Failure, corruption and warmongering: Ursula von der Leyen is awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for her contribution to the EU – because in Europe utter failure is not only tolerated, but celebrated!
It is one of life’s guilty pleasures when one’s cynical prejudices are confirmed. One such moment, when I allowed myself a long, hard laugh, came as the news arrived that Ursula von der Leyen had been awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for “her services to the unity of the Member States, in the containment of the pandemic, for the unity of the Union’s determination to defend itself against Russia — and for the impetus towards the Green Deal.” It was now official: In Brussels, nothing succeeds like gross failure and, even worse, nothing is rewarded more generously than corruption.
Let me begin with the above rationale for the Prize: Mrs von der Leyen’s “impetus towards the Green Deal”. Can they be serious? Future historians will zero in on the so-called Green Deal as an example of what is wrong with the European Union: smoke and mirrors masquerading as majestic policy initiatives. Indeed, when it was announced, and after studying it carefully, I rushed out an article in The Guardian to warn against the Green Deal on two grounds: first, the money it promised to invest in the green transition was simply not there and, secondly, the heralded deal was rather… brown – in that it aimed at greenwashing far more than at greening Europe. Four years later, the Green Deal was declared a gross failure and was unceremoniously ditched in favour of Ursula von der Leyen’s next white elephant: the folly of building up a European military-industrial complex under the codenames Re-Arm Europe or SAFE.
Why is it folly to think that von der Leyen’s Commission will spearhead a European military-industrial complex? For three reasons, as I have explained elsewhere. First, as in the case of the Green Deal, the money is not there and the EU cannot credibly commit to finding it given its steadfast refusal to form a proper fiscal union. Secondly, even if money were not a problem, the EU lacks the federal institutions to construct a top-down, paneuropean military-industrial complex, instead of the existing patchwork of nation-state based companies that compete with one another with the backing of their national governments. Thirdly, even if neither money nor a federal-like set of institutions were a problem, Europe would not be able (I hope!) to emulate the United States’ capacity to wage one war after the other to ensure a constant demand for weapons and munitions.
Two terms as President of the European Commission, two gross and rather costly failures. But these failures would not be enough to burnish Mrs von der Leyen’s credentials and seal her rise to the lofty heights that justified granting her the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen. No, for that splendid Prize to be awarded, she needed to add certified corruption to her gross failure. Thankfully, she did!
Showing a remarkable determination to break the law both in her own country, Germany, and in the European Union, Mrs von der Leyen succeeded in being sanctioned in both jurisdictions for treating the public with contempt in pursuit of her own interests. As Germany’s defence minister, she desperately tried to conceal her involvement in shady defence contracts by sabotaging the Bundestag’s investigation in the matter through the “illegal and deliberate” deletion of her phone contents. As European Commission President, the EU top court found her culpable of repeating the unlawful practice of deleting her phone records of illicit personal exchanges with heads of global corporations – on this occasion with the CEO of Pfizer with whom she negotiated, on Europe’s behalf, lucrative COVID-19 vaccine deals.
With these findings pointing to despicable behaviour under her belt, and her majestic policy failures (the Green Deal, Re-Arm and SAFE) on hand, Ursula von der Leyen was almost a shoo in for the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen. Almost but not quite! To push through the finishing line she needed to add another credential to her curriculum vitae: she needed to become the cheerleader of Israel’s army. Thankfully for our European Commission President, the opportunity arose after Hamas attacked Israel on 7th October 2023. Immediately, Mrs von der Leyen sprang to action.
Without any authority or authorisation – since neither foreign nor defence policy is in the purview of the Commission President – she landed in Tel Aviv, not as a campaigner for an immediate end to war crimes on all sides, nor as an ambassador of Peace & Reconciliation or as an advocate of International Law or as a believer in the simple idea that the Geneva convention is humanity’s last hope in the darkest of hours. No, she went there to pose in front of Israeli tanks poised to enter Gaza with the air of a proud cheerleader on Grand Final day. She went there as an enabler of the war crime of denying two million non-combatants water and food, as a cheerleader of an air force intentionally targeting people’s homes, as a facilitator of the war crime of transferring a million people to other parts of Gaza where they were also bombed.
Thus, Mrs von der Leyen’s exhausting work was done, her triple whammy of failure-corruption-warmongering completed. She was now the prime candidate for the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, which she received gladly. Without a hint of irony, I believe that it was well deserved and fully consistent with that particular prize’s background and history. After all, whether deservedly or undeservedly, the long dead European Emperor whose name the Prize carries has, for many years now, been appropriated by the inanest of Europe’s leaders in a frantic search for self-aggrandisement. To make the point, let me take you back to a dull autumnal afternoon when two suited men exuding authority entered Aachen’s Cathedral.
The calendar read September 15th 1978 and the two men were there to pay their respects to the remains of Charlemagne, the 9th Century Frankish King who had briefly re-united the Roman Empire and whose spirit encapsulated, for traditionalist Central Europeans, Pan-Europa or Mittel-Europa – a borderless Christian European realm.
Standing above the Christian warrior’s grave, and next to his ancient throne, the two pilgrims sought to quell their considerable trepidation caused by what they had just done: commit their two countries, France and Germany, to bundle their money together with an agreement, they had signed earlier that day to create the so-called European Monetary System (EMS) – the euro’s precursor.
“Perhaps while we were discussing monetary affairs”, said one of the two to an Italian journalist, “the spirit of Charlemagne brooded over us.” His name? President Valéry Giscard d’ Estaing of France. The second pilgrim appealing to Charlemagne’s ghost for its approval of the monetary union with France was German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
Setting aside the awful Euro-kitsch aesthetic of two leaders visiting the tomb of a Christian warrior king to steady their nerves over creating perhaps history’s most pathetic monetary union, it is heartening to realise that the EU has a long tradition of soap opera-like celebrations of failure. After all, the exchange rate mechanism that the two men established back then failed spectacularly but Europe still celebrates them to this day. As for the euro, which was born as a result of the calamity that was the EMS, it also proved a calamity for Europe and Europeans. And yet, in 2002, the committee awarding the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen chose to award that year’s prize to… the euro!
In this European Union, where nothing succeeds like failure, especially when laced with corruption and most recently warmongering, Mrs von der Leyen is the most deserved recipient of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen.
For the DER FREITAG site, where the above was originally published in German, click here.
