Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). Is Ursula von der Leyen so stupid and clueless, or so submissive, that this agreement was all she could deliver? Or is the experienced schemer simply following a completely different plan in which individual countries or even the welfare of citizens simply do not play a role?
This time, the result was so overwhelmingly bad that not even Chancellor Friedrich Merz could gloss over it. And jokes are circulating on the internet, referring to the constant claim that Russia wants the downfall of Western Europe, explaining that Ursula von der Leyen must then be Russia’s top agent. It is virtually impossible to sell this trade agreement, which imposes tariffs of at least 15 per cent on EU exports to the US but none at all on US exports to the EU, as a success. Not even with the argument that it somehow binds the United States to the EU.
But in the long term, this is not even a victory for the United States, because previous attempts have already shown that reindustrialisation there cannot happen quickly. The markets of the core West, which are being sealed off step by step, will then remain hostage to its industrial remnants, so to speak, but the rest of the world will happily trade with the rising powers of the BRICS, which, thanks to the US tariff policy, will in the long term unite even larger parts of the global industrial potential.
Now, von der Leyen is not known for being the brightest bulb in the box, but in the enormous Brussels bureaucracy, there must be someone who can spell out to her what is wrong with this outcome – unless another factor comes into play, another player for whom this outcome is extremely advantageous (Spoiler: it is not Russia, because a completely ruined Europe is no longer even good enough as a buyer of energy resources).
In fact, this player does exist. He goes to great lengths not to be clearly recognisable, he always skilfully packages the implementation of his own interests, but he has already proven that he is both deeply corrupt and infinitely malicious. It is the Brussels bureaucracy itself, driven by its own interest in acquiring as many aspects of state power as possible in order to turn the sham government into a real one.
The self-interest of structures is a historically important factor, and every form of bureaucracy develops such self-interest. Accordingly, measures to control this self-interest can be found relatively early in history. In ancient Rome, for example, this was achieved by filling government positions with eunuchs, because it could be assumed that they would look after their own welfare but did not have a large family lurking in the background that might feed off the state apparatus for generations. The real origin of celibacy in the Catholic Church is the same, although in this case the self-interest of the structure, i.e. the corporation of the Church, trumped the self-interest of its employees.
Now, the Brussels bureaucracy is a very special thing. Not only because the incomes of its staff are unusually high, which in itself contributes to their self-perception as a ‘European elite’. No, above all because it is an executive without political control, something that is extremely rare. Even an absolutist bureaucracy was kept on a shorter leash and could lose its funding in the blink of an eye, and the oldest European bureaucracy, that of the Catholic Church, has always been stabilised by a multitude of comparatively independent substructures (the orders).
Among other things, this has an impact on the personal power of the Commission and its president. This is a point that is also rarely examined in detail, partly because it can only be understood if one is familiar with administrative structures. A simple example: the largest cities in Germany are, in order, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. Every one of these cities has produced a federal chancellor, except Munich. Why? Because in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, the city is by no means a single administration, but several. The governing mayor in Berlin and Hamburg is only responsible for politics at the state level; the municipal level is the responsibility of the districts. However, the majority of the administration is municipal. Cologne is also divided into city districts with fiscal and administrative functions in accordance with the municipal code of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Bavarian municipal code does not provide for any subdivision of municipalities. Munich does have city districts with district committees, but apart from the tree protection ordinance and a say in urban planning, they have comparatively little say. And the position of the mayor in the Bavarian municipal code is significantly stronger than in North Rhine-Westphalia; among other things, the mayor is the shareholders’ meeting of the municipal utilities …
Ultimately, this means that the direct, personal power – defined here as the ability to make one’s own decisions – of the mayor of Munich is so great that the office of federal chancellor is no longer as attractive in comparison. It is not due to a lack of assertiveness on the part of Munich or the traditional antagonism between city and state government. All that remains is the higher income of a chancellor, and that does not seem to be attractive enough.
Let’s take a look at the bureaucracy in Brussels. The Commission has an estimated 32,000 employees, which is not really that many. The city of Munich, for example, has 43,000 employees. However, while Munich also has electricians, kindergarten teachers and tram drivers, all of the employees in Brussels are bureaucrats.
On top of that, there are about the same number of employees in EU institutions such as the ECB. So we are talking about a maximum of around 60,000 people. At this point, we should remember Parkinson’s law, which describes the tendency of every bureaucracy to grow.
However, it becomes really unusual when you look at the conditions under which this administration operates. The actual budget is a multi-year budget; the current one ends in 2027. There is a procedure whereby the budget is voted on in the European Parliament, but since this parliament only has partial parliamentary rights, this is not real budgetary control.
The funds available to the EU Commission come from the member states; one of the EU’s possible sources of own revenue is customs duties. One might think that this would be an incentive to respond to US tariffs with counter-tariffs, but the Commission, at least judging by its actions in recent years, wants much more – namely, to levy its own taxes and take on its own debt.
And that is where personal power comes into play. Von der Leyen has often attracted attention with appearances in which she seemed downright drunk with power, losing all sense of reality, for example in her famous speech about the chips from washing machines that Russia now needs for fighter jets. This is not only an expression of a transatlantic conviction that has been elevated to the point of delusion; it is also the product of the downright pre-democratic conditions under which this Brussels power operates. From the perspective of the Brussels bureaucracy, close ties with NATO are a way of acquiring armed power while bypassing individual states.
This, too, is part of statehood. To spell it out once again: the ability to make laws, the ability to enforce laws, the right to appropriate and dispose of the money of one’s subjects, and, to secure all of this, an armed force – these are the factors that constitute statehood. Legislation is already being enacted, incidentally in a manner that makes the already quite painful Anglo-Saxon law seem downright pleasant. A judiciary has also been acquired, although its origins were actually different; the ECJ and the ECHR have long willingly served as the judicial arm of the Brussels bureaucrats.
What is completely lacking is control. Even a small vote of no confidence against von der Leyen cannot hide this fact. Even though dozens of EU scandals have been silently accepted in the meantime, would the matter with Pfizer and the text messages have passed so unscathed if it had been the government of an EU member state? Hardly. In addition to its lack of parliamentary roots, Brussels is so far removed from most EU citizens that direct protests there are relatively rare; the only exceptions are the more or less regular farmers’ protests, which also have to do with the fact that Brussels’ actions are felt more directly and, above all, have been felt for much longer in the agricultural sector. The plans to destroy the automotive industry are being pushed forward with vehemence by Brussels – but the heart of darkness is not yet the target of the protests. Nor is it the case with migration.
If one were to attempt to calculate the personal power of a Commission President compared to that of a Federal Chancellor, the Commission President would be far ahead. This is due to the lack of parliamentary control, the absence of a real civil society (in contrast to the NGO circus, which is not only very present in Brussels but is also partly controlled by Brussels) and the lack of necessity to negotiate one’s own policies with parties and their representatives. The fact that von der Leyen behaves like an absolutist princess has to do with the fact that she is an absolutist princess. All that is missing is the completion of her own financial sovereignty.
This is where the peculiar promises von der Leyen made to Trump become interesting. Especially given that there is no mechanism for collective purchases, neither for US LNG nor for US weapons. And that the individual member states are already under extreme financial strain due to sanctions-induced economic weakness, migration and the arms race.
This creates the possibility of pulling European debt out of a hat, preferably coupled with the right to levy taxes. If that is the goal, then it is not a disadvantage but an advantage that the member states are further weakened by this trade agreement. Germany, as the economically strongest of these states, has been finally put on a leash by the latest package of sanctions, because the one step that could immediately slow down the economic decline, namely the commissioning of the undamaged strand of Nord Stream, can only be achieved at the price of leaving the EU. What remains is a collection of economically moribund states, which, however, enable the Brussels power elite to rise above the remnants of democratically legitimised constitutions. Here, too, the pattern resembles absolutism: absolutist princes necessarily sought to disempower the provincial nobility. This is a process that Brussels is consistently following.
If one applies the very narrow filter of the pure enforcement of Brussels’ power interests, all the manoeuvres of recent years suddenly make sense. The Russia hysteria was the means of clarifying the question of armed power through intertwining with NATO (with the US being held liable as an involuntary service provider), and the Ukraine project was a first-class opportunity to channel larger flows of money through Brussels, which previously only managed larger funds in connection with agriculture. The weakening of individual states now makes it possible to extend financial management to the EU level and provides constant new opportunities to try to enforce EU debt issuance (for which the status must be equalised, i.e. Germany must be stripped of its role as ultimate guarantor).
