48 Time June 20/June 27, 2022
part in democracies, and the wonderful
part of it, because you always look for
solutions that are good for many.”
All that talk of democracy doesn’t sit
well with some. “The E.U. is a profoundly
undemocratic community of democra-
cies,” argues Hans Kundnani, director
of the Europe program at London- based
think tank Chatham House. The union’s
executives are appointed by govern-
ments, not put in office by the votes of
citizens; its institutional proceedings—
including its court—are shrouded in se-
crecy; and its rules are astonishingly
bureaucratic. (The acquis communau-
taire, the “rule book” of the E.U., runs to
90,000 pages.) Voters across the conti-
nent are profoundly disengaged as a re-
sult. Turnout at European elections fell
steadily for the past four decades before
rebounding in 2019 to its highest lev-
els since 1994—a still low 50.7%. One
in 3 European voters now backs parties
that are critical of, or outrightly hostile
to, the E.U., a doubling in the past two
decades. Crisis mode has become some-
thing of a default for the bloc, which has
struggled to stay united in the face of a
debt crisis at the turn of the decade, an
influx of refugees, the shock of Britain’s
vote to leave, and the pandemic.
Von der Leyen believes the answer to
all this is ever closer integration, wheel-
ing out a metaphor popular in Brussels:
“The E.U. is like a bicycle. If it stands
still, it will fall.” If integration stops, the
argument goes, the European project
itself will collapse. She points out that
Britain’s departure from the bloc hasn’t
spurred other countries to do the same
and that public opinion of the E.U. has
grown warmer in recent years. As she
sees it, the future of the union depends
on Ukraine. “The Ukrainians, in an in-
credibly brave way, are fighting for our
values and democratic principles,” she
says. “We’re never perfect in democra-
cies, but to have principles—the pro-
tection of minorities, the dignity of the
human being, freedom of the press—is
beautiful.”
Exactly what makes those values Eu-
ropean, as opposed to ones embraced
by all kinds of liberal democracies, is
murky. In 2019, von der Leyen provoked
outrage when she proposed a new E.U.
role—“vice president for protecting our
European way of life”—for the position
overseeing migration policy. The
language was criticized for echoing xe-
nophobic tropes that view refugees from
nonwhite, non-Christian countries as a
threat to European identity. (The posi-
tion now uses the word promoting rather
than protecting.) Kundnani believes that
what has really come to define the E.U.
in the past decade is not a common set
of values but a shared perception of ex-
ternal threats—from refugees to Trump
to Russia—and that von der Leyen has
framed those threats in explicitly “civi-
lizational terms.”
Others say von der Leyen’s tenure
has been defined more by her prag-
matism than by a focus on European
identity. Analyst Dennison cites Brus-
sels’ warmer approach to Poland since
the war began, despite its violation of
judicial independence, as an exam-ple of how von der Leyen is simply
trying to secure the necessary votes to
push through deals. “She has been part
of ensuring that these very complex
structures have been able to gear up
during a series of quite unprecedented
crises,” Dennison says, “but I don’t
think she can ever be the figurehead
for a rebirth of European democracy.”
A rebirth of European democracy
doesn’t seem imminent. Every day is
a new test for the union. Faced with
the biggest movement of people on
the continent since the Second World
War, countries are struggling to pro-
vide homes and jobs for the 6.9 million
mostly women and children who have
fled Ukraine. Sanctions are starting to
bite, energy costs and food prices are
soaring, and inflation in the euro area
is hitting its highest level since the cur-
rency was created in 1999. AlreadyBrussels has had to effectively exempt
Hungary—whose right-wing, Putin-
friendly leader, Viktor Orban, just won
a fourth term—from its plan to embargo
Russian oil.
Even so, von der Leyen is reassured
that the priorities she set at the start of
her term—digitalization, economic re-
silience, and climate action—are still
urgent today. This is especially true of
the European Green Deal, the strategy
she launched that led to all 27 member
states committing in 2020 to making the
E.U. a net-zero emitter by 2050. “The
whole world, including the E.U., should
have acted yesterday,” she says. “But we
are a world leader.” In July 2021, the E.U.
adopted proposals to ensure that the
bloc’s policies set it on the path to re-
duce emissions by at least 55% by 2030,
compared with 1990 levels.
Von der Leyen says the conflict in
Ukraine has pushed politicians who are
usually lukewarm on climate action to
act fast. “One thing is for sure: this war
means that the E.U. is completely diver-
sifying away from Russian fossil fuels,”
she says. “Russia is losing its biggest cli-
ent, and for good.” Even so, she’s aware
that the war is not only having a devas-
tating impact on the climate—waging
a war is highly fossil-fuel intensive—
but also that soaring energy prices can
quickly turn the tide of public opinion.
Ideally, she says, high prices nudge con-
sumers to choose something else, like
renewable energy. But vulnerable, low-
income households and businesses don’t
have that kind of flexibility to maneu-
ver, and governments need to subsidize
them. “The transition will only work if
it’s socially balanced,” she says.
For now, balance in Europe seems
hard to maintain. Amid all the turmoil,
she struggles to take the long view—
whether envisioning how the next
weeks or months of war might unfold, or
imagining where her own career might
go once her term at the Commission is
up in 2024. She is instead focused on
the day to day. “It is stressful and a lot of
pressure,” she says. “But whenever I feel
like, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it, my next
thought is: the people in Ukraine cannot
s ay, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it. I am here
to manage this crisis. Then we’ll see.” —
With reporting by LesLie DicksTein/
new York □WORLD
‘I am only powerfulas long as I createmajorities. That’sthe humbling partin democracies,and the wonderfulpart.’