Kaja Kallas: the most dangerous woman in Europe?
No one better than her embodies the EU’s toxic blend of technocratic incompetence, democratic disdain, hypocrisy, ideological fanaticism global irrelevance and outright stupidity
I’ve written for UnHerd about the world’s most reckless and incompetent “diplomat” — Kaja Kallas — and how she embodies the EU’s collapse into kakistocracy: government by the worst, the least qualified and the most unscrupulous:
At a time when the war in Ukraine is unquestionably Europe’s foremost foreign policy challenge, it is difficult to imagine anyone less suited to the role than Kallas, whose deep-seated hostility towards Russia borders on obsession. On her very first day in the job, during a trip to Kyiv, she tweeted: “The European Union wants Ukraine to win this war” — a statement that immediately caused unease in Brussels, where officials viewed it as out of step with settled EU language two years into the war. “She is still acting like a prime minister”, one diplomat commented.
Just months before her appointment, she proposed breaking Russia into “small states” and, since then, has repeatedly demanded the full restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders, including Crimea — a position that effectively rules out negotiations. While even Donald Trump has acknowledged that Ukrainian NATO membership is a non-starter, Kallas insists it remain a goal — despite it having been a red line for Russia for nearly two decades. Kallas has even declared that “if we don’t help Ukraine further, we should all start learning Russian”. Never mind that Russia has no strategic, military or economic reason to attack the EU. Earlier this year, she denounced Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the war, dismissing them as a “dirty deal”, which explains why US Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly cancelled a scheduled meeting with her in February.
Kallas’s single-minded fixation on Russia has rendered her virtually silent on every other foreign policy issue. As former UK diplomat Ian Proud, who served at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019, observed, she comes across as a “single-issue High Representative” who is “intent only on sustaining the decade-long European policy on non-engagement with Russia, whatever the economic cost”.
Her aggressive, unilateral rhetoric — often delivered without prior consultation with member states — has alienated not only openly euro- and NATO-sceptic governments in Hungary and Slovakia, but also countries like Spain and Italy, which, while broadly aligned with NATO’s Ukraine policy, don’t share Kallas’s assessment of Moscow as an imminent threat to the EU. “If you listen to her it seems we are at war with Russia, which is not the EU line”, one EU official complained.
Technically, the High Representative’s role is to reflect the consensus of the member states as an extension of the Council, not to freelance as a supranational policymaker. Yet, Kallas interprets her role otherwise, repeatedly acting as though she speaks on behalf of all Europeans — a top-down, anti-democratic approach that is symptomatic of a broader authoritarian trend supercharged by von der Leyen.
Despite her proclamations about defending democracy, Kallas herself has no democratic mandate. Not only was she never elected to her current office, but her party — the Estonian Reform Party — received fewer than 70,000 votes in the last European Parliament elections, representing less than 0.02% of the European population. Von der Leyen, though, has packed her Commission with these like-minded Baltic officials — hailing from a region of just over six million people — to fill key defence and foreign policy posts. These appointments reflect a strategic alignment between von der Leyen’s centralising ambitions and the ultra-hawkish worldview of the Baltic political class. Both share an unwavering commitment to the NATO line and a deep hostility to any diplomacy with Moscow.
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Thomas Fazi
Website: thomasfazi.net
Twitter: @battleforeurope
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"...Yet, Kallas interprets her role otherwise, repeatedly acting as though she speaks on behalf of all Europeans — a top-down, anti-democratic approach that is symptomatic of a broader authoritarian trend supercharged by von der Leyen...."
Both are deep state neocon stooges. That is how they have been appointed - as you point out, not elected - and that is what they are there for: to speak the deep state neocon propagnda and further its agenda....while presenting it as "by and for the European people".
To do this, they select politicians who have failed or been digraced at national level, and are intellectual zeros but rabid idealogues. People who can't and won't think, but can be relied on to just follow orders from Langley, VA, with no risk that they would try to think for themselves or develop a conscience or a different agenda. Tools.
The European project is infected by the deep state, is terminally compromised and is now operatng like a virus or a cancer; attacking and self-mutiliating Europe from the inside out.
What you point out are the symptoms of this disease.
Indeed. But that's true for the whole European Commission. Take a look a Séjourné, the French commissionner. Or the Latvian guy in charge of defense, not an EU competency. Or the commissioner for energy. All dangerously incompetent.