They call it ‘horse-trading’, but… why is only the EPP benefitting from the deal?

I have to admit that I never got around to reading the full text of the EU’s ‘Acquis Communautaire’ – perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it currently runs into around 110,000 pages (with 5,000 new ones being added every year) – but still: I’m fairly convinced that there is no single line, anywhere in that document, which states that:

“… The Conservatives shall inherit the entire European Union: lock, stock, and two smokin’ barrels! And meanwhile, all other political parties on the European spectrum – including not just the Socialists, but also the Greens, the Liberals, etc. – will have to just content themselves with the mere scraps, that sometimes fall from the EPP’s (heavily overladen) table…”

Now: I stand to be corrected, of course… but I’m pretty certain that none of that is actually specified, in so many words, by any of the EU Treaties. And let’s face it: that’s probably just as well, too… because which country, in its (ahem!) ‘right’ mind, would even want to be permanently governed by the same old political party; representing the same-old ‘conservative policies’… year, after year, after year?

Leaving aside that even the conservatives themselves would eventually get sick of it (I mean: just look at what happened to the Nationalists, after 25 years of uninterrupted rule… and what seems to happening to Labour today: after only one measly little decade!)

But it would also defeat the whole point of the EU, wouldn’t it? (Assuming, of course, that its purpose still includes ‘acting as a safeguard against ‘TYRANNY’ and ‘DICTATORSHIP’.)

And yet, and yet… this is precisely what seems to be happening in the EU, today. It appears as though the European People’s Party has somehow managed to wangle itself a total monopoly over ALL that institution’s major power-nodes – including, naturally, the European Commission (which wields by far the most legislative/executive power); and also, the (less powerful, but hugely influential) European Parliament…

… while the European Socialists, the European Liberals, and (especially) the European Greens, are simply nowhere to be seen at all, anywhere on Europe’s entire political ‘power-grid’.

And what’s more: all this seems to be happening, with the express CONSENT of all those other political parties (you know: the ones which are being manifestly ‘short-changed’, in the same transaction).

In other words: it’s not as though the EPP has simply ‘beaten all other parties’ to those positions, fair-and-square, in a democratic contest… it’s just that the European Socialists, European Liberals, and European Greens are only too happy (or ‘lazy’, if you prefer) to just sit back, and allow Europe’s Conservative forces to simply impose their own stamp, on the EU’s entire policy/legislation platform… UNCONTESTED!

Erm… much as I hate to drag in football, as a lazy way to concoct an instant analogy [note: I’m usually the first to ‘cry foul’, when others do exactly that]: it reminds me of that old saying about the off-side rule, attributed to some commentator or other back in the 1970s:

“If a player is not ‘interfering with play’… what the heck is he even doing on the pitch?”

But meanwhile – because I’ve run ahead of myself slightly, here – this is how the same situation was described (in more ‘deadpan’ tone) by my colleague Matthew Vella, in an article entitled: ‘Brussels horse-trading: Metsola could net second presidency’.

“[Metsola] is being lined up for a second term at the helm of the European Parliament. In the game of political horse-trading for the top positions in Europe, little might change for Metsola or Commission president Ursula von der Leyen…”

“[…] The future power line-up in Brussels, typically shared between the major political blocs, is a whispered secret: Portugal’s socialist prime minister Antonio Costa […]  is tapped to be the next president of the European Council; the foreign affairs post of External Representative would move into the hands of [the European liberals…]; and for the EPP, no change at the top – Ursula von der Leyen and Metsola get reconfirmed for second mandates.” 

Got that, folks? ‘No change at the top’. That is to say: both Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and EP President Roberta Metsola, will get to simply retain their current positions… not, of course, on the strength of their own outstanding achievements, in those particular roles (Let’s not forget that the latest Eurobarometer survey actually revealed that ‘trust in the EU’s direction’ has plummeted by a staggering 65%, since those two took over…)

… but merely for lack of any actual ‘challenge’, coming from any other political party, anywhere in Europe today!

Meanwhile, of course, the European Socialists are content to sign off on a manifestly ‘rotten’ deal, for their own party – and which would, incidentally, also condemn the EU to another five years of ‘lurching headlong towards the Right’ (like it’s already doing, even as we speak)…

… presumably, because it means that a European Socialist (Antonio Costa) will get to preside over the Council of Europe, to replace the outgoing Charles Michel.

And OK: I’ll admit that – on paper, at least – ‘President of the Council of Europe’ does sound like a rather grand title to be landed with, as the result of any self-respecting ‘back-room deal’…

But there are two small problems, with this measly little scrap that just fell (once again) from the EPP’s table.

One: the Council of Europe is - as the name itself suggests -defined as a ‘consultative’ member, within a triumvirate that also includes the EPP-led Commission, and the EPP-led European Parliament…

… and as such, it can only ‘advise’ the Commission on policy-direction (leaving both the Commission, and Parliament, free to simply disregard its counsels at will).

And two: judging by the roaring ‘success’ that Charles Michel actually made of his Presidency of that Council, over the past few years… well, it’s a bit like that ‘offside analogy’, again.

Only this time, the saying goes: “If a ‘Liberal’ Council President is not even going to lift the tiniest of his little fingers, to give the EU a slightly more ‘Liberal;’ direction than the one it’s taking now… then, a) how the heck can he still call himself a ‘Liberal’, and; b) what the heck is he even doing, anywhere in European politics at all’?    

Simply put: Charles Michel started out his Presidency by promising us a more ‘humane’ (and less overtly ‘right-wing’) direction for the EU…

… and last week, he ended up parroting Italy’s Right-Wing Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni – who, by the way, seems to be single-handedly dictating the terms of Europe’s new ‘Migration and Asylum Pact’ - in her calls to ‘criminalise rescue NGOs in the Mediterranean’.

In between all that, the same ‘Liberal’ Council President somehow managed to say absolutely nothing at all: as thousands of Armenian refugees were violently ousted from their homes, through Azerbaijan’s unauthorised use of military force. (Why the silence, I wonder? After all, it was Ursula von der Leyen – not Charles Michel – who described Aliyev as ‘the EU’s most trusted dictator’…)

… and he’s maintaining that same wall of eerie silence, even now: as Giorgia Meloni’s latest crack-down – in a series of increasingly ugly acts of ‘proto-Fascist’ thuggery – targets what can only be described as Italy’s smallest, and arguably most vulnerable, minority: ‘lesbian single-mothers’.

And as far as I can see, this forces us all towards two (equally bleak) conclusions, with regard to the political direction the EU, as a whole, is currently taking.

It’s either that all other political parties - except for the EPP - have actually just ‘given up’ on the idea that they are supposed to provide OPPOSITION, to the current status quo (so instead of trying to shape the EU’s political direction, themselves; they are merely trying to land themselves even ‘cushier’ EU-jobs, than the ones they already have);

Or else – even more disconcertingly, if you ask me - those other parties are no longer interested in contesting the EPP’s ‘corporate take-over’ of the EU, because… well, they’ve become ‘conservative’ themselves; and as such, they now agree with a policy direction they once described – just a few short years ago – as ‘inhumane’...

Either way, however, it doesn’t really make all that much difference, in the end. For the ultimate question remains: why bother voting for any of them at all, in next year’s EP elections… if we’re all going to end up being ‘governed by the European People’s Party’ – by default – no matter what happens?