Von der Leyen and the death of Europe | Opinion

Europe today hears a phrase that is intended to be realistic: “The EU can no longer be the guardian of the old world order.” Ursula von der Leyen said it, arrogating to themselves powers that are not theirs and leadership that they are very far from being able to exercise. He said it as a statement, like someone reading the weather report. The metaphors of inevitability, frequent in political rhetoric, have their precise function: to dissolve one’s own responsibility in the climate of History. The world order is changing, yes, but what is disturbing is the calmness with which we accept that certain ethical and normative lines, until yesterday considered fundamental, become practical obstacles. Evil, in politics, rarely presents itself with the mask of the villain. Much more often it takes the form of a cautious conclusion. The difference between Trump and Von der Leyen It is not only the content of their positions, but the moral aesthetics with which they narrate their necessity: Trump exhibits rupture as a will; Von der Leyen presents it as reality.

The realpolitik It functions as a rhetorical device that makes almost any action justifiable through appeal to necessity. The argument is always the same: in exceptional circumstances, ordinary principles do not apply, responsibility requires realism and those who do not accept it are relegated to the role of naïve. Von der Leyen has not said “let’s abandon international law because it is bad”, but rather something much more effective: “circumstances force us to be realistic.” It is the most classic – and most dangerous – form of anticipatory surrender: a political election is masked as a simple surrender to the facts. It is a logic without any internal brake. Once it is accepted that necessity suspends norms, there is no longer a clear point to stop: it is a slope.

The danger is in the politician who stops realizing that his hands are dirty. Von der Leyen did not say “I know this has an enormous cost, but circumstances force me.” At least he would have been honest. He said something worse: there is no cost, it is pragmatism. But when abandoning principles is not a dramatic exception and It is presented as mere common sense, the damage no longer needs to be justified because it becomes invisible. In one of the most revealing moments of the speech, Von der Leyen asked not to debate whether the war in Iran is “chosen or necessary” because we would miss “the essential point.” Seventy years of international law They would say exactly the opposite: that’s the only point. Distinguishing between a chosen war and a necessary war is not a philosophical debate: it is the difference between aggression and self-defense, between a crime and a response. Discarding it is not pragmatism. That is to say, legality is irrelevant when the ends are convenient.

What is presented to us as realism is, in reality, the loss of political judgment: the ability to see the facts without surrendering to them, to understand the world without confusing it with the only possible world. We need leaders who keep alive the tension between the world that exists and the world that must exist. Because that tension is not naivety. It is politics itself. Trump destroys the international order from outside, with will and as an act of force. But for the collapse to be complete, the agents who should defend that order need to abandon it before the attack arrives. Von der Leyen has provided exactly that this week. Not even because of conscious complicity, but because of something deeper and more difficult to combat: assuming that the only possible policy is one that accepts the adversary’s conditions. Europe does not die directly from the push of its enemies. She does it because of the incompetence of those who believe they are saving her.