It’s not just jabs that are at stake
PLOTTING is rife in the heat of the EU empire as Ursula von der Leyen’s disastrous leadership of the bloc stumbles from bad to worse. The European Commission President’s threat this week to use emergency powers to seize Covid vaccines bound for the UK has left European diplomats questioning how long she can cling on to her post.
Some figures in Brussels are understood to have begun looking at the EU’s arcane procedures for dismissing failing top officials.
Given the EU’s long track record of incompetent and shambolic rule, a Eurocrat has to hit spectacular levels of uselessness to be deemed sackable. Even the cognac-guzzling Jean-Claude Juncker, Mrs von der Leyen’s predecessor, managed to stagger on for his full term in office despite the bitter humiliation of Brexit.
Yet Mrs von der Leyen’s inept response to the Covid pandemic has raised fears that the very survival of the EU may be at stake without a drastic change in direction. Insiders worry that the failure to rapidly roll out Covid vaccinations across the continent will drive a new wave of Euroscepticism that could see other member states quitting the bloc.
Mrs von der Leyen’s panic over vaccine supplies comes despite her own background as a physician with a medical doctorate and expertise in epidemiology. Yet her lacklustre performance has not surprised those in Europe who followed her career in German politics before her elevation to the EC.
She was unpopular with many traditionalist colleagues in Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrat Party for trying to push policy to the Left. Her six-year spell as defence minister saw her champion army nurseries and flexible time for soldiers while failing to secure funding for adequate military equipment. She left the post amid a parliamentary inquiry into armed forces funding under her tenure.
In some ways, she is perfectly suited for the role. She was born in Brussels as the daughter of a European commissioner. As a child, she was encouraged to regard herself as “European” and did not realise she was German until her family returned to Saxony.
Yet even her impeccable Europhile upbringing is not enough to assuage the fears of European officials and diplomats fretting that her leadership is putting their federalist dream in peril.
In grand Brussels tradition, Mrs von der Leyen won the post of European Commission president in a backroom stitch-up between the leaders of the EU’s big power-broking nations.As in Germany, her biggest sponsor continued to be Mrs Merkel. But even the Chancellor is understood to have lost faith in her protege. Without
Berlin’s backing, the commission president is dangerously enfeebled.
HER THREAT to invoke wartime-style emergency powers to block vaccines from being exported out of the EU was meant as a show of strength at a time of crisis. Instead, it has left Brussels looking desperate. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab likened her threat to the actions of a dictatorship, showing contempt for the international rule of law.
A string of MEPs had called for her resignation even before the vaccine seizure threat. The number is expected to swell. She has become so unpopular that one of the few figures willing to speak up in her support was the Eurofederalist fanatic GuyVerhofstadt.
With enough support, the European Parliament has the power to dismiss a sitting commission. Such drastic action has never happened before. But in a political era when the unprecedented has become commonplace, Mrs von der Leyen’s ejection cannot be ruled out. Mrs Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and the other key power EU brokers will do anything to try to prevent the bloc being dragged to destruction.