The leadership crisis goes on

The election of the new Commission President von der Leyen has not ended the leadership crisis in the EU. This is even evident in the IMF – the dispute over the succession of Christine Lagarde has revealed new cracks.

This time not only France’s Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel stood against each other. No, the European Social Democrats also played an inglorious role.

Just like Merkel, the comrades supported the former Eurogroup leader Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The Dutchman is a social democrat – at least on paper.

In truth, he is a neoliberal austerity politician, as his actions in Cyprus and Greece have shown. Dijsselbloem proved to be an educated pupil of EX Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

Before critical decisions were made, he even flew to Berlin to seek advice from the Federal Ministry of Finance Schäuble. In truth, he accepted instructions to put the Greek left-wing government around Alexis Tsipras in their place.

Even then, leading German Social Democrats – including a certain Sigmar Gabriel – were in favour of a tough line against the Greek “communists”. Even today the comrades stand behind Dijsselbloem.

But the Schäuble clone did not prevail. For just as in the big debt dispute of 2015, France also resisted Dijsselbloem this time – and pushed Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva through.

In the internal EU vote, Georgieva received the support of 56 percent of the countries representing 57 percent of the EU population. It thus missed the qualified majority.

The close race highlighted the division between the southern and northern EU states in particular. The southern EU states wanted to prevent Dijsselbloem because he was a proponent of strict austerity.

History shows that the wounds of 2015 have not yet healed – and that the dispute over leadership in the EU continues. Macron has once again prevailed against Merkel.

The Frenchman has already hoisted three women of his trust – Von der Leyen, Lagarde and Georgieva – to leading positions in Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington.

Merkel’s record, on the other hand, looks bad. In Berlin, one consoles oneself by pointing out that the EU is becoming more and more feminine…

P.S. Georgieva, by the way, has not yet been elected. She could still fail at the age limit of the IMF – or at the British, who have reserved the right to send her own candidate into the race. The crisis continues…

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator