Meet the New European Union, Same as the Old One
The European Union chose new leadership this week. It was, for once, a fraught affair.
No rubber stamps were anywhere to be seen.
In the end all four of the new European Union leadership were not the frontrunners as put forth by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her choice for EU Commission President was rejected.
So too was Mario Draghi’s replacement at the top of the European Central Bank, Bundesbanke President Jens Weidmann.
French President Emmanuel Macron was the clear winner this weekend.
The choices for these positions are all designed to both maintain the path of European integration but also weaken the hold Germany has on European Union power politics.
And this thorough rebuke to Merkel immediately threw the euro into defensive mode. But, don’t kid yourself. Weidmann was never an acceptable choice as ECB President. More on this later.
The new Commission President, replacing the odious Jean-Claude Juncker, is German Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen. She’s a thorough Europhile and Russophobe. Since she’s a Social Democrat, to me it looks like ALDE’s Guy Verhofstadt flexed his expanded presence in the room. He helped ensure no populist upstarts would control EU foreign policy.
It will will continue being virulently anti-Russian, if not more so than in the past.
Von der Leyen is a perfect example of leadership chosen by committee (and The Davos Crowd behind them) to be nothing more than a puppet of the globalist/neo-liberal forces which control the direction of the EU.
Merkel’s a lame-duck trying to get what she wants from Russia while maintaining a brave face to the United States. Putting Von der Leyen in charge ensures any good relations between here and Vladimir Putin should be heavily discounted going forward.
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