Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
As someone who is used to being booed while at work, I had some sympathy for Ursula von der Leyen as she delivered her State of the Union speech in Strasbourg to a chorus of jeers.
This was not von der Leyen’s first rodeo, of course, and she seemed relatively calm during what was an unusually testy encounter with members of the European Parliament, many of whom were deeply unhappy with her stance on the Middle East/climate/choice of breakfast etc.
There was a lot of excitement about this event (stop sniggering at the back), with the European Commission’s IT team telling staff to stop streaming the speech through the office Wi-Fi to “prevent a network bandwidth overload” — which sounds painful. There was even a “premiere viewing” arranged in the Commission’s Berlaymont HQ, complete with popcorn (a rather too American snack for my liking. They should have had something more European, such as fermented herring or salty licorice).
Von der Leyen seems to be facing permanent criticism and calls to make concessions (and yes, that is how politics works). She’d only just had time to put down her speech when the right-wing (Patriots for Europe) and left-wing (The Left) were united in wanting the Commission president out, with both calling for no-confidence motions.
European Parliament rules (So. Many. Rules) say a political group can file a motion of censure with 72 signatures two months after the previous such vote took place — otherwise, they need 144 names. As there was a confidence vote on July 10, the earliest the groups could submit a new motion was Wednesday at midnight. That meant MEPs had to be working at that late hour rather than downing tequila shots at infamous Strasbourg saloon Les Aviateurs. For those of you who had placed a bet on which group would win the race to file a no-confidence motion, it was the Patriots, who filed around 20 seconds after midnight, beating The Left by around 20 seconds.
It could be worse for von der Leyen, of course; she could be French — I mean, a French politician. Congratulations to this week’s French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu. Surely it’s only a matter of time before Kylian Mbappé and David Guetta get the call to be prime minister (Guetta’s brother, Bernard, is an MEP after all).
When it comes to von der Leyen and music, it’s not David Guetta’s EDM (which is either Electronic Dance Music or the European Defence Mechanism; it’s hard to tell which) that comes to mind, however.
The Commission big cheese does have a musical past. There’s a single by Die Albrecht Familie (her father is Ernst Albrecht, former minister president of the state of Lower Saxony), dating from 1978, called “Wohlauf in Gottes schöne Welt” (Well in God’s beautiful world) with a B-side of “Alle Birken grünen in Moor und Heid” (All birches blossom in the moor and heath).
While that is a choral pop jingle, is von der Leyen now a closet heavy metal fan? Cast your eyes over her big speech and there are lots of phrases that could be band names (most of them of the metal variety). All of the following were said in von der Leyen’s State of the Union:
Shadow Fleet Military Edge Brunt (there is an actual band called this. The cover art is questionable)Drone Alliance Quantum Sandbox (this, admittedly, feels a bit more prog rock than metal)Battery Booster Energy Highways (there’s an album called “Broken Energy Highway” by the band Class Traitor)Villages On Fire and, best of all…Shackles of Unanimity
Here’s hoping Shackles of Unanimity are the opening act at next year’s State of the Union.
CAPTION COMPETITION
“In a shock move, Michael Jackson directs Ursula von der Leyen to her seat in the European Parliament.”
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Last week, we gave you this photo:
Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.
“Will you send me a valentine when I am one hundred and sixty-four?”
by Ramūnas Povilanskas
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