Things do not run so good for Commission President elect Ursula von der Leyen, as even the conservative Springer media (such as politico) strongly criticize her performance (and, as usual, also Macron):
https://www.politico.eu/
https://www.politico.eu/
All that told, J.C. Juncker is now the intelligent old ‘fox’ according to these pundits, playing the Brexit ball back to the UK Parliament. (And at least this analysis is quite realistic in my personal view …).
UvL will be weak, and she will depend very much on whether a new Franco-German Alliance within the EU can be built. On EU military, fortress Europe etc. there is broad consensus. On other things (even perhaps minor ones such as Western Balkans enlargement) not:
EU’s Balkan breakdown reveals split among leaders
In the mean time we had also the ERT-Toulouse meeting, and in my view it is about the same stuff (currently mainly propaganda and wishful thinking from the rich EU member states’ elites) about making the EU into some global player (not only economically, but also geo-political, geo-strategic, miltarily and the like). Just as the ‘influencers’ such as Bruegel think tank and others advise the ‘new incoming Commission’.
However, in real life the interests of e.g. the German and the French elites are quite diverging. What they regard as their respective backyards (southern EU and the ‘Mediterranean’ for France; Eastern Europe and further ‘East’ , but also the North of Italy for Germany) – those respecitve peripheral governments are sceptical (to say the least). It remains to be seen whether the ‘Franco-German couple’ will be able to overcome its differences, find compromises, and re-erect some common leadership on the EU scale. Currently, I do not see this coming …
Anyhow, have a good read, and think about further crises (not only for the EU) to come …
