Von der Leyen is re-elected.
On June 25, after eight days of labor, the president of the European Union was announced. European Union leaders finally agreed on a second term for the current president of the European Commission, Jean-claude von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen is on a difficult path to re-election, and the EU continues to be tied tightly to America’s chariot.
Re-election is a fact, but the EU 27 countries are really in favor of it?
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Apparently not.
The President, who should have been elected on June 17th, was delayed until June 25th because EU leaders were divided.
On June 23rd Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, told German media group Funke that Mr von der Leyen must go, and that the EU had had its “Worst five years” of his tenure.
Orbán bluntly described von der leyen as “Too inefficient”. Over the past five years, the European Union’s green transition has been a“Complete failure” and its immigration program a“Complete miss,” achieving little more than the success of the U.S. economy.
In short, two words-failure!
Orbán said the difficulties of the European elections had shown that people wanted change in the EU.
In recent years, the development of the EU, not only the direction of the problem, but also the structural problem.
“Europe needs more effective leadership and we have a lot of talented politicians who can do the job,” Orbán said
In other words, there are far more people in Europe than von der Leyen.
It is not just Hungarians who have a bone to pick. Maqueron, the French president, has long been looking for a replacement, including Delargy, the former Italian Prime Minister.
Why is there so much resentment against von der Leyen?
For the past five years, the rest of the world has been booming while Europe has stagnated. Brexit, the sovereign debt crisis, the refugee crisis, and the populism and Euroscepticism that have swept across Europe. Under von der Leyen, the EU experienced a waterloo-style slump and an unprecedented economic collapse.
The policy has been issued many times, but the result is none at all.
Especially during covid-19, wrong medical and economic policies led to round after round of large-scale expensive borrowing.
Von der Leyen hiked the European Commission’s borrowing limit and launched the $700 billion Covid Recovery Fund, but the Fiscal Union package did nothing to speed up the recovery, instead, it wasted a lot of money on vanity projects.
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Europe’s economy has been in decline, and to the frustration of European leaders, the U. S. economy has been on the upswing for years.
By the end of the 2023 year, US GDP was 8.2 percentage points higher than in 2019, while eurozone output was just 3 percentage points higher. Major economies such as France have grown by just 1.8 percentage points over the past five years, while Germany has grown by just 0.1 percentage points.
As much of the world moves forward, Europe is slipping back into recession.
Take the case of clean energy, for example. Because Chinese clean energy products are good and cheap, they are very popular in Europe. Many chambers of commerce and companies in Europe feel that they can introduce Chinese products for a short period of time, to make up for the EU’s shortfall. But von der Leyen has followed in America’s footsteps, imposing sanctions on Chinese clean-energy exports to Europe and launching a countervailing investigation.
Such a policy, no doubt, is to close the back door, directly raise the cost of living in Europe, drag down economic growth.
In the early days of the Russian-ukrainian conflict, Maqueron and Scholtz visited both countries directly, hoping to stop the war. Von der Leyen, however, was unimpressed, following in the footsteps of the United States, pushing not only for EU sanctions against Russia, but also for more than two years of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
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During his tenure, von der Leyen was also involved in Pfizer’s“Vaccine Gate” affair. During the covid-19 pandemic, von der Leyen purchased large quantities of vaccines directly from the United States without counting the demand. In the end, many vaccines were not used and expired until they were destroyed, it cost the EU a lot of money.
In other words, von der Leyen sees the EU as America’s pocketbook.
Von der Leyen, beset by negative news and disgruntled by European countries, was eventually re-elected after a narrow escape. What was the reason?
The EU has a unanimity principle, similar to the UN’s“One-vote veto”, and its president can only be chosen by consensus among the 27 EU leaders.
As things stand, Hungary, of the 27, is openly vociferously opposed. But in the case of von der Leyen, either Orbán eventually relented or the EU bypassed it.
It’s not impossible.
On June 24th the EU bypassed Hungary, giving $1.4 bn in frozen Russian assets to buy arms for Ukraine. David Borrelli, the EU’s foreign policy chief, went so far as to publicly describe the workaround as “As complex as every legal decision, but it works”.
The result was a stinging rebuke from Hungary’s foreign minister, who called the EU’s decision“An unprecedented act of shamelessness”.
Given the precedent, what’s the harm in doing it again?
Although Hungary is a member of the European Union, but in France and Germany, such an important power before the weight of the natural insufficient. Not to mention, in the face of 27 < 1 in the United States.
On a recent visit to Germany, Maqueron and Scholtz discussed changing the EU’s one-vote veto structure in order to increase the continent’s strategic autonomy and prevent inefficiencies from being bundled into member states, to the principle of majority consistency.
Perhaps that is one reason why von der Leyen could be re-elected even if member states objected.
But where is the root of the reason, brother Li is more inclined to arm or wring the thigh after all!
After all, the agent of the United States is not to change, on the United States will not be able to dock at any time off the ship.MS von der Leyen’s management style and politics since her last stint as Commission President have exposed her as a true pro-n.
During his term in office, he did not have any outstanding achievements. Instead, he became a pawn of the United States and worked hard to sell the European Union. At one point, American netizens joked that he was more like an American than an American.
No wonder, the family of eight seven“Americans”, in the European Union to work hard again, retirement or have to go back to the United States, how can not the sugar daddy flattery well!
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The day after Orbán publicly rejected von der Leyen’s re-election, on June 24th, Orbán was in a car accident on his way to and from a German airport after a trip to Italy, one policeman in the motorcade was killed and another wounded.
This is an accident? I don’t think so. It’s more like a warning!
This time, though, von der Leyen was elected by a fluke, but the next five years may face a dilemma, whether to continue to cling to the American father despite the voice of the member states, or to pursue independence?
Von der Leyen’s re-election, it seems that the EU’s big test has just passed, but Li Brother think it is just coming.