As 400 million EU citizens prepare to cast their votes in June’s European elections, a new poll shows that it is Ursula von der Leyen who has caught voters’ attention like no EU chief before her.
Our survey suggests that a large majority of Europeans today are aware that she is the European Commission president, considered to be the most powerful political office in the EU. Previous EU chief executives have been largely unknown to the public. But almost 75% are able to correctly identify von der Leyen’s name and recognise her face. Five years ago, her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, scored only 40% recognition.
Pressure for EU reform is becoming urgent. With war raging in Ukraine and Gaza, and the relationship between China and the US cooling, the EU needs deeper defence integration to meet the growing geopolitical challenges. Economic and monetary union might not be sustainable without closer fiscal integration and a stronger single market. New technologies need to be harnessed to generate prosperity for the next generation and the the 27-nation EU is committed to expanding to become a union of 30 or more member states.
That deeper integration, blah, blah, good job we’re out, eh?
The weirdness is that Europe hsa been asked three times now whether we’d like to be ruled by the German defence minister. Twice, in the face of vast armies trying to persuade us, we bloodily said no. Rather emphatically in fact. Third time around it’s the German defence minister who has four operational ‘planes and had the troops drilling with broomstocks. People are saying yes?
Weird.
Added to that the CDU has just voted to reintroduce conscription.
If you’re looking for a European leader, absent a Napoleon, it’s the Germans who are most likely to be able to stand up to the Russians.
Both have had reasonable success at fighting the Great Bear.
And I can’t see Macron as being anywhere close to being a Napoleon., so the Germans it is.
The Poles could be a wildcard pick, they seem up for it at the moment. But can they do that and run the country.
Napoleon did well in his wars and also instituted major social, legal and educational changes.
The Third Reich made the trains run on time, had large scale health care initiatives and turned one of the poorest countries into the military power.
I don’t know of any equivalent from Poland though, but maybe my History-fu is weak.
(If you think we/they should be fighting the Russians that is, but that’s a different topic. And they seem to think so.)
I’m not sure recognising Useless von der Layabout means they want her…
That’s democracy EU style! Because the EPP is likely to be the largest grouping it’s likely to be able to impose its candidate even if it lacks an overall majority. This is because MEP’s will only be given a choice between two Spitzenkandidaten by EU governments!
MEPs are elected on a party list basis so “directly electing” is what the system does NOT provide.
In short, the selection of the Commission President is a stitch-up between elected politicians and their domestic political parties but the fact that the name of the winner is more familiar because of her unpopularity than that of her predecessors, this shows how increasingly democratic the EU is becoming.
I don’t know of any equivalent from Poland though, but maybe my History-fu is weak.
From the C16th to the Napoleonic period the Commonwealth of Poland was a significant European power. First adopter of a modern type constitution.
As a historical aside, it was the Poles who handed the Brits one of their very few defeats in the Peninsular War. The Brits had embarked on a small fleet of ships & sailed down the coast from Gib with the intention of capturing the castle at Fuengirola. Which was garrisoned by Poles. The Brits landed troops & cannon at La Cala, trundled down the coast & proceeded to bombard the castle. The Poles sent a rider to the French who were based in Mijas Pueblo about 5 km into the hills for reinforcements, but being Poles couldn’t be bothered waiting for them. Despite being outnumbered, they sallied from the castle, captured the cannon & the British commander, turned the cannon round & proceeded to shell the Brit warship sitting offshore. By the time French managed to get here it was all over & done with. Castles still here but you can easily see the stretch of wall that’s been repaired where the Brit bombardment brought it down. The lesson being, don’t fuck with Poles.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the strongest states in Europe until undermined by Catherine the Great.
In terms of having the “spirit” to take on the Russians perhaps we should be having a word with the Finns..?
Ursula von der Leyen is now a household name – and that could be Europe’s salvation
Lol, you are so fucking doomed.
BJ – In terms of having the “spirit” to take on the Russians perhaps we should be having a word with the Finns..?
Why not Ukraine? They must be up to about half a million casualties or more by now. Ukraine is the new amputee capital of the world. An entire generation of men, dead or crippled.
But don’t worry!
Ukrainian soldiers will soon be able to have children from beyond the grave
By Svitlana Vaslova, Joseph Ataman and Victoria Butenko, CNN
Published 3:24 AM EST, Sun February 18, 2024
Inspiring?
Don’t fuck with the poles?
Somebody should have told the Fuhrer!
“voters for the first time should be able to see a clearer democratic connection between their role in directly electing MEPs and the appointment of the commission president.”
Of course, allowing MEPs to “elect” its President is purely a courtesy by the Commission. If there was the slightest whiff of the ECR or the Identity and Democracy grouping becoming the largest, that “democratic connection” would be broken quicker than you could say “qualified majority voting”. It’s only because the EPP is the Right Kind of People that it happens at all.
Christopher Booker used to tie himself in knots trying to explain the workings of the EU’s “totally novel form of government”. But honestly, it’s easiest to think of it as an absolute monarchy, with the Commission as a sort of gestalt Emperor – weilding all the power – the Council as his closest advisors, and the Parliament as the nobility (with “influence”, but little direct power). Of course, the parallels aren’t exact, since the EP is kind of elected, but you’ll never make any sense of it if you try to think of it as a parliamentary democracy or constitutional republic.
More inspiration :
Ukraine desperately needs more soldiers. War amputees are returning to the frontline
‘Even though I can’t sit inside a tank, I can still be useful. I can still fight a bit’
12 April 2024 07:52
Ukrainian commander Odin’s lower leg was blown off in a mine explosion last year. He’s now back in the trenches.
This is worse than WW1.
Why does nobody who was flying Ukranian flags so recently give a fuck about Ukranians?
Why are there “Ceasefire for Gaza” protests all over Europe, and nobody protesting the Ukraine war, which is killing and maiming vastly more people, our own people, Europeans?
What happened to Stop the War?
No surprise that the St Petersburg Troll Factory’s employee-of-the-month is cheering. Fact is, Angela Merkel was and is a FSB agent who devoted her career to to making Germany poor, screwed up and dependent on Russia. Ursula VDL was her creature, who as the German defence minister castrated the German armed forces and was promoted into her EU position to do exactly the same to the rest of Europe.
‘What happened to Stop the War?’
The Ukies have the wrong religion and the wrong coloured skin Steve.
‘What happened to Stop the War?’
It’s just not Current Thing any more.
Give it a few weeks, there will be something else and Gaza will be as memory holed as Ukraine.
Bboy – It’s impossible to refute your assertion, because various EU governments keep talking about deporting male Ukranian refugees – men who fled the war and were (rightly) granted refugee status – to the Eastern Front.
Not sure if the EU wants to open that box, because if they deport Ukranian refugees to an active warzone, there’s nothing stopping us deporting Afghan, African and Asian “refugees* to their own homelands.
CD – but even when Ukraine was the Current Thing, it was in the context of people cheering on a war, which they mistakenly thought Ukraine could win. The usual “antiwar” suspects on the Left have never shown any interest in stopping that war.
It’s been obvious for a while now that the Ukraine war is an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine and NATO. But nobody’s interested in stopping it, because sunk costs and it’s going to be incredibly difficult to explain to Ukranians why they sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men for nothing, and why the West spaffed over $100 Bn to bring Ukraine to ruinous defeat.
It’s a manmade horror, almost beyond human comprehension. God help them, because we certainly aren’t.
Poland had an elected monarchy so maybe more parallels there, the EU president is the ‘monarch’ elected by the ‘aristocracy’
Poles were for a while the dominant European power and the only reason they didn’t conquer Russia was they couldn’t be bothered to and there was no point at the time.
Many points made here…
Ultimately, it is the fact that mme. von der Leyen is a “Household Name” that will doom her…
This is a Guardian article.. It does, very much, not represent your average european voter’s sentiments.
Auntie Ursula is the figurehead of what a lot of people ( judging from national election results) think is wrong with the EU.
So yeah… she has a better recognition profile than anyone before her. The Guardian carefully omits why this is so….
Poland had an elected monarchy so maybe more parallels there, the EU president is the ‘monarch’ elected by the ‘aristocracy’.
And Poland fell apart and was sliced up and partitioned when Catherine the Great got her lover elected King.
If you wish to read Fortescue’s version of the squabble at Fuengirola, here’s the reference. (https://archive.org/details/historyofbritis07fortuoft/page/398/mode/2up?view=theater)
Thanks for that, Boganboy. Although the account of “marching over the mountains” from La Cala (“two leagues to the west”) seems unlikely since that would bring them down against the Fuengirola River & requiring them to pass under the guns of the castle to reach the beach. And there does seem to have a coastal road passes by the lighthouse at El Faro in existence.
How much Fuengirola could have been described as a town at the time isn’t clear. Some accounts have it as little more than a few houses & an inn as late as the mid 1800s. Towns as opposed to defensible cities on the Spanish Med coast weren’t that common. Usually they were some distance in from the coast like Mijas. The Barbary pirates & their slave gathering activities making coastal settlements unwise. Although it was a thriving place in Roman times. There was a factory produced fish sauce to the east of the current town & the foundations of several buildings