Whether you are for or against Brexit, the EU has hardly enhanced its reputation through the behaviour of its top brass.
President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and EU Council President Donald Tusk have shown themselves to be stubborn, unimaginative and keener on political point scoring than securing a Withdrawal deal which is best for everyone.
Now, finally, it is all change at the top of the EU. But if you were hoping for better qualified, more competent EU leaders then dream on.
Two of the EU’s new guard: Ursula von der Leyen (left) and Christine Lagarde
Two of the EU’s new guard, Christine Lagarde, who has no experience of banking but has been appointed head of the European Central Bank, and Ursula von der Leyen, Juncker’s replacement as President of the Commission although she’s proved a lamentable Defence Minister in her native Germany, hardly inspire confidence. There are questions, too, over their integrity.
So just who are they and how did they come to be appointed?
Fighter jets and helicopters that don’t fly, warships and submarines that cannot put out to sea, guns that miss the target when they get too hot, and a lack of everything from ammunition to underwear.
That, it is claimed, is the parlous state of the German Army under the tenure of the country’s Defence Minister and now President of the European Commission.
Her elevation to the top job in Europe is said to be her reward for political loyalty to Angela Merkel rather than any display of competence as a member of the Chancellor’s government since 2005.
Others say it is a classic case of someone whose services are no longer required being ‘booted upstairs’.
Indeed, Von der Leyen, who in 2013 was appointed as the first female Defence Minister, has only united German politicians across the political divide in questioning her suitability for her new role.
One described her as ‘the weakest member’ of the German government and others call her ‘the soloist’ owing to her tendency to act on her own without consulting others.
‘No matter where you look, there’s dysfunction,’ a senior German officer at Bundeswehr HQ told the Politico website.
Last December, Von der Leyen was called before a parliamentary committee to answer charges over alleged poor handling of defence contracts, which in some cases involved suspected nepotism.
In one scandal, the costs of repairing a naval training vessel spiralled from 10 million to 135 million euros.
The Bundestag is currently holding hearings into accusations that Von der Leyen’s office circumvented public procurement rules in granting contracts worth millions of euros to private firms.
Von der Leyen, now 60, is proud of her roots; of her wealthy cotton merchant ancestors in Bremen
However, none of this seems to have harmed the progress of a woman born into the ‘EU aristocracy’. The daughter of Ernst Albrecht, one of the original Eurocrats when the European Economic Community was formed in 1957, she was brought up in Brussels where she attended the famous European School.
It was an upbringing, rubbing shoulders with the middle-class children of other well-to-do Eurocrats, which led to her becoming a fervent enthusiast for European integration.
In 2011, von der Leyen called for a ‘United States of Europe’ — something which the ultra-federalist may well use her new role to bring to fruition.
She is, of course, fiercely anti-Brexit, describing events since the referendum as a ‘burst bubble of hollow promises… inflated by populists’ and last year saying that Brexit is a ‘loss for everyone’.
Von der Leyen, now 60, is proud of her roots; of her wealthy cotton merchant ancestors in Bremen, while her husband of 33 years, Heiko von der Leyen, a medical professor and CEO of a medical engineering firm, is a descendant of an even posher family of silk-weavers.
When Von der Leyen came to study at the London School of Economics in 1978, her family wealth was feared to put her at the risk of kidnap by the Red Army Faction — a German far-left terrorist group. She studied economics under the pseudonym ‘Rose Ladson’. Later, she switched to medicine, was awarded a doctorate in 1990, and practised as a gynaecologist — giving birth to seven children herself between 1987-1999. The family are Lutheran Evangelical Christians.
Her academic career, however, threatened to unwind in 2016 when she was accused of plagiarism in her doctoral thesis. After an investigation, Hanover Medical School decided that Von der Leyen was guilty only of a mistake, not intentional copying.
Just before Christmas in 2016, in the very room in the Palais de Justice in Paris where Marie- Antoinette was sentenced to be guillotined, Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, was found guilty of ‘negligence with public money’ over a multi-million Euro payout to a business tycoon.
Yet, unlike the French queen, Lagarde escaped with barely a slap on the wrist. The court waived a one-year prison sentence and a 15,000 euro fine, on the grounds of her ‘international reputation’ which, cynics might observe, is a rather rum approach to justice.
Lagarde was finance minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in 2007 when she approved a 404million euro payout (£363m) of taxpayers’ money to a controversial French businessman and friend of Sarkozy, Bernard Tapie.
It was a long-running case that revolved around the sale by Tapie of his majority share in sportswear company Adidas to a bank, Credit Lyonnais, part owned by the state.
Lagarde is famously outspoken on Brexit — claiming she can’t see ‘any positive side to it’
When the bank sold the shares at a higher price, Tapie accused it of defrauding him and the payment was in effect compensation awarded by a private arbitration panel.
Lagarde was convicted for failing to contest the panel’s ruling when there were solid grounds for doing so. She insisted that she had only ever done her duty and may have been misled by civil servants.
The verdict on the high profile case did nothing to dent Lagarde’s career. Within 24 hours, the IMF — Sarkozy had lobbied hard for her to get the job in 2011 — in Washington DC gave her their full backing.
And so she has continued on her trail-blazing way ever since — to her likely new appointment as President of the European Central Bank.
With her penchant for Chanel suits and Hermes scarves, Lagarde is known as the ‘rock star of finance’. But unusually for the putative head of a central bank she has no banking experience.
She herself has acknowledged her limitations in the field, saying in 2012: ‘I’ve studied a bit of economics, but I’m not a super-duper economist.’
Lagarde is famously outspoken on Brexit — claiming she can’t see ‘any positive side to it’ — and an ally of former Chancellor George Osborne and the Project Fear cadre. At a press conference in 2016 with Osborne, she warned Brexit would be ‘pretty bad, to very, very bad’.
Lagarde also chooses to ignore that the IMF’s predictions for the UK have been consistently wrong.
At 63, she exerts discipline over every aspect of her life — a teetotal vegetarian who works out every day, swims, and cycles up to 20 miles a week.
She has enjoyed an intriguing love life, married and divorced twice, with two sons in their 30s with her first husband. Her current partner is old love, Xavier Giocanti, a Corsican businessman she met at law school.
STEPHEN GLOVER: With grubby backdoor stitch-ups like this, thank God we’re going!
The process of extricating ourselves from the EU has turned out to be so prolonged and painful that it’s sometimes easy to forget our original reasons for wanting to leave.
I can’t be the only person who, having voted for Brexit, occasionally asks himself if it’s worth all the bitterness and division: the name-calling, ruined dinner parties and former friends scuttling by on the other side of the street.
It’s remarkable how the arguments about sovereignty and controlling our own borders and the undesirability of a European superstate have virtually disappeared amid squabbles over No Deal and a second referendum.
European leaders have been selecting the successors of Jean-Claude Juncker (left) and Donald Tusk, (right) who have loomed so large in our lives
So I have given thanks to the EU over recent days as European leaders have spent hours horse-trading behind closed doors. They have been selecting the successors of Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, who have loomed so large in our lives.
We have been reminded how fundamentally undemocratic and secretive the organisation is. People who will wield enormous power have been chosen without the voters of Europe getting a look-in.
Thank God we’re leaving! Thank God (unless intransigent Remainers finagle another referendum) we will soon no longer be part of a body that furtively picks our future rulers — for these people are far more than functionaries — without consulting the people.
This club is not for me. Nor do I believe that many Remainers watched the wrangling with any sense of pride. In a democratic age, it’s impossible to defend such practices. Let’s get out while we can, without ill will or venom.
Which is why the boorish behaviour of the 29 Brexit Party MEPs at the opening ceremony of the European Parliament in Strasbourg was so appalling. They turned their backs as the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode To Joy, was performed.
How rude and petty and spiteful they were. How shaming to this nation. They have been elected to the European Parliament and are cheerfully drawing salaries and expenses. Yet they behaved like uncouth members of a student debating society.
What must cultivated Europeans (and there are some in the European Parliament) think of the British political class, which used to have a reputation on the continent of being polite, well-mannered and tolerant?
The smaller Liberal Democrat contingent didn’t behave much better, sporting, on yellow T-shirts, the undemocratic slogan ‘B******s to Brexit’. This was a coarse and puerile gesture — and a little threatening.
Do MEPs of both parties speak for modern Britain? If so, the EU will be relieved to be rid of us. I feel ashamed, as I did when British football hooligans went on the rampage abroad. These oafs in Strasbourg are supposed to be our representatives.
My question to the Brexit Party, whose loutish behaviour was particularly mortifying, is this: why don’t you draw attention to the autocratic nature of the EU by employing reasoned argument, rather than cheap and demeaning tricks?
For the evidence is there, writ large. Cutting grubby deals in private, as European leaders have been doing, is not merely undemocratic. It leads to outcomes that are likely to be injurious to the citizens of the EU.
The whole process is a Franco-German stitch-up. Neither country necessarily gets the person it wants in every post, but each has to be happy with the final compromise. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, originally pushed the centre-Right German politician Manfred Weber for the crucial role of President of the European Commission in succession to Mr Juncker.
But President Emmanuel Macron of France didn’t like the look of Weber because of his political background. He preferred centre-Left Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister.
The boorish behaviour of the 29 Brexit Party MEPs at the opening ceremony of the European Parliament in Strasbourg was appalling, writes Stephen Glover
However, various Right-wing governments, such as those in Poland, Hungary and Italy rejected Timmermans, whereupon Macron championed Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Mrs Merkel’s centre-Right party and Germany’s defence minister.
After much haggling, she was chosen, despite having been embroiled in a controversy over the awarding of contracts (she was eventually exonerated). From November 1, she will occupy the most important position in the EU.
Is she the best person for the job? No one can say — though she wasn’t the favourite to follow Mrs Merkel when the Chancellor stands down in 2021. Not fit to lead Germany, apparently, but suitable to lead the EU.
What is clear is that no single European voter had a direct say in choosing Ms von der Leyen, though it is true the European Parliament will have to endorse her and some on the Left may vote against.
Oh, I should have said: Ms von der Leyen, like Jean-Claude Juncker, is a passionate advocate of a United States of Europe and a European army. Like her predecessor, she hates the idea of Brexit. Yesterday, she told a private audience EU negotiators had done a ‘noble job’.
What would have happened if Britain wasn’t leaving the EU? She would still become President of the Commission because she is the incarnation of the EU’s values — just like Juncker, whose coronation David Cameron humiliatingly opposed in vain in 2014.
Ursula von der Leyen is more of the same: an unelected (at least in Brussels) member of a European political elite that wants to extend the powers of the EU in relation to individual countries. That’s why I’m glad we’re leaving.
By the way, I don’t draw much comfort from the news that senior Eurocrat Martin Selmayr, who appears to dislike Britain, faces the axe later this year under a reshuffle. There are plenty more where he came from.
A second president was also chosen by EU leaders. Charles Michel will give up the job of Belgium’s interim Prime Minister to fill the shoes of Donald Tusk as President of the European Council, a role co-ordinating member states.
Michel is a close friend of Macron, which is cosy. He’s another arch-euro federalist who wants ‘ever closer union’, and will be no friend to Britain as it leaves his precious EU.
A third president was also crowned by European leaders: Christine Lagarde, who has run the International Monetary Fund since 2011, pocketing more than £3.6 million tax-free in the process, will become President of the European Central Bank.
This is a bizarre appointment. For one thing, she has been convicted of criminal negligence over a French corruption scandal, though I doubt this was of much concern to the panjandrums who selected her.
For another, she is a politician, rather than an economist, and not obviously suited to the role of central banker. She was a lynchpin in Project Fear before the June 2016 referendum and prophesied a hitherto-unrealised economic catastrophe for the UK.
As Britain has not adopted the euro, maybe Ms Lagarde’s future role is not our business. On the other hand, it isn’t in anybody’s interests for the eurozone to flounder.
These three freshly minted presidents will wield enormous sway over the peoples of Europe. They will try to strengthen the powers of Brussels, though they are certain to be resisted by populist governments in Hungary, Italy and Poland.
No one can say how the experiment of further European integration will end. Looking at its latest manifestation, I can only say that I am more glad than ever that Britain will not be part of it.
