Italy's Meloni slams 'surreal' backroom deals for EU jobs

RT
Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:19 UTC

© Simona Granati/Getty Images

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The Italian PM has slammed the backroom deals giving Ursula von der Leyen a second term as president of the European Commission

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has hit out at backroom deals being struck to fill top positions in the EU's institutions, saying it was "surreal" that voters' opinions were being ignored.

Citizens across the bloc shifted significantly away from the left in the European Parliament elections earlier this month, with ruling coalitions in Germany and France being comprehensively trounced by right-wing parties.

However, the three main political groups in the parliament, which are largely centrist, reportedly agreed a deal to fill the top EU posts on Tuesday. The arrangement would see Germany's Ursula von der Leyen returned as president of the European Commission for a second term.

Addressing the Italian parliament on Wednesday, Meloni said it was "surreal" that names for top EU positions had been presented "without even pretending to discuss the signals from voters." Under the reported deal, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas will become the new EU foreign policy chief, replacing Spain's Josep Borrell; while former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa will preside over the European Council, which was previously chaired by Belgium's Charles Michel.

The names will be presented at an EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday for their approval.

Media reports suggested that Italy had effectively been excluded from discussions regarding the agreement, which was approved by the leaders of France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Greece, and the Netherlands.

The Italian prime minister claimed that this kind of backroom deal contradicted the original spirit of the European Union, by which institutions "were conceived as neutral entities, thus able to guarantee all member states, regardless of the political color of the governments of those member states."

Meloni, whose European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group won the most votes in Italy and is currently the third-biggest in the European Parliament, said she wanted the shift to the right to be reflected in the bloc's decision-making.

"The third [largest] group today is a group that is not liked by those who are deciding," she said, calling the EU an "invasive bureaucratic giant."

Meanwhile, the appointment of von der Leyen will still need to be approved by the European Parliament and, according to media, she might seek to win Meloni's support by giving Italy a senior portfolio in the next European Commission.

Comment: Georgia Meloni is not the only malcontent: Brussels ignoring will of voters - Orban (Jun 2024)

1) An underlying theme behind the squabble about who from which country gets what position in the EU is the influence of the US:

• Austerity in the EU: How European bureaucrats serve America's economic interests (Apr 2024)
• Here's why NATO warmongers are hyping up Russia's imaginary attack plans Apr 2024)
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I'll give you a great example of this in 2019 at meeting of the German Marshall Fund, which is an institution that goes back to the US basically, I don't want to say bribe, but essentially the soft power economic soft power projection in Europe as part of the reconstruction of European governments after World War ii, to be able to essentially pay them with Marshall Fund dollars and then in return, they basically were under our thumb in terms of how they reconstructed.

In 2014, these State Department diplomats did an international roadshow to pressure European governments to pass censorship laws to censor the right-wing populous groups in Europe and as a boomerang impact to censor populace groups who were affiliated in the us.

Now, the Atlantic Council has seven CIA directors on its board. A lot of people don't even know that seven CIA directors are still alive, let alone all concentrated on the board of a single organization that's kind of the heavyweight in the censorship industry. They get annual funding from the Department of Defense, the State Department, and CIA cutouts like the National Endowment for Democracy.

The Atlantic Council in January, 2017 moved immediately to pressure European governments to pass censorship laws to create a transatlantic flank tank on free speech in exactly the way that Rick Stengel essentially called for to have us mimic European censorship laws.

• The war in Ukraine to maintain the European Union under tutelage (Apr 2023)
• The United States declares war on Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and France (Oct 2022)

It is difficult to admit, but the Anglo-Saxons do not hide from it. To paraphrase a famous quote from the first Secretary General of the Alliance, NATO was designed to "keep Russia out, the Americans in and the European Union under trusteeship".

• The European Union: Made in the USA! (2016)
• Is Europe doomed by the EU's vassalage to Washington? (2016)
• The fate of modern nations: Accept American hegemony or prepare for war (2016)
• The Nazi origins of the European Union (2016)
• WikiLeaks releases classified CIA agents tips on infiltrating EU, Schengen (2014)
• To avoid losing control of Europe, the U.S. has a war plan for Europe and Russia (2014)
• Report on CIA rendition reveals massive scale of European assistance (2013)

2) Ursula von der Leyen
The great Brussels stitch-up: Over dinner last night, von der Leyen was crowned again (Jun 2024)

For now, Germany and France haven't formally endorsed her, but everything indicates Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron — faced with record-low domestic support and massive gains by the AfD and the National Rally — are betting on a second von der Leyen term as a way of securing an "anti-populist" ally in Brussels. "We will build a bastion together with others against the extremes of the Left and Right," von der Leyen stated after the elections — something which Scholz and Macron are desperately in need of.

This is arguably why Scholz has said that "there is every indication that Ursula von der Leyen will be able to serve a second term", and why even Macron, who had previously flirted with replacing her with the former Italian prime minister and president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi, would appear to have fallen in line. "I think that things can move quite quickly," he coyly remarked before last night's summit.

The new-old European Commission president has a long list of achievements:

• In the crosshairs: European Commission president accused of complicity in Israel's war crimes at ICC (May 2024)
• Von der Leyen proposes 'vaccines' for minds and a 'shield' for democracy (May 2024)
• A tale of two sovereigns, a lackey and a nanny (May 2024)
• The goddess of the WEF (Jan 2024):

Tell me: is there a fairer grandmotherly face than this in all of Western Civ? Does it not seem to radiate eons of aggregate wisdom, maternal kindness, bountiful nurture, caring, and healing, and even a hint of fun in the nursery. . . the rectified essence of Teutonic beauty, fertility, vitality, and virtue. . . the loving smile of the life-giver caressing humanity like a spring zephyr wafting through the piney Schwarzwald on a June morning?

That is exactly why Ursula von der Leyen was (s)elected President of the European Commission, and why she was sent out to front the World Economic Forum (WEF) this week in her keynote speech to the assembled global grandees of Davos in the dead chill of January. It's one thing when a cadaverous goblin such as Yuval Noah Harari tells you to eat bugs, and quite another thing when Oma Ursula tells you Keine Sorge, Kinder. Alles ist gut.

Ursula did offer us children-of-the-world one wee note of caution, though, as every good "grammy" might give to the global kindergarten: watch out for misinformation and disinformation on the internet! Like the evil imps of the Germanic Märchen, these wicked forces lurk and propagate on the internet — waiting to dash all of the WEF's benevolent plans for our utopian future. That's why, she explained, the European Commission has drawn up the Digital Services Act — because misinfo and disinfo can fluoresce into hate speech, the most dangerous thing in the world. It must be stomped out! Ground into the dirt under a boot heel!

• EU President calls for Globalist control over all information (Jan 2024)
• 'EU must double-down on its support for Ukraine' says von der Leyen, pushes for a further €50 billion for Kiev, stamps illegal migrant sharing pact (Jul 2023)
• Pfizergate: Ursula von der Leyen's shady Covid vaccine deals prove she can get away with anything (Apr 2024)
• Von der Leyen's ridiculous EU commissionser roles are exactly why people hate Brussels bureaucracy (Sep 2019)
• EU watchdog accuses Ursula von der Leyen of 'maladministration'; hand over secret texts sent to Pfizer's CEO to buy 1.8B Covid jabs (Jan 2022)
• EU to prioritize GLOBAL vaccination, von der Leyen says in State of EU address (Sep 2021)

3) Estonian PM, Kaja Kallas, the new EU foreign policy chief

Under the reported deal, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas will become the new EU foreign policy chief, replacing Spain's Josep Borrell

The choice of Kaja Kallas to this post is the second best for her after being ditched as Secretary General of NATO, although in 2022, there was:

• NYT: Estonia's Kaja Kallas a strong contender to be the next NATO chief (Nov 2022)
Kallas is likely to be more ballistic in her statements than her predecessor:
• NATO state's PM calls for breakup of Russia (May 2024)
• NATO countries already training troops in Ukraine - Estonian PM (May 2024)
• Zakharova refutes Estonian collaborators (Mar 2024)
• Best of the Web: Napoleonic folly: Macron stands by remarks on NATO troops in Ukraine (Feb 2024)

"We shouldn't be afraid of our own power. Russia is saying this or that step is escalation, but defense is not escalation," the Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas told Sky on Wednesday. "I'm saying we should have all options on the table. What more can we do in order to really help Ukraine win?"

• Russia issues arrest warrant for EU state's PM (Feb 2024)
• Estonia becomes first ex-soviet state to legalize gay marriage (Jan 2024)
• Hungary's FM slams Estonia's PM as 'hypocritical' after criticism of handshake with Putin (Oct 2023)
• PM of Estonia's husband co-owns firm still trading in Russia, despite PM's staunch support for EU's sanctions (Aug 2023)
• 'Give war a chance' - A 'war that even pacifists can get behind' (Jun 2023)

Lily Lynch, a Belgrade-based writer, argues that,

"...especially in the past 12 months, telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, have increasingly served as the spokespersons of enlightened militarism in Europe ... "