Those committed to the idea of Europe have watched developments in Europe over the past few years, both at EU and national level, startled, while Euroscepticism has been on a constant rise, and for good reason. Among these two groups there is consensus regarding the fat that 2024 looks to be the worst year ever for the European Union.
Given the general discontent with the liberal mainstream, it was clear for some time before the European Parliament elections in June 2024 that the far-right parties in many countries of the bloc had gained significant support. Tendencies in the run-up to the elections were used by the mainstream to stir up public fears against the far right, which may explain why the overwhelming right-wing victory predicted earlier failed to happen.
Once the results of the EP elections have been published, the ruling elites in the EU’s main political and economic strongholds, have done everything they could, with more or less success, to prevent the far right from prevailing over them. However, sometimes the far right appears to be more dodgy, and it easily can lead to a government collapse as it happened in France. ’Emmanuel Macron has attacked the foundation walls of the nation for the past seven years,’ Marine Le Pen said and, her words were strong enough to really reach people as we can see watching recent developments in Paris.
Nearly simultaneously, the German and French governments have fallen apart, which is particularly dangerous for Europe at a time when the war in Ukraine is tending towards escalation, and in the United States, the outgoing Biden administration is making all efforts to create a difficult situation for the next President, Donald Trump, to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Such a permanent instability in Berlin and Paris is the worst possible scenario that could happen to the EU, adding that Trump’s return to White House will most likely create a completely new situation in terms of EU security and be an extra challenge for the EU as a whole.
It can be established that both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have created some of the worst governments ever in their countries and both of them should face consequences of their own political mistakes. ’It appears German politics is acquiring a new bitterness as it enters one of its most critical moments’, Politico claims. ’Germany’s next chancellor likely to be its weakest’, another report says. With regard to the crisis in France, there have been headlines in world press such as ’No confidence, no government, no budget’ and ’Prime Minister Michel Barnier will leave office having served the shortest prime ministerial term in modern French history.’ No country in the world and no chancellor or PM wants to be labelled as such.
Moving from national level to that of EU, it should be stressed that the new European Commission, formed on 1 December, is no less ’impressive’ that the abovementioned national examples, given that not only its president but also its composition has been the subject of severe criticism.
As for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a remarkable day has come in mid-November as a Pfizergate-Commission transparency battle kicked off in European Court and it could finally be revealed what the motivation for UVD in 2021 was to negotiate a billion-euro vaccine deal with the U.S. company via text messages. ’A pivotal legal case between The New York Times and the European Commission heard in Luxembourg (…) could set a new benchmark for public access to EU documents’, experts say.
It should be noted that a member of von der Leyen’s former team (2019-2024), former EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders is facing allegations of commiting financial crimes. Reynders home was searched by the Belgian authorities just a few days after his job as European Commissioner has come to an end. The Belgian politician and big fan of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a.k.a. ’Teflon Didier’ is facing an investigation for money laundering in his home country.
There is a third influential German in Brussels worth remembering: the leader of the European Parliament’s largest group, the European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber also seems to be in trouble as top EU prosecutors from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in close cooperation with the Belgian police are looking into accusations of fraud and corruption, including the misuse of EU funds related to his 2019 European Parliamentary election campaign. Last year, Belgian and German police once searched EPP HQ in Brussels as part of an investigation into a suspicion of bribery in business dealings during the 2019 elections but the then investigation was dismissed as ’baseless’ by the EPP. With recent investigation, there is a new hope that Weber, sooner or later, has to face real consequences despite his especially good relation with von der Leyen. According to Politico’s Brussels Playbook, ’Weber emerges from the 2024 election year as by far the main powerbroker in the European Parliament, able to heavily influence all of von der Leyen’s new EU laws’. Manfred Weber wins again — but at what cost? – POLITICO
On the one hand, especially based on the above assessment, the chances of founding Weber not guilty seem to exceed any hope of finally holding him accountable… On the other hand, given that European Parliament President Roberta Metsola recently signed a working agreement with the EPPO allowing for investigations within the institution, there is still a good chance that a number of MEPs will be exposed soon in corruption cases like the 2022 Qatargate ’money for influence’ scandal.
Well, this is the local inventory in Europe in 2024 and the coming years, as far as the political elite is concerned. Pretty poor, one can say. The European crème de la crème has indeed never been so weak and untalented before. As these politicians set the major policies that have a direct impact on our daily lives, we are entitled to wonder if it is this really all we deserve? After so many leadership failures, is it really Olaf Scholz, Manfred Weber, Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Metsola and their distinguished colleagues the EU can offer us? Considering the permanent instability in Germany and France, adding numerous corruption cases in Commission and the parliament, it is unclear whether these politicians are capable of meeting the monumental challenges EU and Member States now face.
