In Paris on December the 7^th, Parisians were phased by the motorcade and the middle-aged lady appearing from the limo. But Ursula von der Leyen’s arrival in the French capital, although a downbeat and certainly rare event, has significant overtures to both France’s role in international peacekeeping and Macron’s future as a second-term President who will lead the EU into a new dawn.

Both Macron and the EU chief spoke about the need for “dialogue” with Russia and the need for a new defence initiative which should be worrying NATO chiefs who are already grappling with the realities of being practically a defunct organisation entirely impotent in the face of the showdown with Russia over Ukraine.

EU chiefs don’t normally make visits to EU member state leaders. There is a time and place for that, which is Brussels itself and EU summits where photographers capture them making small talk in the EU Council of Ministers building. Von der Leyen’s visit to Paris and her joint podium scripted speech signal that, to some extent at least, Brussels is backing Macron with his initiative to lead some sort of defence pact, made up of a handful of EU member states in peacekeeping and at least talking tough on Russia and Ukraine. Of course, the idea that such a pact would actually do anything against Russia and its troops is entirely ludicrous and far-fetched and Macron talking (unscripted) about the need to “talk to Russia” is a lucid indication where he is going with his own EU army initiative. Clearly, the most realistic option of all the “EU army” ideas – which will cost the least and give the EU its own so-called “defence policy” – is the watered down idea, which simply involves an informal coalition of EU governments agreeing to be one, on defence policy on behalf of the EU. Given how the subject is so divisive, this group will not be run by Brussels, but led by one EU member state while its soldiers sport the EU armband. France is emerging as that country which will break the stalemate which has plagued EU federalists in Brussels as to how to move forward with the plan, which many in the Belgian capital have convinced themselves is the silver bullet to restore credibility to the EU project as it scrambles to survive from the ashes of failed Covid initiatives, twenty years of the single currency and an immigration policy which is failing on every level.

For Macron, it’s what will anoint him in his second term, putting France on the world stage as a leading nation of some kind as the “EU pillar” within NATO. The idea is pulled out of the windowless bunkers of the Elysee, dusted down and given a new lease of light. And it is Biden’s breathtaking impotence as a U.S. president who runs away from confrontation on the world stage, whether it be Ukraine and Russia or Afghanistan, the Middle East or elsewhere, which is driving the Macron EU army idea. The origins of this blueprint can be traced back to a buffoonish French General who found himself held hostage by Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1993 who decided that his endearing promise to protect them from the Serbs wasn’t worth the price of a cigarette. Morillon’s word that his UN soldiers would protect them amounted to nothing and the Srebrenica Massacre followed in 1995 where 8000 mainly Muslim men were slaughtered.

Morillon later became and MEP and in the European parliament in 2008 lobbied hard within the EU institutions for an “EU pillar” within NATO so that EU governments could work “alongside but not under NATO” forces [read American].

And so, the idea is hardly new and if France 24 journalists are being briefed by Macron’s team to use this term “EU pillar” then we can be sure this is where Macron and von der Leyen are heading. They are both banking on the outfit, if it were ever to get off the ground, it will largely be a talk shop and provide the gilt edge to any threatening narrative which they feel Russia would take seriously, given the vacuum at present and reports of Biden pulling troops out of Eastern Europe in a deal with Putin. It’s unclear how, if the mighty U.S. hasn’t got the guts to face Putin in Eastern Europe, a weasel French President and his fancy plan on paper will fill the gap. Much of the thinking is delusional and about promoting Macron himself as a world leader and he is following tradition. Mitterrand, Chirac and Sarkozy all went down the rout of self-promotion on the international stage when the French economy was imploding and so Macron follows the trend. But the interesting takeaway is how this plan has no endorsement whatsoever by the EU as an autonomous body. In great tradition, when the EU can’t get any support itself democratically for a bold plan, it turns to member states to do its bidding for it. And there is no shortage of servile French leaders who are happy to capitalise on the situation. Talk is, after all, cheap on the EU circuit. But whether Putin himself will want to talk to Macron, is another matter altogether.

When Ursula von der Leyen became European Commission president in December 2019, many journalists responded with vitriol over how such a German political lightweight could take the top job in Brussels. She literally had no success stories in Germany in previous ministerial positions and many Germans when hearing of her appointment reacted with “Ursula who?”.

And yet, with the exception of Jacques Delors, European Commission presidents are traditionally selected on the basis of them being underperformers – so that the real powers behind the throne (French and German leaders) can manipulate them at will and use them like putty in their palms. There is another argument also that in Brussels, where the EU institutions are run by aging freemasons, the choice of a political retard at the end of their careers is really about appeasing these old guys, who the system assures you never see or hear of, ever.

And so, by definition, the European Commission president has to be a failed politician who will be dazzled by the bodyguards, motorcades and photo ops with world leaders, but not really take the lead from the front. In this respect, by their own unwritten rules, VDL, as she is known by some cruel hacks in Brussels, is an absolute perfect Commission president as she ticks all the boxes – and being German as well gives her a halo as the best kept secret in Brussels is that the previous worry in the late 1990s that the project was really a Franco-German axis venture has now descended into really just Germany running the entire show.

However, Ursula is also at the apex of what many EU insiders worry could be a crisis which will only worsen in the coming months and kickstart a process whereby the EU implodes slowly and falls on its own sword.

She has single-handedly made a monumental dog’s breakfast of Brexit, allowing herself, her negotiator and the federalist bed-wetters in Brussels to indulge themselves in a racist, twisted and deluded campaign, pitching the UK as a new enemy which has to be taught a lesson. It massively backfired and even her most staunch supporters are admitting this as a major gaffe which is actually furthering the cause of other EU member states who might have been mulling leaving the bloc before, but now are even closer to considering it as a real alternative path.

But that’s not her tour de force of gob-smacking failures. In reality, Ursula is seen by many EU watchers as a real threat to the sustainability of the project, due to her spectacular mishandling of the corona virusrescue plan. Vaccines.

Some might argue that she wants to champion an EU vaccine plan which in itself was ill-conceived and a thinly veiled ruse to boost the bloc’s credibility, following an all-time low from Brexit. Indeed, many member states already were on the case and ordering their stocks of vaccines and really didn’t need to be slowed down by a half-baked plan which was a series of blunders and poor decisions from the off.

But now the EU and Ursula are in panic mode. Britain, ordering early stocks unhindered by EU foibles and Eurocrats’ gaffs, accelerated ahead with vaccine order and will have the entire population done by the end of summer, according to some reports.

In early February, the calamity of erroneous policy decisions shifted gear when Ursula did a U-turn on the Commission’s decision to try and block ‘exports’ of the vaccine to Britain via Northern Ireland. But there was more hilarious keystone cops moments to come when news quickly came of a raucous tantrum led by some MEPs, after it was revealed that the Commission’s aging foreign policy wonk, Josep Borrell – a man who literally makes a pile a chair look exciting – went to Russia on his knees to ask Putin for vaccines while apparently scolding Moscow on its human rights. Try and keep a straight face. Borrell pulled that off at least.

By contrast to the UK’s vaccine program, by midsummer, the EU’s own would have barely begun which is really what the panic we are now seeing – and will see increasingly in the Belgian capital – is all about.

How did the EU mess this up? And how does the author, who worked in Brussels for 11 years, know that there is real panic within the EU.

When the EU really starts to panic, it turns to its oldest and dearest friend, the suppliant, loyal and entirely subservient institution at its disposal, ready and waiting to serve its master: the press.

Ursula lost no time organising an interview with Le Monde explaining the situation and how she shouldn’t be judged until her term is up, in 2024. Typical EU chief response. “We’re not a democracy and I have another 4 years before I should face any scrutiny, so let me draw the rock star salary and enjoy the lifestyle which the job brings” really is what the message was.

The article of course was a message to Emmanuel Macron who is literally pulling his hair out with a political crisis of his own. He can no longer rely on the EU itself to boost his profile, when the institution looks more and more like a sour loser each day, burying itself in ineptitude, graft, nefarious PR stunts and scandal. The delay in vaccines is costing France and Macron’s popularity dearly. A recent study showed that his right-wing nemesis Marine Le Pen was neck and neck with the centrist wet President. When more French citizens see the dirty tricks the EU and France and playing against the UK and start to see the project in Brussels as a failing one, mired in corruption and led by a Commission president who appears lost on the stage of international politics, this will only mean one thing at the French ballot. More votes for the far right. And he knows it.

Ursula knows that her critics in Brussels and from leaders of EU countries who saw her as too inexperienced and lacking in élan, that she is walking a tight rope. In the coming weeks there will be more pressure on her as the big guns of the project like Macron, will find it harder to ignore the obvious. Not only is she part of the current crisis, but her staying in the job and resorting to shallow PR stunts are all feeding a frenzy right across the entire continent which will not only swell the ranks of the far right in France but in a number of other EU member states as well.

It is obvious what the EU needs to do. Or at least obvious to anyone who works in government on a national level. If this happened in the UK, France or Germany, the party which supported her as leader would seek her resignation to keep the sanctity of the organisation alive. A resignation creates a media distraction and shows the party faithful, the media and its critics that the overall project is not only serious, but also in touch with the needs and concerns of the electorate.

The EU model doesn’t think nor work like that though. The EU itself in Brussels is a consensus-driven model, supported by member states who buy into the idea that a non-democratic beast in the Belgian capital can be beneficial to a democratic one on a national level.

The last time an EU Commission president resigned was in 1999 when, in fact, the entire commission itself made up of 20 ‘commissioners’ were implicated in graft, often remembered for Edith Cresson’s dentist landing a fat EU contract on nothing relating to fillings and braces.

Jacques Santer lowered his head in a press conference and whimpered in his odd Luxembourger accent “I’m sorry”.

Ursula, needs to do the same to save the EU project, restore confidence quickly and divert this ocean liner from slamming into an iceberg from which it will never recover. This will only happen if member states take the initiative and signal to her that this is the right thing. Watch very closely how Merkel and Macron stand by her. Or not.

Ursula who?

“Be careful what you wish for” might be words some mutter when they think of the engagement of Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president last November. Traditionally the post of the powerful Commission president has always gone to an obscure, failed politician from an even obscurer EU member state, with perhaps the exception of Jacques Delors in the mid 80s, who, arguably, wasn’t known much outside of France in that period.

But this German lightweight, with the unfortunate nickname of VDL (which in Britain conjures ideas of a sexually transmitted disease), broke the mould on failing to achieve anything while being in the federal government where even colleagues in Berlin opposed her nomination for the EU post on the ground of being sensationally unremarkable.

But the EU elite, the real powers in Brussels who have funny handshakes and whose sweaty palms are on the real powers over member states, like “also ran” candidates. This is seen as very much a positive thing when installing your own puppet in the top euro job.

Yet, given the EU’s rancid if not delusional ideas of how to pull itself out of its own political crisis – take more power, decentralise more away from member states, build stronger foreign policy and swell the budget considerably (presumably to pay for more fake news from journalists who are indirectly on the EU payroll) – one would have thought that this old business model needed a second look. Surely, a heavyweight pro federalist leader with a guilt edged profile, which media lapped up, would have been the ticket? Someone like Tony Blair for example?

Dear Ursula’s failure this week to garner support from EU member states to all stick to a single policy on the dreaded Corona Virus, rather than all develop their own policies on borders and national health initiatives, failed spectacularly though. If anything, it goes to show how weak and ineffective the EU is as, when tested under a crisis, the real confidence, the vote of confidence from national governments no less, just isn’t there. It’s like governments are saying we love the EU, we really do, and we see it as such a great thing…but when the shit hits the fan, we’ll take it from here, thanks.

On Sunday 15^th of March, Germany moved to impose travel restrictions along most of its borders, without even bothering to informed its neighbouring countries. Several European Union members — including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Portugal and Denmark — had also taken moves to impose border restrictions, in some cases with little advance notification. Is any of this legal? What about Schengen?

This must have panicked Ursula who, on the Monday 16th, made the cringe-worthy plea through a video conference for calm and for everyone to do as the new EU Commission president wants. And so on the following day, she appealed to member states through a video conference for her 30 day travel ban proposal to be approved.

Finally the chaos was brought under control. But it was Germany’s Angela Merkel who announced the news of an EU-wide 30-day shut down on non-EU citizens. Until that point, 27 member states went ahead with their own polices and almost certainly the move to agree on the Ursula proposal, was pushed through by Macron and Merkel as not only a common sense move, but also a political one to support the new European Commission president who for a number of days was really not on the ball.

And yet it didn’t stop a number of EU member states continuing with their own internal border rules, which bypassed entirely the European Commission president.

But what no one saw coming was the extraordinary reaction from Serbia – an EU candidate country – whose president took the opportunity to more or less declare its loathing of Brussels, as it saw the proposal as a direct threat to its relations with China. Importantly, the draft of the text prohibits EU member states (and those in line to join the EU) seeking to acquire medical equipment outside of the EU (as well as exporting medical equipment out of the EU-27 block) which drew the wrath of the Serbian president, who more or less spat blood while taking about Brussels.

“European solidarity does not exist. That was a fairy tale,” he said at a conference which soon became vital on social media. “The only country that can help us in this hard situation is the People’s Republic of China. For the rest of them, thanks for nothing.”

President Aleksandar Vucic slammed the decision by Ursula to impose such measures and has practically begged the Chinese premier to help with medical equipment and doctors, as he sees no help whatsoever coming from other EU member states or even Brussels.

His move might well see Serbia’s accession process slowed down or even annulled as the EU is quite a petulant beast and doesn’t take kindly to accession countries who try to defy it. Turkey’s bid to become an EU member state is put on the ‘never-never’ back burner of EU politics following a number of run ins with its headstrong leader Recep Erdogan who doesn’t really buy the carrot-and-stick approach from Brussels.

Are we witnessing, via a bumbling management of Corona the meltdown of the EU’s accession policy? Possibly. Other eastern European countries which are already in the block but also have a deep scepticism of Brussels may well take Serbia’s lead and go ahead with their own plans to protect their own citizens, from taking China’s help or others. So far, we are not only looking at a catastrophe from a pan-European health perspective but also the first signs of an illness within the Commission itself which keeps up some of its senior members late at night fretting about its fate: a dire lack of confidence of its president.

Ursula weathered the storm this time, due to Macron and Merkel’s help but the move from the EU president is not nearly enough to save both the health epidemic and its implications towards EU economies but also a political crisis in Brussels. What she has done is too way too little and way too late. A number of emergency measures have also been taken to open up emergency funds to help companies threatened with collapse or for jobs. In Ireland alone, 140,000 jobs have been lost, for example with Spain’s own central government coughing up a staggering 219 bn euros as a rescue package. That’s 20% of its entire annual GDP. Compared to the few billion announced by the EU, this puts into perspective how the dithering EU neither has the ability to handle such crises – as it never prepares for contingency plans as it fears this will make it look like the project is a failure [read euro bail outs] – but also how it doesn’t even have the funds. Or rather, it does have the funds if it didn’t spend billions on propping up despots in African countries with ‘humanitarian aid’ which is linked directly to flows of immigrants leaving the region and ending up in Libya. Interestingly, Ursula has agreed that the EU commission needs to relax EU state aid rules during this emergency, which in practical terms means giving EU governments the green light to use their own taxpayers’ money to rescue old, large companies – hardly comforting news if you’re a boss of a small firm facing losses and bankruptcy. What happened to the tomes and tomes of euro-garble about “supporting SMEs” which the Commission endlessly has harped on about for the last quarter century? Or jobs? The cats out of the bag.

Surely if the EU can just drop hugely important state aid rules which are the cornerstone of the single market, which the EU holds to dear, and it has no rescue plan for the small and medium sized enterprises which are surely going to go under, then really what role can we expect from the EU? Under the commission president Ursula, clearly not much. Or at least not much which amounts to anything more than just providing the office space for a talk shop for EU member states. If the EU can’t even contain the virus and take measures to protect it though, what should we really make of its plans to forge ahead with an EU army with a bolder foreign policy agenda? In fact, all we need to do, to answer that question, is look at the mess created on the Turkish-Greek border as the EU’s failed immigration and asylum policy wreaks havoc and drives home the point that the “fairy tale” of the EU as an international player is becoming recognised. In the coming months we will see EU member states abandon any directives from Ursula in Brussels and will take matters into their own hands. The dream of the euphemism of “further integration” [read decentralising power from member states to Brussels] which was parroted when the new commission took office at the end of 2019 will end up as European citizens’ nightmare. If Ursula van der Leyen was considered to be the answer, the then question must have been a pretty stupid one.