In my view, the artificial hype around the elections to the European Parliament (EP) is difficult to understand. Of course, just like at the racecourse, it is always nice to guess the order in which the participants will arrive. Well, at the “euro-race” scheduled for 6-9 June 2024, it is hardly worth showing too much of the gambling mood: the first to arrive will be those whose political views are closer to the European People's Party (EPP), followed by the advocates of social democratic ideas (though allegiance to any political platform in today's EU is a very unstable notion). That's actually the whole story: the newly elected MEPs will thank the voters and will probably have to meet them again only in five years. A logical question arises: what is the point of the EP elections?
Voting as the ultimate form of ostensible democracy
To begin with, let us highlight a number of specific points that this year have become not only typical of the EU-wide election campaign, but also of the political mood in the European Union at large.
First of all, the divide between the EU political establishment and ordinary Europeans has reached unprecedented scale – the widest ever in the history of the integration association. Sophisticated populism is becoming a distinctive feature of the EP election campaign: one can safely promise more than in national elections. The reason is obvious: when a MEP makes it to Strasbourg or Brussels, he or she becomes hardly accountable and reachable (in fact, that is why farmers in tractors with manure as “petitions” are so often visiting the Belgian capital).
Remarkably, the local political elite, including MEPs, is not the least bit embarrassed by this state of affairs; on the contrary, it is more than happy with it.
To illustrate this, let us look at the way the Eurobureaucracy skilfully “scuttled” the “Conference on the Future of Europe” initiative. For several years, they collected proposals from ordinary Europeans, literally in the streets and squares, on how to improve life in the European Union, even facilitated the grouping of ideas into areas and held numerous hearings – only to then successfully bury the outwardly noble endeavour.
Against this background, the EP elections are time and again nicely presented as a way of maintaining the unbreakable bond between the people and the European Quarter. In reality, the voting results are nothing more than a one-off snapshot of voter sentiment, which is besides not as accurate as in national or regional elections in the Member States. Moreover, in a number of countries, only some 30 per cent of the population come to vote at the European elections. However, the authorities' sense of shame for the failed turnout quickly fades away for an obvious reason that the EP elections do not change anything in European capitals.
The MEPs' eagerness to keep their voters out of the decision-making process is also manifested in the European Parliament's activities to unprecedentedly cleanse the local information space in order to isolate Europeans from alternative sources of information, to offer them a black-and-white picture and, as a consequence, to make them accept the policies pursued by Brussels. In this way, everything is being done to ensure that such really important issues for the European population as military and financial support for Ukraine or the negative consequences of anti-Russian sanctions can never become part of the electoral agenda.
Joining the “brave nEU world”
The results of the upcoming EP elections are not as intriguing to voters as they are to those candidates who are lucky enough to “make it to the top”. Once in Strasbourg/Brussels, the people's elected representatives – regardless of their political views – not only automatically join the ranks of the European bureaucracy, but also, as they perceive it, become part of the intellectual elite of the world community. Every MEP who has found his place in the “EU sun” will have to, willingly or resisting, enter the ranks of globalists – those who are ready to entirely devote themselves to serving globalist (let's call things by their names – American) interests. It seems no coincidence that even a month before the European Parliament elections, many candidate MEPs genuinely worry about who will become the US president following the upcoming November 2024 vote, rather than about their own fate.
In other words (and this is one of the fundamental differences between the European and national parliaments), no group in the European Parliament – be it from the extreme left or the extreme right and no matter what percentage of support it gets – will become a game changer: like all the other groups, it will become part of the mechanism designed to stamp out globalist decisions.
A chance to contribute to the building of a “millennial EU”
The appointment of the President of the European Commission (EC) for the period 2024-2029 will be among the first such decisions – without exaggeration the most important one in terms of its significance for the future of the EU's neo-imperialist transformation and its ambitions in shaping a “rules-based world order”.
The election campaign with leading candidates (the so-called “Spitzenkandidaten”) is rather designed to divert the attention of the population from how power will actually be divided in Brussels after the vote. I think that only a small part of voters will be able to give the name of the politician who heads this or that party list. For one exception – the current head of the EC Ursula von der Leyen, a German national. And even fewer Europeans believe that any “Spitzenkandidat” (again, with the exception of Ursula von der Leyen) will have a real chance to head the EC following the elections. Indeed, the state of democracy in the European Union is so poor that not a single head of a European institution – be it the European Council, the European Commission or the European Parliament – is directly elected by the people. Yet, everyone has been pretending for years that this is the way it should be.
The rules of the political game called “European elections” stipulate that the “political family” that wins the most votes (in our case, the EPP led by Ursula von der Leyen) has the right to nominate its candidate, for whom – after approval by the leaders of the EU countries – the EP should vote.
The chances that the current EC head will be reappointed for another five-year term are high. There is a lot of talk about what obstacles may await her on this path (here negative publicity works better that just public relations). Yet, I dare to assume that Ursula von der Leyen, a typical German in every aspect, would not stand for re-election at all were she not sure of the victory.
Her election campaign is rather based on the “Vote for Ursula or lose” slogan. The logic is simple: “geopolitical Europe” is not yet complete, aggressive Russians are at the gates, assertive Chinese are around the corner. In other words, take part in saving the EU.
The main advantage of the current EPP candidate is her absolute commitment to the ideals of globalism and Atlanticism. A better person to promote the overseas lobbyists' interests is hard to find. And given the current geopolitical situation there is no need to look for one: the world largely owes it to Ursula von der Leyen that all the resources available to the European Union have been thrown today into supporting the global confrontation with Russia provoked and led by Washington.
All this, of course, is without prejudice to the fact that Ursula von der Leyen's plans could be thwarted by a “dark horse”. The German herself was in that exact position five years ago when they were looking for a candidate to head the European Commission. Any candidate will be subject to a mandatory successful screening by the Americans. As was the case with Ursula von der Leyen (I suspect it happened even at an earlier stage – without Washington's consent, a random person cannot become the German Defence Minister by definition). So, surprises are possible – as they say, in form, not in content. Still, I am sure that the MEPs will cope with the “globalist mission” prepared for them whatever the scenario.
