Michael von der Schulenburg on German Domination of the EU

In a highly interesting interview with Glenn Diesen on EU belligerency toward Russia, the German member of the European Parliament Michael von der Schulenburg makes the following observations:

The whole EU is now governed by Germans. I mean von der Leyen, all her advisors around her are German…Mr. [Manfred] Weber heads the largest political group in parliament. German. Mr. [David] McAllister, despite his name is also a German, heads the foreign relations committee. Another German – extreme, radical German – Mrs. [Marie-Agnes] Strack-Zimmermann heads the security council [i.e. the EU parliament Committee on Security and Defence]. In this time of war, these are the most important positions, all held by Germans.

Von der Schulenburg worries that such German domination, particularly in combination with German rearmament, will spark some troubling historical memories for other Europeans. “I can’t imagine this going well,” he says. Well, perhaps he is overestimating the historical consciousness of contemporary Europeans – or maybe they will never know or only find out when it is already too late.

The German domination that he observes is, of course, also apparent to others in the European parliament and the EU institutions more generally. By now, it is simply taken for granted. It is treated as being entirely “normal” – which means that other Europeans in the institutions treat their own subservience as normal too.

So, no one talks about this German domination. No one dares to do so: certainly not publicly. As a consequence, hardly anyone even knows about it outside the Brussels bubble. What goes on in Brussels stays in Brussels.

Only precisely a German dares to mention it, dares to see it – and only a German of a certain age, I might add. Michael von der Schulenburg is 76. I doubt that even 50- or 60-year-old German “youngsters” in the institutions would dare to sully the nest – per the German expression Nestbeschmutzer (literally, “nest-soiler”) – or spoil the party. I have not, for instance, heard any of the AfD eurodeputies making the same observation. But who knows… (For those wondering, von der Schulenburg was a candidate of the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.)

I’m afraid that von der Schulenburg is overly optimistic about there being any push-back from other Europeans to the war plans of his powerful compatriots.

But, anyhow, Hut ab! to Michael von der Schulenburg. My hat is off to him. The full interview is below. The remarks on German domination start around the 23:30 mark.