One of two things must happen: either the EU is prepared to increasingly repress the natural social struggles against the degradation of living and working conditions, or it bets on a more socially and demographically sustainable economy.
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Von der Leyen has accustomed us to her grandstanding nihilism and disconnection from reality. Listening to her, one might sometimes get the impression that she sees herself as a kind of a god of creation, capable of transforming everything into matter with the mere power of her words. But of course, this is not true! The Russian economy has not collapsed in “tatters”; in fact, it has shown remarkable resilience, with wages growing at their highest rate in 16 years (a 21.6% increase compared to March of last year, and an 11.3% real growth after inflation—a dream for any Portuguese citizen), with the average wage expected to reach $1,113 by 2025, while everything remains cheaper than in any EU country.
It is also not true that the Russians have been stripping semiconductors from washing machines, nor is it true that the G7 has blocked Russian oil exports with their oil caps. In fact, Russia has never exported as much oil as it does today. The broker Ursula von der Leyen was also wrong when she claimed that the U.S. had the cheapest LNG—why would Trump want to lower prices now?—urging European countries to buy more shale gas, in violation of the European corporate sustainability directive, which requires suppliers to comply with environmental sustainability rules. As is well known, shale gas is extracted through fracking, a method highly damaging to the environment and banned in the EU. It seems that for the unelected president of the European Commission, directives are applied according to her whims.
But the latest delusion from the European Commission president is the announcement of a “massive boost”—as she loves these Americanized propaganda slogans with supposed creative power—to European military spending, which has already been increasing over time, but now she proposes to raise it by an additional 840 billion euros. It’s worth noting that she was Germany’s Defense Minister, during the scandal involving the sale of Trident submarines to Portugal, a deal that led to the imprisonment of several intermediaries. During that time too, von der Leyen, when investigated about several businesses, said that she lost the cellphone which helped her avoid jail. Similarly, during her time at the European Commission, she was involved in the vaccine procurement scandal. Certain character traits never disappear, and it’s a pity that these are the traits that determine who gets chosen for such positions. To our detriment.
Of course, the European Commission president could have proposed, instead, a massive diplomatic effort, a vigorous and mobilizing movement for world peace, a series of proposals for disarmament and the reduction of military stockpiles. Would it have worked? Maybe not, but as a leader of a vast population and the guardian of the keys that unlock the doors to death, it was her duty, first and foremost, to make every effort to negotiate not just peace, but a relationship of unity and cooperation across Europe, promoting prosperity and improving the living conditions of its people. Wouldn’t this be expected of any leader who claims to be democratic, humanistic, and a lover of freedom? The first step should never be to deepen the war.
She could even blame Vladimir Putin, demonizing him to unimaginable levels, but always keeping her feet on the ground and acknowledging the enormous responsibility she claims to bear: the guardian of the free world. A “guardian of the free world” is expected to make every effort to preserve that freedom. Instead, von der Leyen has done everything to erode and erase it from the map. Instead of setting an example of elevating and exalting our civilizational values, the European Commission and all the actors parading around the European Council have chosen to adopt a rigid, backward, isolationist, and sectarian stance. “I won’t move from here,” “I won’t talk to them,” “I won’t even think about them!” The EU is the only bloc today that behaves this way, except for Israel with the Palestinians. This should give us much to think about.
But this isn’t even the biggest problem with von der Leyen’s proposal. I’m not even talking about the arbitrariness of a commission composed of unelected bureaucrats proposing draconian rearmament plans, which the Council approves almost unanimously, without criticism, except for Orban. It’s more than that. Von der Leyen doesn’t have the authority to approve such a thing, nor can she force member states to spend this money, or compel them to approve eurobonds that would allow such a magnitude of debt.
I’ve mentioned in other articles that by 2026, with a military budget exceeding 600 billion euros, the EU and its member states will already be close to spending 3-4% of GDP on armaments, as Trump desires—the same Trump they claim not to align with. With this increase proposed by von der Leyen, 5% of GDP would be guaranteed.
The truth, however, is that when we look at the proposals, we see that what’s on the table is a line of credit, available to member states, worth 150 billion euros, with the remaining amount coming not from the “European Union,” but from the member states themselves. To facilitate this, the EU will discuss proposals to exclude military spending from the limits imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact, allowing increased investment in armaments to not count toward deficit or public debt limits. In other words, if it’s for weapons, states can borrow as much as they want.
The contradiction with past rhetoric is absolutely baffling. When it came to mitigating the effects of the “sovereign debt crisis,” preventing Western loan sharks from eroding the fundamental rights of European citizens to health, education, and housing, the European Commission made no exceptions. According to Durão Barroso, we were all living beyond our means and had to pay everything back, and quickly. So, it didn’t matter that Portugal had a Portuguese president of the European Commission. What mattered was the German Finance Minister’s desire to save, above all, Deutsche Bank.
But when it comes to buying weapons and allowing this investment to diminish the quality of essential public services, the EU is ready to create exceptions to borrowing rules. It doesn’t matter that António Costa is on the European Council. Every time a Portuguese has held a prominent position in the EU, the Portuguese—and Europeans—have had good reason to complain. Is this the fault of the Portuguese? Of course not! The problem lies with the type of people the oligarchy chooses for these positions—always spineless individuals or, like von der Leyen or Kaja Kallas, fanatical missionaries acting as a faction.
If von der Leyen’s proposal was already madness, it becomes even more insane when we realize that she can’t force member states to spend this money, nor can she spend it herself. The funds from the multiannual Community Funds cannot be spent on weapons, except for a small portion from the European Defense Fund. They can be used for dual-use technologies, research, and development, but that’s it. And that’s not insignificant, as seen with the facial recognition technology developed in Israel with European funds, which helped kill children and women in Gaza.
Moreover, it is up to the member states to decide whether or not to spend the aforementioned amount on weapons. Since this money will come from state budgets, it will be up to the respective governments and parliaments to decide. This raises legitimate suspicions about who António José Seguro (a putative candidate for Prime Minister from the “Socialist” Party) was trying to please when he said he wanted state budgets to be approved “in Brussels.” Look at what awaits us with these people! So democratic, aren’t they?
Finally, the European Commission president cannot force governments to shift funds from social programs to defense, especially since, according to the Treaty establishing the European Union, the EU’s competences in social matters are only subsidiary and complementary, never able to replace or override national policies. Thus, this announcement is mere desperate propaganda and extremist fanaticism from someone who still wants to show the world that she has some importance, when in fact she has little.
But if the disconnect between this proposal and European and national rules is serious; if the betrayal of the true values of democracy and freedom, rooted in peace and stability, shows the true face of these people; even more serious is the disconnect between the proposal and the productive reality of the European Union itself.
The European Union has an annual industrial growth rate post-COVID-19 of around 1-2%, with industrial production indices in decline, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. This decline in industrial production, also associated with weak industrial growth, is exacerbated by European policies such as the Green Transition, Decarbonization, and, more recently, the energy crisis caused by the Ukrainian adventure.
Adding to this the fact that the EU faces a severe shortage of skilled labor for the industry it still has, with an aging workforce, an increasingly deregulated labor market, and an economic culture that treats children as obstacles to individual success and career advancement, the European Union can only overcome this with even more emigration. But excessive emigration, combined with disinvestment in public services, creates enormous social contradictions and widespread discontent.
One of two things must happen: either the EU is prepared—as I believe it is—to increasingly repress the natural social struggles against the degradation of living and working conditions, or it bets on a more socially and demographically sustainable economy. The latter would take more than two generations to yield tangible results. Such a delay does not seem to align with the urgency demonstrated by these European “leaders.” Their anxiety is short-term, nothing more.
The demographic problem also brings another issue: who will take up arms? Von der Leyen’s and António Costa’s children? I don’t think so. Either they change the rules of military service from voluntary to compulsory, or they will have to build armies of mercenaries, who are usually defeated by those fighting for a cause.
If this isn’t enough to understand von der Leyen’s delusion, it’s important to note that, in any case, the EU does not have the industrial, human, economic, or political capacity to handle such an increase in military spending, unless the goal is to pay even more for weapons that, as seen in Ukraine, are as expensive as they are ineffective. This might also be a pleasing solution for those simply waiting for another jackpot. The capital markets already show that the stocks of European military companies are rising in value, which must also be the objective.
In conclusion, with this announcement, the European Commission gives us yet another proof of its proverbial disconnection from reality, its harmfulness to the European people, and its service to obscure powers that directly clash with the interests of European and global populations. And what are these obscure powers? Beyond those linked to the arms industry and the military-industrial complex, they are the powers that seek to prolong and extend the conflict in Ukraine as much as possible, to avoid admitting their mistake, their defeat, or both. It’s also possible that they have spent the 300 billion euros of Russian reserves or used them as collateral for loans, leaving them hostage to a situation that could implode the entire European financial system. After all, their predictions—always wrong—were based on a long-term, perhaps generational, conflict. Trump, for all his reasons—none of them rooted in a genuine desire for peace—ended up disrupting the plan.
Whether it’s one or all of these reasons, this whole circus aims to push through another 150-billion-euro loan, which will undoubtedly end up in Zelensky’s Ukraine. How would Europeans react if the “Brussels youth” said, “While some are trying to end the conflict, we want to send another 150 billion euros to the war!” It wouldn’t look good, would it? And, put that way, it would even be incomprehensible. Incomprehensible is also the idea that all of this is for a “strong peace,” a propaganda construct aimed at presenting a resounding defeat as something more palatable to save face for this gang of spoiled children. There is, however, something they can no longer hide with their show of “strength”: the total discrediting of NATO and the European Union itself. While the former may face existential threats in the short term, we cannot dismiss the idea of the EU’s implosion in the medium term. All because a pan-European organization has turned into a mere extension of NATO, with its cohesion determined by the interests of Washington.
So, they come up with a generic, propagandistic pretext to hide the purpose of continuing to divert money that is desperately needed by the European people to feed one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. On the other hand, not knowing how to exit the quagmire they’ve created with dignity, the European “leaders” are betting everything on a leap into the abyss. Once in a hole they dug themselves, instead of turning toward the light, these political “leaders” decide to keep digging deeper, hoping someone will come to save them or bury them for good.
Meanwhile, they bury us in the problems they create with their incompetence. It remains too easy to fight and “support” this conflict with the money and lives of the children of those who work and pay their taxes.
Until all those who work realize this, the blade of World War III will remain suspended over our necks.
