For Europe’s Survival, von der Leyen Must Indeed Go

To be honest, I was horrified when she was reelected for a second term last year. She is on a crusade to destroy Europe, and she must be stopped!

From The European Conservative

By Rafael Pinto Borges

Under her watch, Brussels ceased to be a boring, technocratic steward of the common market and has become a missionary empire—zealous, punitive, and utterly disconnected from reality.

This week, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is facing not one but two motions of censure. They are a fair verdict on a catastrophic five years—and on the failed Europe that Ursula von der Leyen created. Back in 2019, when von der Leyen took over the Commission, she proudly—if ludicriously—touted her coming regime as a “geopolitical Commission.” What she leaves behind is a broken, deindustrialised, and divided continent, irrelevant on the world stage, humiliated and impoverished, and utterly reliant on powers outside its boundaries. 

It has been a long time since the continent saw more spectacularly inept leadership. Of course, it would be unfair to blame the EU’s rot on von der Leyen alone—the gargantuan Brussels machine has long been decaying. The Union never quite recovered from the grave mistake that was the introduction of the single currency, the euro, in 2002. The financial crisis of six years later exposed the wounds opened by that madness in brutal fashion. The EU fell behind the United States in economic output in 2012. Its average government debt had risen sharply from 60% to 84% of overall GDP in the same period. It cannot be denied that vdL inherited a wounded empire.

Yet, whereas von der Leyen had imagined herself leading a mighty continental comeback—one that might sustain her neo-Napoleonic aspirations of a “geopolitical Commission” —she has, instead, been the great accelerator of European putrefaction. Five years into her reign, the EU is trapped in a lost proxy war in Ukraine—one pursued and escalated by von der Leyen with pathological determination. People often think that the last few decades of globalisation saw the relative fall from grace of “the West”. But it’s actually Europe that has been sinking. In the ‘90s, both the EU and the U.S. accounted for about 25% of global GDP, and the U.S. has largely risen back to those levels. Europe has imploded to just 15%. With von der Leyen, the meltdown has become exponential.

The energy wreck

The Commission President sacrificed European prosperity on two altars: one, the chimaera of hyper-greenism; the other, the Ukrainian misadventure. The Commission vowed to build a “green and secure” Europe. Instead, the fixation on cutting energy ties with Moscow—mandated as a sacrosanct moral duty—and von der Leyen’s other obsession with sound-good green policies have led the continent to face spiralling energy prices and an industrial exodus with few parallels in European history. It was self-sabotage. Europe replaced reliable supplies of Russian gas with much pricier American LNG and volatile renewables that are unable to serve industry needs.

The price has not just been unpleasant but historical in its impact. Eurostat records a close to 6% reduction in manufacturing since 2021. In Europe’s motor, Germany, production has fallen by around 12%. The former giant BASF now invests in China; carmakers lay off staff; aluminium and glassworks shut down under energy prices double those of America and triple China’s. Whereas Washington reindustrialises, von der Leyen drowns Europe’s industry in carbon levies, red tape, and geopolitical adventurism. 

Borders without sovereignty

The same myopia governs immigration. Nearly 380,000 illegal crossings were made in 2023—the highest since 2016. The absurd ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ has done nothing to stop the onslaught. It replaced realism with ritual: quotas, relocation schemes, and sermonising lectures—when not sanctions and threats—to those sane enough to resist. 

All credible polls confirm what citizens feel: Europe’s elites are deaf even as its borders are under attack. Instead of bolstering security, the Commission has tried to scold governments guarding it. Hungary and then-conservative-led Poland were criticised for ‘undermining European values’ when they were, in fact, the ones defending them. 

A war without strategy

Even von der Leyen’s greatest obsession—the Russo-Ukrainian War—has slipped into an era-defining embarrassment. Granted, Europe was initially united when Russian tanks started rolling into Ukrainian territory. Sanctions were enacted, hundreds of billions in support provided, and solidarity proclaimed. The Brussels machine was anything but shy about bullying the doubters, as Hungary and others can confirm. 

It was, however, always obvious to anybody with a sense of history and geopolitical reality that no amount of EU aid could ever tilt the balance to the point at which tiny Ukraine would beat the world’s largest nuclear power. At best, Brussels could delay the inevitable at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives, a geostrategically catastrophic policy of making an enemy of resource-rich Russia, a permanently wrecked Ukraine, and an impoverished and deindustrialised continent. 

That is exactly what von der Leyen managed to achieve—and this will be her legacy. By 2025, Ukraine is hanging on with no hope of retaking lost land; the deal it was offered by the Russians back in 2022—neutrality, smaller armed forces, and the loss of two rather than the current four occupied oblasts—looks like a pipe dream. Von der Leyen played a crucial role in fooling the Ukrainians with the fantasy of victory—EU manipulation and promises of never-ending support bred the Ukrainians with a sense of self-confidence that ultimately led them to take self-destructive decisions time and again. History will not remember von der Leyen as a friend to Ukraine—rather, she has earned her place as a leading architect of the Ukrainian catastrophe.

A house built on sand

On the economy, the figures do the talking. The euro zone’s real wages have plateaued since 2020. French government debt is now over 115% of GDP. Germany has just experienced its second downturn in three years. Both countries are facing political upheaval unseen since WWII. 

Europe’s crisis is not economic but spiritual. It has forgotten that success is not the product of flashy slogans, but of quiet statesmanship.

Von der Leyen is not the sole culprit of this decline, but she has been its icon and guardian. Under her watch, Brussels ceased to be a boring, technocratic steward of the common market and has become a missionary empire—zealous, punitive, and utterly disconnected from reality.

Renewal or ruin

Our Europe does not need a messiah; it needs competence. It needs leaders who understand sovereignty and cooperation are not adversaries but pillars of peace. The future Commission must stop playing politics of moral narcissism and return to the politics of common sense. 

Energy security must precede ideology. Borders must be secured before they are shared. Diplomacy must serve European citizens, not the fantasies of bureaucrats.

If the Union cannot uncover these truths, states will come to act in its absence. The motions of censure before the European Parliament are, therefore, more than political theatre. They are a much-needed moment of accountability. Europe’s survival demands nothing less than a fresh start—and leadership able to see reality when they look at it.