Ursula, the lame leg | Opinion

Is Ursula von der Leyen still credible? On Monday it caused an earthquake. He proclaimed that The “rules-based” international system is amortized. And since “we can no longer trust him as the only way to defend our interests… we must seek creative ways to address crises.”

On Tuesday, the president of the European Council, António Costa, disavowed it: “We Europeans must defend the rules-based international order”, the “principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations” and “international law”. On Wednesday, she copied that phrase before the European Parliament, adding his “unwavering commitment” in this regard. But he did not explicitly retract the initial text. It overlapped both. He annulled the first in part, since one thing and the opposite are not sustainable. But he left alive his proposal to search creative ways alternatives because action subject to law cannot be the only way to defend Europe.

That thesis validates and promotes illegal actions. Even more so when he previously applied the adjective “innovative” and “creative formula” to the gulag for migrants of Giorgia Meloni in Albania. Or, in Monday’s sermon, he rejoiced at the assassination of the despotic ayatollah, no matter how “celebrated”, a feeling that can never be elevated to a legal-political category.

Legality does not allow black holes. Not in the European Union, which is, above all and before a market and policies that are debatable and reformable, a democratic legal construction, a “community of law.” Which has maximum and unavoidable constitutional rank in the first articles of the EU Treaty (2, 3 and 7): democracy, equality, rule of law, human rights, international law.

Community law prevails over those of the Member States, according to the principles of primacy and direct effect, enshrined in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. So abiding by it is not a minor issue, but an existential one. Without the primacy of the federal level, reviled by the ultras, the mortar of the union would break: the Union itself.

Von der Leyen’s proclamationnot yet remedied, is all the more lethal because she presides over the Commission: the executive institution, and also the pre-legislator with maximum prominence. Exercises, according to the classic expression, Guardian of the Treaties. The one that complies with them and tries to enforce them by others even with sanctions; the one that “watches” and “supervises” its application. And, except in foreign and security policy (just the garden in which it crookedly meddled), it “assumes” the representation of the EU (article 7). Key: as a general rule, it has a monopoly on legislative initiative. The rules (the bases of which he now questions!) “can only be adopted on a proposal from the Commission.”

Until she rectifies accordingly, Von der Leyen is, politically and institutionally, lame.