Von der Leyen’s authoritarian plot
National democracies will be subordinate to her Commission
I’ve written for UnHerd about the way in which Ursula von der Leyen, with the new Europea Commission, which will officially take office in a few weeks, has set the stage for an unprecedented supranational “power grab” that will further centralise authority in Brussels — specifically in the hands of von der Leyen herself:
“Europe is not in Brussels, not in Strasbourg”, Viktor Orbán recently said in the European Parliament. “Europe is in Rome, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Paris. It is an alliance of nation-states”. In substantive terms, Orbán is, of course, right: European nations and their peoples are the repositories of Europe’s cultural, civilisational and, dare I say, spiritual capital. In a fundamental sense they are “Europe”. But the truth is that the EU stopped being “an alliance of nation-states” a long time ago.
Over the past 15 years, the Commission has exploited Europe’s “permacrisis” to radically, yet surreptitiously, increase its influence over areas of competence that were previously deemed to be the preserve of national governments — from financial budgets and health policy to foreign affairs and defence. As a result, the EU, through the Commission, has effectively become a quasi-dictatorial sovereign power with the authority to impose its agenda on member states and their citizens, regardless of their democratic aspirations. This “competence coup” reached new heights under the first presidency of Ursula von der Leyen (2019-2024), in response to the Covid-19 and Ukraine crises — and is now on the verge of being institutionalised with her second term.
Read the article here. If you’re a paid subscriber and you can’t access the paywall write to me at thomasfazi82@gmail.com.
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Thomas Fazi
Website: thomasfazi.net
Twitter: @battleforeurope
Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)
I wonder how long Hungary will remain in the EU. In a way I hope they don't leave as Victor Orbán is providing much-needed opposition from within the system.
"The President’s increasingly authoritarian approach was obvious during a confrontation at the European Parliament with Viktor Orbán, when von der Leyen broke diplomatic protocol to deliver a scathing attack on the Hungarian Prime Minister. She lambasted Orbán for maintaining diplomatic and economic relations with Russia, calling him “a security risk for everyone”, and implicitly criticised his attempts to try to broker a peace deal with Vladimir Putin. Orbán pushed back, calling out the catastrophic failure of the EU’s Ukraine strategy, and arguing that the European Commission should be “neutral” and a “guardian of the treaties”, and that von der Leyen was instead acting in an inappropriately political manner."
Excellent article.