33 Comments
User's avatar
Kojo's avatar

"...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.

Expand full comment
Pascal Clérotte's avatar

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.

Expand full comment
ann watson's avatar

you're outling what's in the article. These people are getting these appointments becasue of their narrow hawkish views.

Expand full comment
Pascal Clérotte's avatar

Worse: they're the jobs because they'll say and do what they're told.

Expand full comment
ann watson's avatar

yes...there's no shortage of criiminals in the world today- and not just at the political levels. I just got ripped off for $128 from a really beautiful website. I should have read the reviews. I've been ripped off so many times - its sickening. Anyway - I think PayPal is going to refund me for this one thank God.

Expand full comment
Pascal Clérotte's avatar

They got their jobs because they have view but the on they're told to have.

Expand full comment
Tony Seymour's avatar

A poll taken right after the Brexit vote in June 2016 found that the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”.

https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/

Tony Benn died in 2014 aged 88. When asked why he supported Brexit he replied:

"When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. I mean, in Britain you vote for the government and therefore the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it. But in Europe all the key positions are appointed, not elected – the Commission, for example. All appointed, not one of them elected.

[..] And my view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy. And I think out of this story we have to find an answer, because I certainly don’t want to live in hostility to the European Union but I think they are building an empire there and they want us to be a part of that empire, and I don’t want that."

https://semipartisansam.com/2016/03/03/tony-benn-and-the-left-wing-case-for-brexit/

Expand full comment
Jazzme's avatar

Democracy in Britain: WHERE?

Expand full comment
Tony Seymour's avatar

Of course you are correct. Tony Benn continued to believe in Parliamentary Democracy, and as leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn naively tried to operate within Parliament even though his support was always outside Parliament. And last year's General Election showed that a change of government makes very little difference.

Expand full comment
ann watson's avatar

if somehow zionism were to be outlawed. Much of this devilishness would be cut off at the ground level. Not the root but it would greatly slow it down for now. The public as to change the ' system ' of government, its long past time these institutuions have become decadent.

Expand full comment
Lubica's avatar

Thank you, Thomas. I wonder how much longer this self-destructive attitude will continue. The conclusion really sums it up, not just Kallas…. Mind you, I would think that it should be “moralising” — “This selective moralism has done lasting damage to the EU’s credibility, particularly in the eyes of the Global South.”

Expand full comment
Kathryn Hayman's avatar

I remember when the vast majority of the leaders of EU countries where fully against the invasion of Iraq by NATO. That was before the coup engineered by Tusk, von der Leyen etc was executed so the EU now is nothing but a sham dictatorship. Voted to stay in 2016 but only just. Now glad we've only got our UK hawks and crazies to deal with.

Expand full comment
Lubica's avatar

Yes, I remember — another time, another place and the same: the coalition of the willing. But if I remember correctly, it was only France, Germany and Russia, which resisted. As I said, another place and time!

Expand full comment
Cockeyed Observer's avatar

. . . ummm … you mean the dumbest?!!

Expand full comment
Truth Seeking Missile's avatar

When will they learn that Russia is here to stay? They've had over a thousand years to adjust to that fact. Pp

Expand full comment
Jazzme's avatar

To me it boils down to:

Joining the well greased lucrative job creating, people killing warmachine

-USA USA USA-

OR

find other job creating interprizes such as green energy, infrastructure, housing, health care, multipolarity options of open trade amoung nations instead of constant feeding the war machine.

Expand full comment
Galina Lewan's avatar

What do you expect from the EU editor of the American Barbie? With her celluloid brain, she could be anything expected by the masters/manufacturers.

Her most important features are matching her outfit to the colors of the Ukrainian flag and speaking fluent Orwellian.

Expand full comment
Kathryn Hayman's avatar

Just one question to Thomas. Please tell me why you bother to write for Unherd? They're a lousy bunch of crazy ideologues with no sense of what is right or moral. The comments are almost always full of nonsense and outright lies or regurgitated propaganda from the msm. I did have a subscription for Unherd but couldn't cope with the stupidity of the readers. How do you put up with it?

Expand full comment
Quizich🇷🇸's avatar

It all comes down to ideological alignment and compliance - nothing shockingly new there, right? Until one asks these crucial questions: whose policy gets enacted as EU policy? People living in the EU!? EU elites? Someone outside the EU?!

Answers to those questions won't be given by EU autocrats because they, apparently, feel untouchable in their positions. In the exact same way they rant against US these days…

Expand full comment
Kazimir Malevitch's avatar

Was she a mistress or a prostitute at the time Soviets ended?

Expand full comment
Stephane's avatar

She is a real shit and accomplice of tje Genocide of Palestinians with The criminal Van der Leyen

Expand full comment
Krzysztof Śliwiński's avatar

Very, very well said!

Expand full comment
Woody Yocum's avatar

Another Russian troll to block

Expand full comment
Jeremy Stewardson's avatar

You take issue with her lack of democratic credentials . Does that not apply to every single ineptocrat in the EU , with the exception of some MEPs whose roles are awaiting definition . With regard with the Big Bear in the East , maybe her concerns arise because she knows more about Russia than you do ?

Expand full comment
thelonegunman's avatar

just like her Opa taught her to be

Expand full comment