Stalin of the EU: How the unelected Queen of the Union plans to keep her grip on power

If Brussels followed its professed ideals, the European Commission and its head would fall

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission that runs the EU is finally facing a long overdue no-confidence vote. Its chances of success, all observers agree, are very small. And yet, this is an important moment.

That’s because the single most powerful politician in the EU is not, for instance, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz or French President Emmanuel Macron (notwithstanding their own delusions of grandeur), but Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission. Because in NATO-EU Europe, the true measure of power now is the ability to spoil whatever sorry remnants of democracy are still standing. And in spite of very tough competition, von der Leyen is the worst, most corrupting spoiler of them all.

This is due to three facts. The first is structural: The EU was designed not to be a ‘democracy’ – however flawed – but one big, entrenched, and growing ‘democracy deficit’. Its purpose has never been to shaft the US, even if American President Donald Trump can’t stop whining about that. The EU’s real core function is to extinguish democracy in Europe by shifting genuine power from nation-states with some, if already meagre, popular participation in political decision-making to an unelected bureaucracy, of which the Commission is the center and top.

The second fact is a matter of individual character and hence responsibility: Ursula von der Leyen is the embodiment of an insatiable lust for personal, unaccountable power. She won’t admit it, of course, but her behavior speaks volumes: Von der Leyen does not see herself as a public servant but firmly believes that it is the public that must serve her.

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Think of these two factors – the structural and the individual – if you wish, as broadly similar to what happened during the rise of Joseph Stalin in the former Soviet Union: Like the EU, the post-revolutionary Communist party was built to restrict political decision-making to a small and self-selecting group of true believers. And only those confessing the correct “values” were even offered a chance to join. Like von der Leyen, Stalin managed to turn this deliberately created “democracy deficit” to his own advantage by basing his personal despotism on it.

If you think that analogy is far-fetched, consider that in both cases, the rise of the Soviet despot and that of the European Commission president, real power has been concentrated in an overbearing and invasive bureaucracy that, formally, should only be an executive organ. There is a reason why, if you take one tiny step back, “general secretary” sounds rather similar to “commission president.”

And then there is the third fact that has facilitated von der Leyen’s performance as NATO-EU’s top spoiler. In this respect, she certainly does not resemble Stalin at all, but rather one of the many Eastern European satraps of Cold War Eastern Europe. Like trusty Walter Ulbricht of early East Germany or Poland’s Boleslaw Bierut who suffered a heart attack when Khruschev made Stalin the fall guy, von der Leyen is a vassal leader, just working for another outside empire. So obviously, so shamelessly that even Politico has – rightly – labeled her the EU’s “American president.”

The charges that her political opponents in the EU parliament have just used to initiate the current no-confidence vote are less fundamental – while still reflecting stunning misbehavior – and more specific, as they have to be.

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In essence, they target von der Leyen’s – and the whole Commission’s – scandalous handling of the Covid-19 crisis (scandalous by the way from any angle, whether you approve or disapprove of vaccines); her subsequent and illegal refusal to provide key information on what she and the CEO of big pharma company Pfizer were up to during that period in messages that were private but should not have been; waste (to say the least) in the handling of a 650 billion-euro post-Corona crisis recovery fund; the misuse of a legal loophole to boost armaments spending via the EU; and last but not least, the weaponization of digital legislation to interfere in the recent Romanian, as well as German elections.

What all these transgressions have in common is not only that they may very well be criminal. They are also all variants of the same, fundamentally simple ruse: the manipulation or even fabrication of “emergencies” that are then exploited as cover for constantly escalating abuses of power. If there is one main principle of von der Leyen’s power grab, this is it. Again, Stalin knew a thing or two about that trick.

In sum, the sponsors of the no-confidence vote conclude “that the Commission led by President Ursula von der Leyen no longer commands the confidence of Parliament to uphold the principles of transparency, accountability, and good governance essential to a democratic Union.” They call on the Commission “to resign due to repeated failures to ensure transparency and to its persistent disregard for democratic oversight and the rule of law within the Union.”

And they are obviously right. If the EU was a halfway lawful, honest, and sensible organization, this should be a slam-dunk case of no confidence, and the Commission, with Ursula von der Leyen at its head, should fall. There is a precedent, too: In 1999, an entire EU Commission did resign, even without a no-confidence vote. A devastating report on corruption, fraud, nepotism, and mismanagement was enough.

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Clearly, if anything, the EU has only regressed since then. Today it has a Commission which the EU’s own transparency chief has chastised as not only unelected and opaque, but also staffed with “consiglieri,” a term from mafia lingo. And where the gang consists of “consiglieri,” the boss must be a don.

Yet the EU now is not only highly dysfunctional but, in the wider sense of the word, fundamentally corrupt. Tactics will beat principle any day, no exceptions. That is why most of the over 700 parliamentarians in the European parliament will fail to do the right thing and eject von der Leyen and her Commission.

Meanwhile, the usual dirty tricks have been employed against von der Leyen’s challengers. Let’s not even focus on the petty and brazen procedural tactics deployed by the European Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, to stifle debate on the no-confidence motion, as rightly castigated by AfD member of parliament Christine Anderson.

Or von der Leyen’s own cringeworthy attempt to blame any criticism of her once again on “extremism,” “polarization,” and manipulation by – as she clearly implied – the big bad Russians and “Putin” personally. In a similar daft spirit, the head of von der Leyen’s conservative grouping in the European parliament, Manfred Weber declared the whole vote a “waste of time” – at least he is honest about his contempt for democratic procedures and the rights of parliamentarians, you might say – and, of course, a boon to Russia.

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Perish the thought that if anything “plays into the hands” of any opponents of the EU, it is precisely the Commission’s authoritarianism and corruption as well as cheap, demagogic attempts to shut down legitimate criticism by shouting “Russia, Russia, Russia!”

The leader of the no-confidence motion, Gheorghe Piperea, with a background as a lawyer and judge in Bucharest, is routinely being smeared as “far right,” for instance in the New York Times. This label is then extended to all those who dare rebel against the Commission, and – step number three – used to justify not supporting their ininitiative. So devious, so simple.

In reality, the issue of where exactly Piperea and his supporters stand on the political spectrum is simply irrelevant. What matters is the case that they are advancing, and that is iron-clad. Indeed, if this has to be done by the “margins” of the European Parliament, then shame on its self-appointed “center” – and even more so for helping protect von der Leyen further by helping defeat this long overdue challenge to her misrule.

But that is, of course, the real issue here: Von der Leyen bears enormous individual responsibility, including for the EU’s criminal and evil – there are no other words – support for Israel while the Zionist apartheid state is committing the Gaza Genocide and one war of aggression after another against its neighbors, near and far. But Von der Leyen can only be what she is thanks to structures designed to both imitate and in reality, kill democracy. And also thanks to the large majority of those without a conscience – at the very least – in the EU Parliament. Von der Leyen, like all villains of history, is not alone; she is merely the very worst.