“Democracy”, European Union version

As the European Union prepares to transform itself into a single state, its political evolution is taking an authoritarian step.

The election of MEPs and the President of the Commission is already a done deal

The election of MEPs promises to be deliberately confused. There are still no political parties at European level, despite the fact that they have been talked about for fifty years and enshrined in the treaties, but only European coalitions of national parties, which is not at all the same thing. These coalitions each present a Spitzenkandidat, literally a "head of list", who is not, however, a candidate for Parliament, nor does he or she appear on any of their national lists. Five of them will be debating their plans to preside over the European Commission in Eurovision. They are :

– Walter Baier, European Left ;
– Sandro Gozi, Renewing Europe Now;
– Ursula von der Leyen, European People’s Party;
– Terry Reintke, European Greens;
– Nicolas Schmit, Party of European Socialists.

The "Identity and Democracy" group was not invited to this show. This is because the five previous groups have a particular conception of democracy. They consider that Identity and Democracy doesn’t play the game they do, and therefore refuse to debate with it.

This debate will not take place in the studio, but in the hemicycle of the Parliament; a setting that imposes itself. The President of Parliament, Roberta Metsola, took advantage of the fact that the elected representatives were in the middle of an election campaign to grant the producers this set, without informing the parliamentarians. Many would have had their say.

It will take place in English. This is another of the Union’s subtleties: each member state has the right to request that all official documents be translated into a language of its choice. The Union therefore has 23 official languages for 27 member states, i.e. 552 possible language combinations. However, no state has requested that English be one of the languages of the Union. Malta, for example, which has made English one of its two official languages, has preferred Maltese to be used in Brussels. Yet, de facto, English has become the 24th language of the Union, and the only one common to all. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that the EU is not a European project, but an Anglo-Saxon one.

Incidentally, this strange debate is of little importance, since everyone knows that the Commission President will probably be chosen from outside this cenacle: it is likely to be banker Mario Draghi [1]. This is not impossible, since in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen did not take part in this debate and yet became President of the Commission.

Don’t get me wrong: Mario Draghi may be 76 years old, but he’s the former governor of the European Central Bank. In this role, he did everything to make the euro irreversible. He managed, "Whatever it takes", to save it from the sovereign debt crisis of the 2010s. It hasn’t solved any problems, and has exacerbated the gulf separating the economies of the member states. From the point of view of the member states, he’s an incompetent, but not from that of the investment bankers, a caste that has always been his (he was Goldman Sachs’ number 2 for Europe).

Confirmation of the Belgian (Brussels), German (Mönchengladbach) and European corruption investigations into Ursula von der Leyen leaves no room for doubt [2]. The institutions urgently need to get rid of her. Similarly, parliamentarians caught red-handed have been discreetly sidelined, including Vice-President Eva Kaili. The impression must be given that the Union’s administration is honest and at the service of its "citizens" (sic); an impression, because in reality, there are neither European people nor citizens, as evidenced by the absence of European parties.

The EU’s choices are already made

The Union, which is a political structure that goes far beyond the original "common market", faces a number of external challenges:
It has signed several free-trade agreements with states or blocs that do not respect its internal rules. The balance of competition, which was established via a complex system of subsidies, is therefore no longer assured, given that there is no comparable financial system on a global scale [3].

Instead of linking the fact of trading with a third party to its compliance with the Union’s internal rules, it has linked it to its respect for human rights. Yet two of the EU’s trading partners are posing very serious problems, without the EU reacting.

– For 76 years, Israel has not complied with any of the United Nations resolutions concerning it. Moreover, it has just begun an ethnic cleansing of Palestine, massacring some 50,000 civilians and wounding around 100,000 others.

– Ukraine, whose constitution is explicitly racist, has carried out two successive coups d’état (2004 and 2014). It has since elected a president, but his term of office ends today, May 21, 2024. No elections have been called and eleven opposition political parties have been banned.

In recent weeks, the EU has not moved one iota in the face of the free trade agreements it has signed in violation of its internal rules. In its view, all we have to do is wait for the problem to disappear: within a few years, the affected agricultural sectors will have disappeared.

On the other hand, the EU has announced its support for a solution for Palestine, while continuing its aid to Volodymyr Zelensky’s undemocratic regime.

– On the first point, the EU seems eager to recognize Palestine as a full member of the United Nations. It points out that it does not support the plan of the UN’s special envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte (assassinated in 1949), but refers to the plan of the Colonial Commission chaired by William Peel: there should be two separate states, and certainly not a bi-national state where Jews and Arabs would have equal rights.

– With regard to Ukraine, the EU persists in ignoring the Minsk agreements, endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, and the responsibility to protect that derives from them. Not only does it fail to congratulate Russia on ending the massacre of Russian speakers in the Donbass region, but it persists in accusing it of invading its neighbour.

When it comes to defense and foreign policy, the EU’s positions are exactly those of the G7, in which it participates. There is not a single case in which it differs from them, or even simply expresses a nuance. The EU is therefore building up an arms manufacturing industry and coordinating each country so that it continuously supplies the Kiev government. Until 2022 (the Russian army’s special operation in Ukraine), the EU had no involvement in defense issues. Indeed, the European Treaties stipulate that this is not its responsibility. The defense of the Union’s territory does not depend on its member states, but on NATO, whether or not they are members.

However, on a permanent basis, the Atlantic Alliance defined interoperability standards between its members, which it passed on to the European Commission, which in turn had them adopted by the European Parliament. These were then transcribed into national law by each of the 27 member states. These standards ranged from the composition of chocolate (there’s a chocolate bar in the rations of Alliance soldiers) to the width of main roads (so that US tanks could use them).

The Commission had no difficulty in taking up arms issues. It had already done so for drugs during the Covid epidemic. It’s worth noting that the generalization of these drugs has not proved its usefulness in the face of Covid-19. But that’s not the point. This was not a devastating epidemic, but a pretext for a mobilization exercise in which each power showed what it could achieve. From this point of view, the Commission proved that it could take on an issue that was not within its remit, and that it could even conclude gigantic contracts on behalf of its members without revealing the secrets of its negotiations.

When the EU becomes a single state, the Commission should demonstrate the same dexterity and more, since its action will no longer be hampered by the 27 member states. They will have disappeared. After the merger, banker Mario Draghi is expected to achieve "economies of scale". For example, there’s no need to waste money on embassies for each member state, as a single network will suffice for the single state. While we’re at it, the privileges of some will be put at the service of all. For example, the French permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council will revert to the Union. Or the French atomic bomb will be handed over to the Union’s Defense Department. Neutral states, such as Austria, will have disappeared anyway.

What’s true in politics is also true in economics. Mario Draghi has long been advocating a reorganization of the EU economy along Soviet lines: each region with its own specificity. In fact, it was with this in mind that the EU concluded the free trade agreements to which I referred at the beginning of this article. While livestock farming will remain a particularity of Poland, the Netherlands has taken the lead by authoritatively putting its farmers out of work, and it won’t be long before France devotes its talents to other tasks.

Eliminating obstacles

The real obstacle to the creation of a single state can only come from those member states that refuse to disappear. It lies in the Council of Heads of State and Government.
Two diametrically opposed and irreconcilable points of view face each other. The two extremes are in the former Czechoslovakia: for just over a year now, the Czech Republic has been governed by General Petr Pavel, former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee. His agenda is that of the G7 (affirmation of a world governed by rules [4], containment of Russia, support for Ukrainian fundamentalist nationalists, preparation for confrontation with China). Robert Fico, on the other hand, has governed Slovakia, for six months. The alliance on which he relies certainly includes a few nostalgic supporters of Father Jozef Tiso, who established a national Catholic regime under Nazi protection during the Second World War. More seriously, it is founded on supporters of independence from the USSR, who did not recognize themselves in the figure of Václav Havel, the CIA agent who took power during a colourful revolution, the "Velvet Revolution". A former Communist, Robert Fico distinguishes Russia from the USSR. He defends a world organized around International Law (and not G7 "rules"). He supported Security Council Resolution 2202 and consequently approved Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. He is the one and only EU leader to have held this position (Viktor Orbán’s Hungary avoids broaching the subject).

A few days ago, the problem was solved: on May 15, 2024, an individual fired five shots at him at point-blank range. Robert Fico was immediately evacuated (photo). He has already undergone two operations and his life is no longer in danger. The debate he was leading in the Council was interrupted. It is not expected to resume.

The history of the EU is already written. The wonderful thing about this project is that, as it unfolds, we discover why Brussels has imposed rules and facts that made no sense when they were first decided, but now make sense.

The grotesque Spitzenkandidaten debate, in English and in a grandiose setting, but with nothing at stake, will have played its role: occupying the crowds while the people who count decide their future in the shadows.