Shona Murray: Ursula von der Leyen backtracks on international rules statement

'The actions of Ms von der Leyen in overreaching her mandate would not be as problematic if they weren’t so out of touch.' File picture

Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, was this week forced to retreat from a foreign policy pivot read widely as burying international law.

Europe should act in the “world as it actually is today”, and not how we’d like it to be, she asserted.

The EU, she said, could “no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return”. 

We need “a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”, the former German defence minister told EU ambassadors in Brussels.

As president of the European Commission, part of Ms von der Leyen’s role is to be the guarantor of EU values, principles, and laws. 

Yet, her speech was a solo-run, unilaterally announcing that the EU — a body of 27 countries — no longer regards as a priority, the rules-based system.

Effectively, abandoning its place as a “bastion of decency”, as former secretary general of the European Commission, Catherine Day, once described it.

What’s even more curious is that the speech comes at the very moment the world is crying out for moral leadership.

Undoubtedly, she’s correct in recognising the reality that US president Donald Trump has served a fatal blow to the UN charter, and other aspects of international justice such as the International Criminal Court with his sanctions on lawyers and judges involved in the prosecution of Israeli officials. 

However, it’s quite another thing to give tacit approval of it.

And when the travesty of this moment in time finally ends, there’s a long list of people who need to be held accountable for their actions today. 

We need a vigorous international justice system to prosecute them.

The reaction to her words was swift.

“When Europe responds with complacency and appeasement, when autocrats like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu violate international rules, it sends a dangerous message, and international law ceases to exist,” Spanish MEP and leader of the Progressives group at the European Parliament, Iratxe García Pérez, told parliamentarians.

“No democrat cries for the dictatorship of the ayatollahs. It is a regime that has brutally repressed its own people. 

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But refusing to mourn a regime does not mean remaining silent when innocent people die. Every life has equal value,” Perez said.

The head of the commission is also criticised for stepping outside her mandate by conducting foreign policy — the exclusive competence of the member states.

In the immediate aftermath of the strikes in Iran, she took to social media to detail her conversations with Gulf and Israeli leaders.

Widely seen across the world as a byword for the voice of the EU, she then called for a “credible transition in Iran”. 

Amid her several communiques on X — none was in reference to the horrors at the killing of at least 160 children at a school in Minab. 

Aside from the callousness of ignoring this monumental attack — if she’d acknowledged it and called for investigation, it would at least be within her mandate.

In response, French MEP from Emmanuel Macron’s Renew group in the European Parliament, Nathalie Loiseau, tweeted at her: “Once again Ursula von der Leyen, this is NOT (sic) your business. Enough is enough”.

The actions of Ms von der Leyen in overreaching her mandate would not be as problematic if they weren’t so out of touch.

There is no public mood for the war in Iran, and millions of Europeans are waking up to Europe’s — both the EU’s and member states governments — total inaction and hypocrisy when it comes to Israeli ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza.

Most Americans believe Donald Trump bombed Iran to deflect from the Epstein files. 

According to a poll by Drop Site/Zeteo/Data For Progress survey 52% of Americans believe Mr Trump is trying to distract from the Epstein files. 

The number is even stronger for voters under 45, with a 66-26 majority.

Moreover, Mr Trump’s second presidency is making the world infinitely more dangerous, unstable, and cruel.

Indeed, Europe has no influence over the US or Israel — in no small part because it has shown little else other than weakness in the face of their transgressions.

But by ignoring the violations in Iran, as well as Lebanon where hundreds have died including scores of children, and where entire neighbourhoods have been demolished leaving nearly one million people homeless makes the EU almost an accomplice.

One of the most fitting quotes summing up Europe’s position — aside from its valiant efforts defending Ukraine is from civil rights activist Martin Luther King who said: “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

'There is no public mood for the war in Iran, and millions of Europeans are waking up to Europe’s — both the EU’s and member states governments — total inaction and hypocrisy when it comes to Israeli ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza.' Picture: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Ms Von der Leyen attempted to walk back her speech two days later, after a ferocious backlash including from Josep Borrell, the EU commissioner for foreign policy in her last cabinet.

International Law, which includes the prohibition to use force to settle international disputes, is an integral, binding part of the treaties of the EU.

Its “expiration” cannot be decreed by anyone in a speech”, he said on X.

In an address to the European Parliament, Ms von der Leyen walked back her initial premise saying: “The European Union was founded as a peace project.

“Our unwavering commitment to the pursuit of peace, to the principles of the UN Charter and to international law are as central today as they were at our creation. And we will always uphold these principles.”

But as the last couple of years have shown she is uninterested in truly defending it.