-elected, the threat of obliterating the deep state would not be limited just to the USA, but it would certainly extend to the other side of the Atlantic. When I said that von der Leyen disguises her warped decisions by speaking about human rights and EU values, I did not amplify my judgment. On the eve of her re-election, the EU Court ruled that von der Leyen and the EU Commission were not transparent enough when dealing with public EU taxpayer’s money on the Covid-19 vaccine contracts. Indeed, the EU Commission acceded to give limited access to MEPs when it came to vaccine contracts. They redacted parts of the contracts citing sensitive commercial reasons and privacy matters. Anyway, if private entities are dealing with contracts worth billions of euros from EU taxpayers’ money, they must forgo privacy matters over receiving billions of revenues that would be recorded in their balance sheets and enrich them. Here we require strict transparency, as much as we would require strict transparency on contracts relating to defence, armaments as well as advance purchases to create military demand. I do not know why we are even debating the basics.
The EU was built on the foundations of the rule of law, governance and transparency. Aren’t these the EU values that you happen to repeatedly quote, Ursula? Frankly, I do not know why a group of Green MEPs had to seek EU court remedies to have access to contracts worth billions of euros. And as I always said, the understood values, as quoted by the EU Commission and von der Leyen are only the à la carte values that enable them to complement their hidden agendas.
