Für Schwäche entworfen
https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/designed-for-weakness
Für Schwäche entworfen
https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/designed-for-weakness
2 Kommentare
SS: Amid existential crises for the European Union, a curious fact stands out: the recently reelected President of the European Commission is Ursula von der Leyen, a politician whose record as Germany’s Defense Minister was widely considered calamitous and who will face, on October 16th, a second round of no-confidence votes in just three months.
During von der Leyen’s tenure at the German Defense Ministry (2013-2019), the Bundeswehr descended into a state of complete unreadiness. The German army’s ambition shrank to the goal of having a single operational brigade, which would take at least a month to deploy outside its borders. German soldiers used broomsticks painted black to simulate machine guns during a NATO “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force” due to equipment shortages. Fewer than 30% of German fighter jets, helicopters, and tanks were operational. When she left office, not a single German submarine was seaworthy.
The architect of this disaster now leads its rearmament efforts. Nor is von der Leyen’s case exceptional. Since the turn of the century, the European Commission has been led by a string of weak leaders like José Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Juncker, and now von der Leyen. Barroso left Portugal’s economy and finances in disarray before ascending to Brussels after 2 years as Prime Minister. Juncker, not coincidentally the third president from the tiny state of Luxembourg, openly admitted that the Commission enforced rules selectively based on political expediency rather than treaty obligation.
I could have some counter-arguments.
About Ursula von der Leyen, it’s quite widely used idea about „failing upwards“. She wasn’t the most popular defence minister that’s true, but that wasn’t only VdL’s fault; it was actually VdL, Merkel and CDU/CSU that was supporting increased defence funding. SPD, that was also in the coalition, opposed that. In that environment it’s quite hard to increase capabilites. I personally think that current (and previous) commission did an okay job.
Commission has recognized the need for stronger defence in Europe and done what commission can realistically do in the current framework; supported Ukraine; recognized the need for economic reforms (based on Draghi and Letta reports) and some deregulation (that S&D is opposing in EU parliament though), and planned accordingly; and also now pushed for stronger EU external borders, frontex and even quite strong anti-human trafficking action in northern Africa. Many of these are things that I at least personally support.
The author of the text argues that Spitzenkandidat process would be significantly better in choosing commission president than the current member state -led process. And many of the faults of the current system are accurate, like „EU doesn’t select its best leaders, but the least objectionable ones.“ – and that’s kind of true. Altough being least objectionable isn’t always a bad thing, especially when leading the executive branch of quite loose confederation of 27 different countries.
I could also criticize the process of spitzenkandidat process that the writer is strongly suggesting. Would it really be more democratic: I mean, when average voter vote in european elections in their country, their national parties, do they really think about the party’s EU level group and it’s spitzenkandidat? I don’t really think so. It would actually feel even less representative – small bunch of EPP insiders would choose EPP spitzenkandidat that would most likely become commission president – at least now countrie’s governments negotiate about that for days or weeks, while taking EU parliament’s election result in account, and that suggestion is then voted in the newly formed parliament.