The EU broke the newly established convention that the people elect the president to make her president. It was a very explicit decision to have her as president. To top this off, she was in German headlines at the time for corruption at her defence ministry, which every other country must have known.
She must be very competent at something and people in power trust her deeply.
We need to get to a point where we have an EU representation in such talks that can be trusted
Von der Leyen shows that we need much more if the EU should work as promised.
I think a big problem that the EU has is that it’s still working as an international treaty rather than an elected representative body. As in, you don’t elect people in the EU legislature, you elect people who elect people who elect people in there.
The problem is that each layer leaves an increasing proportion of people behind, and makes it more likely that the outcome does not align with what people want, and in a spectacular fashion. Like US presidential elections on steroids. Then, people don’t feel represented, or feel better represented by the people they actually elect, and euroscepticism grows.
BTW, no, I’d guess most people didn’t know about her corruption until after she got into office. Domestic corruption scandals rarely get EU-wide attention. She also got into a corruption scandal since with Pfizer, so I guess her antics didn’t stop.
I feel that a lot of bigger member states use the EU and NATO as a dumping ground for well connected but domestically unpalatable politicians. Like Mark Rutte became NATO chief right after falling out of favor in Dutch national politics.
The EU broke the newly established convention that the people elect the president to make her president. It was a very explicit decision to have her as president. To top this off, she was in German headlines at the time for corruption at her defence ministry, which every other country must have known.
She must be very competent at something and people in power trust her deeply.
Von der Leyen shows that we need much more if the EU should work as promised.
edit:
Problem solved
Trump claims EU leaders call him ‘president of Europe’ - Euractiv
I think a big problem that the EU has is that it’s still working as an international treaty rather than an elected representative body. As in, you don’t elect people in the EU legislature, you elect people who elect people who elect people in there.
The problem is that each layer leaves an increasing proportion of people behind, and makes it more likely that the outcome does not align with what people want, and in a spectacular fashion. Like US presidential elections on steroids. Then, people don’t feel represented, or feel better represented by the people they actually elect, and euroscepticism grows.
BTW, no, I’d guess most people didn’t know about her corruption until after she got into office. Domestic corruption scandals rarely get EU-wide attention. She also got into a corruption scandal since with Pfizer, so I guess her antics didn’t stop.
I feel that a lot of bigger member states use the EU and NATO as a dumping ground for well connected but domestically unpalatable politicians. Like Mark Rutte became NATO chief right after falling out of favor in Dutch national politics.