As I reflect on 250 years of American independence, the weight of that anniversary feels profoundly personal, woven into the fabric of my family’s story. My ancestors answered the Lexington Alarm in April 1775, leaving their farms at a moment’s notice when the call went out that British troops were marching on Concord. From those first shots that “were heard round the world,” they stood among the minutemen, shouldering muskets and risking everything, like their grandparents did in 1689, for the radical idea that ordinary people could govern themselves. To me, today is not just a date on the calendar; it is living proof that Liberty is never guaranteed but that it must be defended by citizens willing to rise at dawn and march toward uncertainty. Their courage at the Alarm reminds me that independence began not in grand declarations but in humble, determined acts of defiance.

Through the long years of war that followed, my forebears carried that commitment from Bunker Hill, through the frozen trenches of Valley Forge, to the decisive fields of Yorktown. They endured supply shortages, disease, and the constant shadow of defeat, yet they persisted because they believed in a future where their children would inherit a nation free from tyranny. By the time the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, formally recognizing American sovereignty, they had helped transform thirteen fractious colonies into a sovereign republic. For me, this arc, from Alarm to treaty, embodies the meaning of independence as a hard-won covenant across generations. It is the knowledge that my blood carries the memory of sacrifice, teaching me that freedom demands vigilance, resilience, and an unshakable faith in self-government even when the odds seem impossible.

Today, as we mark a quarter-millennium of independence, I feel both gratitude and responsibility when I look at my ancestors’ journey. Their role from the first alarm to the final treaty and the sacrifices of the generations that followed anchors my understanding that liberty is not an abstract gift, but a legacy earned through sweat, blood, and moral conviction. It calls me to cherish the rights they secured while confronting the imperfections that remain, always striving to perfect our union. Two hundred fifty years later, their story renews my commitment to ensure that the American experiment continues, not as something inherited passively, but as a living promise I must help steward for my children and my children’s children for generations to come.

Saul Montes-Bradley wrote this on July 2, 2026, on the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Saul Montes-Bradley II is a Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Waarom België met de asielopvang slimmer is dan Nederland)

As the Netherlands bureaucratizes at a brisk pace, the Jetten cabinet loses itself in grand visions. The Hague invariably wants to be Europe’s “frontrunner,” but in fact it is lagging behind. At a high price. Energy and climate policy, now stripped of the frightening UN doomsday scenario, has been ideologically gutted. Asylum policy, the mother of all virtue-signaling, is meeting resistance from the public. In the end, in desperation, the question arises: why do the Belgians do it better?

To the bewilderment of The Hague’s politicians, “the Belgians” have managed to substantially reduce the influx of asylum seekers. The Netherlands has not. Why? In politics and governance the same law applies as in nature: a fish rots from the head down. Bad governance produces bad results. Leading politicians who do not know their classics make citizens suffer. With all its “experts and specialists,” The Hague claims to be entirely in the right yet steers blindly toward a concrete wall. Migration is (and has been for decades) the prime example.

In both the Netherlands and Belgium, the prime ministers bear the political responsibility: in the Netherlands, Rob Jetten; in Belgium, Bart De Wever. Both have been in politics for a considerable time. Jetten was a parliamentary staffer for former D66 leader Alexander Pechtold, and De Wever grew into the figurehead of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). In 2013 he became mayor of Antwerp and in 2025 prime minister of federal Belgium, thus including his French-speaking compatriots.

De Wever popular, Jetten not

According to the polls, Jetten is currently the most unpopular prime minister in the Netherlands; De Wever the most popular prime minister in Belgium. Even among French-speaking voters who had always been told he was an extreme Flemish nationalist. In a previous generation, the Netherlands had Ruud Lubbers and Wim Kok as prime ministers, and Belgium had Wilfried Martens and Jean-Luc Dehaene; prime ministers of the same type and caliber.

That balance is now lopsided. De Wever earned authority by, for example, preventing Belgium from bearing all the disadvantages of an EU plan: the unfreezing of Russian assets (180 billion) held at Euroclear in Brussels. The latter could have exposed Belgium to an enormous claim for damages on account of confiscation. De Wever prevented that, from a position of isolation, with a shrewd strategy, finding allies and convincing Germany. De Wever knows his classics and speaks several languages. He grew into the “bravest of all Belgians,” in the tradition of the Celtic forefather Ambiorix. And that for a “Flemish nationalist.” De Wever counts in Europe.

And what about Prime Minister Jetten? One hundred days is too short for an overly harsh judgment, but what stands out above all is a lack of insight. It was clear insight that brought De Wever success. Jetten travels the world. Judging by the many selfies, he seems very much in love with himself. He comes across as a “child prime minister,” while the Netherlands rises up against the Distribution Act, which spreads both asylum seekers and the citizens’ protest across the country. The discontent grows, while Jetten assumes the stature of a holiday photographer. Ergo: his standing (and that of his office) is in the nosedive of a falling star. Since he is prime minister of a minority cabinet, the danger is never far away.

Jetten operates as a tightrope walker, while De Wever is the architect of his center-right alliance N-VA, with enough electoral strength to dominate the political landscape in Flanders and Belgium. With just under 25 percent in Flanders, N-VA is indispensable for coalition-building in both Flanders and Belgium, and it is De Wever who sets the course. The result was a turnaround, while the Netherlands is politically fragmented.

Farcical

Belgium, especially in the 1980s, witnessed farcical scenes with drunken prominent Walloon socialists who spouted gibberish during the sessions of the Chamber of Representatives. One example I once saw myself was the Walloon socialist Michel Daerden, federal minister of transport (!), who addressed parliament dead drunk. That era is over, although the new generation is hardly teetotal.

The difference between De Wever and Jetten is the quality of “insight.” Prime ministers without insight manufacture “policy” without prospect. The Distribution Act is a good example. It solves nothing but spreads the asylum problem around. Many asylum seekers throw away their passports, but not their phones. Photos of asylum reception in Van der Valk hotels and on cruise ships travel around the world: the Netherlands is becoming a popular asylum destination.

Belgium prevents this through frugal reception. Even the Flemish socialists, with whom De Wever governs, support minimal reception. Frank Vandenbroucke (70), Belgium’s deputy prime minister, a Flemish socialist in the De Wever government, knows the consequences of excessive immigration. And not because he is a Flemish socialist with Calvinist traits.

Flemish socialists were once powerful, but lost voters on the right to the Vlaams Belang and on the left to the radical-socialist Workers’ Party (PVDA). A cruise ship for asylum seekers will not appear in Antwerp anytime soon. That is why they move on, to “Hotel Holland.” Logical; I would do the same. The fault lies not in Brussels, but in The Hague. De Wever sees what Jetten fails to see.

Resistance in the capillaries of politics

In Belgium there would be no support whatsoever for a Dutch-style asylum policy, because the resistance begins right in the capillaries of politics. In Flanders, “identity” is experienced more consciously because people had to fight for it, whereas in the Netherlands it is taken for granted. The Fleming sees excessive immigration with large cultural differences as a threat to his own identity.

The electoral system in Belgium is closer to the citizens than in the Netherlands, which is governed centrally from The Hague. As soon as a Flemish citizen is troubled by asylum seekers, he or she goes to complain to the elected officials, such as the mayor, and to members of the Flemish or federal parliament. They are elected in their constituencies, where preference votes are very important. Every Flemish politician with many preference votes will trumpet that around, and then demands a high position in the party and afterward in parliament. The party’s “strongmen” become ministers in the federal or regional government. And the “strongest of all” becomes prime minister of Belgium. Whoever wants to rise high in Belgian politics must not go against the voters’ wishes.

In the Netherlands it is exactly the other way around. There is one national list of candidates for, say, the House of Representatives. The candidate is placed on the list thanks to the party leadership, with preference votes not being essential. A nice bonus, but not decisive for a political career. The list leader has to do the work and, above all, come across well on television. That was the case with Prime Minister Jetten, and he ran an effective campaign. Contact with the population is minimal and often stage-managed. What is alive “among the people” is no guideline. The Distribution Act proves it. In this way a disconnect arises between what The Hague wants (the phrase: “it must”) and the lived reality of ordinary citizens.

In Belgium, ministers nowadays generally enter the government with a “record”; a track record. These are the “strongmen” from the various parties. A blunder such as that of the current Dutch Minister of Housing, Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan (50, D66), would not easily occur in Belgium. She was appointed by former Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren (D66) to the rank of air force general, albeit without a pilot’s license, and is heading for failure in The Hague. That appointment has more to do with favoritism toward friends than with good governance.

The asylum problems the Netherlands is now grappling with are problems of its own making, just as was the case with energy and climate policy, with high costs that citizens get dumped on their plate via higher taxes. Belgian politicians generally stand closer to the voters and know where the ultimate limit lies. The Hague feels nothing, and goes off the rails undisturbed.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. The Blame America First Syndrome)

When Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick explained in 1984 that America’s severest foreign policy critics “always blame America first” she identified a narrative that continues some four decades later. There was and continues to be a reflexive anti-American bias in much of the criticism of President Reagan’s security policy. This enables critics to avoid serious reflection as to the seriousness of security threats to the U.S.. If our security threats were much of our own doing, then the totalitarian threats from Russia and China could be dismissed. Simply change U.S. administrations and magically our adversaries turn into the friends they always were! Correct U.S. policy and threats conveniently disappear.

However, Kirkpatrick knew such a narrative was wrong and dangerous. With the dawn of the Reagan Presidency the United States faced major threats, all of which had grown significantly in the previous decade.

First was a reckless Soviet Union, often partnered with Communist China, engaging in major across-the-board arming of guerilla wars aimed at regime change. Although the Soviet expansion campaign centered in eastern Europe immediately following World War II, the Soviets followed with the North Korean cross border invasion of 1950. But its failure led to a switch to guerilla war, particularly in Indochina from 1959, Central America from 1958, and ironically culminating in the return to cross border invasion with Afghanistan in 1979.

Under Soviet direction, centers of state sponsorship of terrorism grew in Syria, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran, along with terror agents such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, the FMLN, FARC, and the Red Brigades and Bidar Meinhoff gangs. Ironically, during the supposed decade of détente, nearly two dozen American allied governments fell to or were systematically attacked by communist subversion.

After the 1980 election, the U.S. turned the tables. The U.S. rejected détente and sought rollback. The U.S. went after Soviet terror states in Afghanistan, Grenada and Nicaragua and worked to defeat terror proxies in Columbia and El Salvador. All part of an economic war on Moscow that aimed to make the cost of the Soviet empire unsustainable. And for the first time since 1917, the free world took back territory from the communist empire with the liberation of Grenada in 1983.

The second major threat President Reagan faced was a massive Soviet theater nuclear buildup, including the deployment of thousands of nuclear armed SS 20 medium range ballistic missile in Europe and Asia, targeting both the Atlantic and Pacific allies of the United States.

The third major threat president Reagan faced was a parallel Soviet nuclear buildup of deployed strategic nuclear weapons from a few thousand in 1972 to over 10,000 by the 1980s, all under the SALT treaties of 1972 and 1979. Treaties that gave the good arms control housekeeping seal of approval to Moscow’s buildup that had as its key purpose to coercively blackmail the United States and our allies to stand down in the face of Soviet aggression. Nuclear weapons were the umbrella under which Russian third world aggression would remain in a sanctuary.

Here is where we come back to Ambassador Kirkpatrick’s 1984 remarks. How did the United States reverse the Soviet buildup of nuclear weapons and end the Soviet empire? Kirkpatrick explained that too many critics of U.S. policy blamed the United States for Soviet aggression and nuclear building. The argument was because the U.S. supported dictators in Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Cuba, why was it a surprise guerilla campaigns emerged to change such governments? Similarly argued critics, NATO was created on the doorsteps of the USSR so why should we be surprised Moscow responded with the deployment of SS-20 missiles aimed at European NATO??

Even when the USSR empire came crashing down, there were three common explanations that gave credit not to Reagan but even to the Soviets themselves, Reagan’s domestic critics or some cosmic inevitability.

A common explanation was that the Kennan policy of restrained “containment” practiced by nine successive American Presidents helped bring down the Soviets, but nothing special from the Reagan White House. The idea of containment of Soviet aggression was originated by State department official George Kennan who coined the term in a long telegram from Moscow and in a subsequent essay in Foreign Affairs signed by “X.” But Kennan himself disliked the term containment and often declared it did not describe what Kennan had advocated after the end of World War II. He opposed Truman sending American troops to defend Korea, and repeatedly opposed Reagan’s security agenda, most particularly the administration’s nuclear and missile defense modernization agenda.

The second and often parallel narrative was that the collapse of the Soviet empire was inevitable, and again nothing special from President Reagan had any serious effect on the outcome. Containment may have worked but that was coincidental. Again, the common narrative was that nothing America did had much to do with the outcome of the Cold War.

The third narrative flowed from the first two. It was not America but the Soviets themselves that ended the Cold War. It was the reforms of General Secretary Gorbachev that ended the Cold War as the General Secretary anticipated the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Empire. All Reagan did was as one recent retired U.S. President claimed was to allow those reforms to take place without trying to extend the Cold War.

When a dozen and half nations slip behind the Iron Curtain in little more than a decade, it hardly makes sense to then pretend at the end of the subsequent decade the USA and its ally’s abject failure to “contain” the Soviets, meant that containment itself “worked.” And simultaneously led to the end and not the expansion of the Soviet Union!

As Ambassador Kirkpatrick explained, the blame America firsters complained the Soviet Union would have collapsed even faster if the United Stats had not been so aggressive. Reagan‘s political opponents held that his tough foreign policy made things worse, particularly with respect to describing the USSR as an “evil empire,” developing SDI and deploying MX missiles, arming the Contras and Mujahadeen Northern Alliance while saving Solidarity. To the blame American firsters, our adversaries had to take defensive actions to protect their own security. It was America that was at fault—having both caused the outbreak of the Cold War and perpetuated its continuance.

This acute tendency to, as the Ambassador explained, always blame America was key to understanding the alternative strategy often being pushed by the progressive left. If the United States and it’s supposed aggressive security policy was responsible for triggering bad Soviet behavior, then of course the removal of such U.S. security policy and its architect (Reagan) would magically change Moscow security policy to one far more benign. In short, detente would work. The pillars of former Vice President Mondale’s 1984 campaign were to stop SDI, freeze the deployment of America’s Pershing and GLCM missiles in Europe, kill the MX missile and other U strategic nuclear initiaitives, and end all military aid to the contras in Nicaragua and the government of El Salvador.

Here the ironies are too delicious to ignore. A frequent object of leftist or progressive scorn during the decade of the 1970s was Henry Kissinger. But Kissinger was the architect of the SALT agreement that allowed a huge Soviet nuclear build-up, the ABM treaty that eliminated missile defenses, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and the entire edifice of the strategy of detente. For the left, what was there not to like?

But as Kirkpatrick pointed out, for the progressive left, if the origin of Soviet behavior was intrinsic to the very nature of Russian paranoia, a restrained American security policy would be an invitation to the expansion of Soviet aggression, which is precisely what occurred during détente.

It is true that in 1980 after the invasion of Afghanistan the Carter administration announced that it had misinterpreted the Soviet embrace of détente and been mistaken in declaring the U.S. had to get rid of its inordinate fear of communism. And if simply changing U.S. foreign policy back to détente and restraint would induce a benign Soviet subsequent conciliatory security policy, then of course, progressive critics of President Reagan could justify their opposition to peace through strength, SDI, the full up modernization of American nuclear forces, the arming of the resistance in Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the take down of Grenada, and the arming of our nation state allies in El Salvador, the Republic of Korea and NATO.

Similarly if today the turmoil in the Middle East was caused by America’s ally Israel, as is being claimed by much of the progressive left, just as they claimed an aggressive USA policy caused the Cold War, then it’s simply a matter of stopping Israel. And preventing Israel from securing arms necessary to continue its apparent too aggressive security policy would be a good place to start. Stop Israel, stop the war. Peace blossoms!

Senator Sanders (I-Vt) thus can blame Israel for “genocide” in Gaza and pretend Hamas and Hezbollah are on the side of the angels. And consequently, offer an amendment in the Senate to stop all USA arms sales to Israel, that received 40 votes, 39 of which were from the 45-member democratic caucus.

How simple Middle East security policy could be if we all just “blamed Israel first” for “tricking” the United States into war against Iran. Like the Cold War and the Soviet empire, ending the Iranian nuclear program, stopping the deployment of its long-range missiles, keeping open Hormuz, and ending proxy terrorism can be simply a matter of changing U.S. administrations. We can all be for “peace,” need not take up arms against the genocidal regime in Tehran, because as critics claim, it is Israel and the USA that “chose this war” not an Iran that for nearly half a century has been at war with Western civilization.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in Newsmax. Tech Innovators Face Wrath of Resentful Left)

Not a week goes by without some online pundit performing their ritual victory dance over Elon Musk’s latest stumble.

Remember the barely concealed glee and giddy coverage when arsonists torched a dozen Teslas?

Now a judge who just ruled against him has been forced to recuse herself after engaging with posts mocking him online.

The sneering has become a blood sport. But Musk is not alone in facing this coordinated hostility – he’s simply become the most visible target of a growing phenomenon that’s metastasized across Silicon Valley.

Tech innovators are now finding themselves in the crosshairs the moment anything goes sideways, with a press corps that circles like vultures, practically salivating for the next failure to dissect.

Take Palmer Luckey.

The Oculus founder’s sin?

Donating to a pro-Trump meme group.

That transgression earned him the eternal enmity of the liberal press establishment, which now reports on every setback at his defense tech firm, Anduril, with the enthusiasm of a sports commentator calling a demolition derby.

The same playbook unfolds with Sachin Dev Duggal. As the force behind Builder.ai, he positioned his company as a revolution in AI-no-code software and led it to unicorn status before it hit the rocks of administration.

Like every high stakes technology venture, Builder.ai faced genuine challenges.

But instead of being treated as part of the messy, high-risk reality of frontier innovation, those challenges were instantly weaponized into caricature, with Duggal himself cast as the villain du jour.

What followed looked less like authentic sober scrutiny than performative theatre, where public conclusions reached before the facts were even assembled, with the full story of what went wrong still far from settled.

This is the classic liberal playbook in action: Outrage first, facts later – if ever.

Of course, there is a reason this kind of coverage resonates.

These individuals aren’t mere innovators, they’re larger-than-life figures whose outsized ambitions invite fascination when things implode.

Anyone who’s binge-watched a documentary about a failed tech startup knows the voyeuristic appeal.

You get to dissect what went wrong without having any skin in the game.

It’s rubbernecking dressed up as analysis.

What we tend to forget myself included, is that failure is not a deviation from innovation but the very condition that makes it possible.

Setbacks, reversals and spectacular collapses are hardwired into the process, especially at the frontier where new technologies are still being forged and understood.

Real progress happens precisely in that state of uncertainty.

And yet, we fixate obsessively on the visible outcomes, particularly the dramatic failures, while missing the broader momentum these efforts generate.

Musk’s early years at SpaceX and Tesla were littered with near-constant crises that brought both companies to the precipice.

Today, they’re not just surviving.

They’re setting the global pace, with entire industries and governments adapting to their lead, while competitors like Ford, BYD and others scramble desperately to catch up.

Duggal’s experience reflects the same arc. Builder.ai, which he launched a decade ago, helped build crucial early momentum around AI-driven software development at a time when the sector was still finding its footing.

That field has since become the primary engine of global economic growth.

The company’s collapse does not erase that contribution. If anything, it clarifies the limits and points toward necessary evolution.

Duggal’s new venture, SeKondBrain.ai, is focused on addressing one of the core weaknesses of current AI systems: their opacity and lack of shared context, understanding, and memory across AI and humans.

The aim is to build AI systems and models that are more interpretable and reliable.

That shift, from scale to understanding, is precisely the kind of iterative refinement following high-profile setbacks.

Ridicule is harmless noise, especially when it comes from voices the public has long since learned to discount.

However, danger emerges when it’s amplified and weaponized.

With Musk, the shift is unmistakable. Once embraced by the left, he is now closely associated with Trump’s orbit, and has completely recalibrated the incentive structure around him.

Discrediting Musk’s ventures becomes a proxy war against the broader political project he is seen to support.

It’s no accident that well-funded groups like Indivisible Action have mobilized protests against him with backing from major Democratic donors with deep pockets and even deeper grievances.

In Duggal’s case, the campaign is more subtle but equally revealing. Nearly identical criticism has materialized across multiple outlets in seemingly suspicious unison, even as evidence emerges that fundamentally challenges the dominant narrative.

The coordination may be debatable, but the pattern undeniable.

A campaign of targeted negative coverage at that scale does not itself; and boardroom disputes have a nasty habit of weaponizing whatever tools are available, from media contacts to regulatory complaints.

Bruised egos aside, these coordinated assaults have real consequences that ripple far beyond Silicon Valley boardrooms.

Innovation-first startups are uniquely vulnerable in their early years because they require massive capital injections to build unproven products and sustain years of development before generating meaningful revenue.

That dependence on investor confidence creates a precarious foundation; once doubt crystallizes into narrative, the entire structure can collapse before the technology has any chance to prove itself viable.

The 90% failures rate for startups within the first five years isn’t just about bad ideas of poor execution.

It’s often about narrative momentum overwhelming economic reality. Tesla faced faced that pressure for years, with constant and relentless “bankruptcy watch” coverage that became a self-reinforcing prophecy with short seller and skeptical journalists feeding off of each other’s pessimism and covert jealousy.

In the end, Tesla survived thanks to Musk’s resourcefulness and determination.

So, switch off the outrage machine periodically.

What looks like chaos in emerging tech is often just the messy, non-linear process of innovation working itself out.

The rush to declare success or failure early creates a version of events taking on a life of their own, independent of facts. When you amplify that narrative without questioning its origins, you might be providing cover for someone else’s agenda — helping them push the story exactly where they want it to go.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Het ontbreekt Nederland aan gekozen burgemeesters die de Haagse dwangwetten van tafel zouden kunnen krijgen)

The Distribution Act (Spreidingswet), once presented as the solution to asylum problems, mainly spreads quarrels, conflicts, and violence. It is a coercion law that orders municipalities to take in asylum seekers, but most citizens feel the limit has been reached. Nevertheless, D66 Prime Minister Rob Jetten, after a week’s stay in the sunny Caribbean Netherlands, simply wants to press on. He intends to dispatch “flying teams of experts” against unwilling municipalities. The “experts” — a popular term in D66 circles — are supposed to convince local authorities and ignorant citizens that The Hague is right. “Smaller municipalities, too, must do their part in solidarity,” Jetten said.

The patience of the Netherlands’ top administrators is running out. Mark Boumans (VVD), mayor of Doetinchem and vice-chairman of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG), called for a hard line against protesters opposing the arrival of asylum-seeker centers. Citizen resistance is inevitable, but in such cases violence is a poor counselor and proves counterproductive.

The mayor of Doetinchem was named “Administrator of the Year” last year, and would certainly qualify for a larger municipality — perhaps one of the largest. On the program Buitenhof on May 17 he argued that the cabinet “should deploy the army” against rowdy protests. Armies, apart from war, are used by dictators to keep their own citizens under the boot. That the mayor of Doetinchem, a quiet town with the character of a village, brandishes such terms looks more like an open bid for a post in the Randstad.

Cultural Differences

The core problem — immigration and asylum — has been debated in the Netherlands in every possible way for thirty years. An asylum policy can only be effective if it is strict. Too large an inflow leads to friction, conflict, and revolts. Especially when cultural differences are large.

The Netherlands took in over 100,000 Ukrainians after the Russian invasion in 2022. A considerable number, but the cultural differences were bridgeable. Many studied or worked. It turns out differently with 100,000 Somalis, because the cultural gulf is too great. Let alone with 100,000 Palestinians, because then you would be importing the entire Gaza conflict along with them. There has to be a balance between numbers and cultural differences. During the First World War, the Netherlands, with six million inhabitants, took in a million Belgian refugees. Almost no one knows this, because there were few problems; the cultural differences were small.

The current inflow is too large and the outflow too small. That leads to conflicts between “know-it-all” administrators and citizens who are often looked down upon. Some media portray protesting citizens as “extremist” in order to criminalize them. Mayors and municipal councils are caught between hammer and anvil: a centralist The Hague and unwilling citizens. As the asylum stream grows, so does the asylum industry, such as the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), which this year has a budget of 4.2 billion euros. The number of COA staff grew from 3,000 to 8,000. It is “big business.”

With the continuing influx, the Distribution Act becomes unworkable and ultimately unenforceable, but for The Hague that is rocket science. Sharon Dijksma, mayor of Utrecht, is chair of the VNG — quite an achievement, given that she never completed her public administration studies at the University of Twente. She rose through the Young Socialists of the PvdA and became a member of the House of Representatives at twenty-three. She says: the Distribution Act is the law. Her law studies in Groningen, incidentally, were also never completed.

When it comes to mayors, the Netherlands holds a singular position in the EU: it is the only member state where the mayor is appointed “centrally.” The “Crown” appoints them; in practice the Minister of the Interior decides. In all other EU member states the mayor is elected, directly or sometimes via the municipal council. Take Belgium. There the elected mayor is not Brussels’ errand boy, but stands up for the citizens. In Flanders, mayors are a strong political force; they do not want (too many) asylum seekers, and the reception is far more austere than in the Netherlands, where Van der Valk hotels or even cruise ships open their doors. And so the influx naturally gravitates toward the Netherlands.

A mayor in the Netherlands looks over his shoulder at a domineering The Hague, where his next post is decided. In Belgium (but also in France, Italy, Austria, and the rest of Europe) the mayor looks the citizens straight in the eye. That makes the Dutch mayor weak and hesitant. Take acting mayor Mark Verheijen (VVD) of Wijdemeren, which includes Loosdrecht. The residents are informed late about the coming asylum-seeker center and angrily take to the streets. Verheijen cracks down hard, but then turns around and apologizes. He is stuck between citizens and The Hague. If he sides fully with the citizens, The Hague will not forget that when handing out mayoral posts.

At the local level the Netherlands is not a real democracy, because The Hague decides who becomes mayor. At the provincial level it is the same story. There the King’s Commissioner (CdK) is also appointed centrally, by The Hague, as a kind of “envoy of the King.” Here too the CdK will let the wishes of The Hague prevail over those of the provincial council members. Mayor and King’s Commissioner invariably tell their municipality and province: “The Hague requires it.” In this centralist model the House of Representatives is, to be sure, directly elected, but it increasingly takes on the character of a fragmented municipal council.

Cuddle Police or Club Police

Public administration is becoming confused. The Dutch police, once “your best friend,” are losing their bearings, especially at protest gatherings: who is right and who is wrong? At demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion, the riot police approach the demonstrators as if they were spoiled children — which they also are — who are asked to leave the highway. The protesters then simply remain seated. If necessary, the police carry them away. But at asylum-center protests, the riot police recklessly club citizens with batons, as if they were criminals. This leads, to use an English term, to “two-tier police.” In short: is it the cuddle police (knuffelpolitie) or the club police (knuppelpolitie)?

D66 was traditionally a proponent of the elected mayor, but now that the party provides the prime minister, it stays silent. A pity — it was a legacy of party figurehead Hans van Mierlo. An elected mayor has his own base and legitimacy; precisely what the higher powers in The Hague do not want. For The Hague, the mayor is a “subcontractor.”

Worse still: the Netherlands has “appointed mayors” who neglect their own citizens because they are too busy with “foreign policy,” especially in the four largest cities. Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema tops them all, coming across as a political faith healer on a global scale. Her actual task, however, reads: to govern the city well.

No Base, But Plenty of Reprimands

Unelected mayors hand out reprimands the moment Israel is involved. The mayor of Utrecht laid a floral arrangement on the Domplein for the Nakba commemoration, while flowers and wreaths in memory of the May 4 Remembrance of the Dead were being thrown away just down the road. Tasteless. What is more, her Nakba narrative is historically incorrect.

Amsterdam conducts a foreign policy that makes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague practically superfluous. Would these unelected mayors pour so much time into “abroad” if they had to be elected at home in their own cities? Strong rival candidates would then step forward, some with a real base and more capable than they are. A mayor on a world tour would lose at home.

With these globe-trotting mayors, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is downgraded to an NGO that must provide aid worldwide and read leaders the riot act everywhere. Reprimands against Israel pile up. The term “Dutch interest”? Of no interest to our unelected, big-city “experts.”

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. In Groot-Brittannië, Frankrijk en Duitsland breekt de radicale oppositie de zelfgenoegzame macht van het midden)

With the electoral nosedive of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Britain has now become the third major country in Western Europe — after Germany and France — to find itself in a political deadlock. The popularity of the leading political figures — Starmer, Merz, and Macron — hovers around 15%. At the same time, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is recklessly bucking the trend, legalizing roughly 500,000 illegal immigrants. Spain really ought to be thrown out of Schengen.

The only larger, stable country in Western Europe is … Italy, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. A rung lower sits the Netherlands, with its minority Jetten cabinet, in much the same boat as the big three.

The General Discontent Grew Too Great

The big three have electoral systems that keep the “extremes” out, each country in its own way. In Britain, the candidate with the most votes wins; the rest are gone. The Germans have an ingenious system with a 5% threshold to keep smaller, radical parties out of parliament. It took the German Greens decades to get into the Bundestag. In presidential elections, France ratchets the stakes up to the breaking point, with a runoff round between the two strongest candidates. A genuine clash.

The “self-protection system” produces the opposite effect when the general discontent grows too great. The radical opposition bands together to break the complacent power. That is what Nigel Farage demonstrated last week with his “Reform UK.” Starting from almost nothing, he became the biggest winner in the British municipal elections.

I watched Farage rise in the European Parliament. His opponents invariably made the same mistake: underestimating him. He was laughed off by the European mandarins because he advocated Britain’s departure from the EU. That sounded like a “joke.” He started out on the back benches with a single ally, won elections, and formed a group that brought him to the front row. He used that spot as a foxhole against the EU. Brexit came, and Farage seemed superfluous. He left for British politics.

There too he was laughed at. The British system was dominated by Labour and the Conservatives. Once again the laughter fell silent, because his Reform UK staked everything on “immigration,” the top priority of most voters.

Last week Farage drew many votes away from both Labour and the Conservatives: Reform UK even became the largest party. If a general election were held today, Farage would become Prime Minister of Britain.

Macron Squeezed Out by the Right and the Left

The same pattern in France. In the municipal elections this past March, Marine Le Pen’s “Rassemblement National” achieved a major breakthrough. The number of RN mayors rose from 827 in 2020 to around 3,000 this year. RN also made substantial gains in mid-sized cities. Large cities such as Paris generally vote left. In France, Macron’s incompetent “center” is being squeezed out by the right. And at the same time by the left, with a leading figure like Jean-Luc Mélenchon: a socialist out of the Stone Age, whose support base consists 70% of the “Muslim vote.” He essentially personifies “Islamo-socialism.”

Marine Le Pen’s participation in the presidential election is uncertain. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) accuses her of “misusing” European funds for national election campaigns. The French court will issue its ruling. If found guilty, she will not be able to run in next April’s presidential election. Marine Le Pen would be a strong candidate. Her biggest disadvantage is her surname.

Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon

The reserve is already standing by. Jordan Bardella, who comes from the suburbs of Paris, entered the Le Pen family through Marine’s niece, Nolwenn Olivier. The relationship lasted four years. In the meantime, Bardella became a well-known name. In April, Paris Match revealed that Bardella is in a relationship with Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (22). The man from the Paris banlieue and his princess — a fairy tale. It may free Bardella from the “Le Pen stigma” that clung to Marine. But: last week the European Public Prosecutor’s Office announced from Luxembourg that it is also opening an investigation against Bardella over “misuse” of EU funds for media training. The timing is no coincidence.

The presidential election will be hard-fought, and especially so in the second round: “left versus right.” Excessive migration, cultural alienation, and collective impoverishment are the main themes. What threatens is a second-round result so razor-thin that the loser does not accept the outcome. Britain is a country of traditions; France is a country of revolution. The French political center has lost its legitimacy, and may reap a pitched battle in Paris.

Weimar Republic

And yet Germany is more worrying. Germans want to make everything todsicher — dead certain. Above all, no uncertainty. That is precisely what threatens. Germany is heading toward a situation resembling that of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). That republic perished in chaos. The “political center” governing Germany (the Christian Democrats CDU/CSU, the Social Democrats SPD, and the liberal FDP) has shrunk sharply. The challenger is Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which draws its electoral support primarily in East Germany and is scoring ever better in West Germany. The AfD, like Farage and Le Pen/Bardella, makes migration its signature issue.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU) governs with the Social Democratic SPD. The liberal FDP did not return to the Bundestag because the party failed to clear the electoral threshold. Merz has ruled out the AfD and is dependent on the SPD, which obstructs stricter immigration policy and, above all, digs in its heels against socioeconomic austerity. In this way the SPD blocks Merz, who — by categorically excluding the AfD — has no alternative.

Voters Could Tear Down the “Firewall”

The AfD polls at 28%; the CDU/CSU sits at 23%; the SPD at 13%. The latter party, however, feels competition from the Greens (13%) and Die Linke (10%). It is caught in the splits: if the SPD moves too far toward the center, it loses voters to the Greens and Die Linke, but as soon as the CDU/CSU concedes too much to the SPD, the AfD grows across all of Germany. Merz is stuck fast, and his popularity rating has collapsed.

This autumn there are elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. There the AfD stands at 41%, the CDU at 26%, the SPD at 7%, and Die Linke at 12%. The 5% electoral threshold now works in favor of the radical newcomer and against the established parties. If the SPD ends up below 5%, it gets no seats, and the AfD — with the freed-up seats — could just barely obtain a majority. Then the voter tears down the “firewall,” the agreement among the established parties to exclude the AfD.

It could get even worse. The Bavarian CSU is, in the polls, only just above 5% at the national level. If this party — once led by the legendary Franz Josef Strauss — drops below 5% in Bundestag elections, it gets fewer seats and the CDU falls back to 17%.

At that point the system, with its corrective mechanisms, buckles under its own weight, because the electoral threshold works against the traditional parties. The extremes crowd out the center. Merz is powerless, locked in the SPD’s stranglehold. If the CDU does after all join forces with the AfD, it falls apart. The “social wing” of the CDU would then rise up in revolt. The liberal FDP cannot help, because it no longer clears the 5% electoral threshold. New elections will make the AfD bigger, while the CDU must go through a turbulent phase as it names a new chancellor candidate (Kanzlerkandidat).

Germany Is Adrift

In the corridors, the minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (50), has been warming up for some time now. He comes from the area around the German town of Bocholt, close to the Dutch border. The CDU must, of course, win elections, and the CSU must hold up, in order to be able to lead coalition formation in Berlin. But from Bavaria, minister-president Markus Söder (59) could put himself forward, with a right-wing profile, to keep the CSU above the 5% threshold.

In short: Merz no longer knows what, how, or where to. Germany is adrift.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Bondskanselier Merz in vrije val: Stoer in buitenland, machteloos in binnenland)

During a weekend meeting in mid-April at the Villa Borsig in Berlin, the two leaderships of the German governing parties CDU/CSU and SPD wanted to get on the same page. The opposite happened. A blistering quarrel broke out between Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD). According to Der Spiegel, Merz “jumped out of his skin,” during which he “bellowed at” Klingbeil.

This screaming scene typifies the relations within the coalition. Merz is caught between a rock and a hard place: between the growing right-wing AfD and the left-wing coalition partner SPD, which blocks reforms as if Berlin had a “Strait of Hormuz.” In the Top-20 popularity survey, Merz comes in last, in 20th place.

Merz Dangles

With the promise of sweeping reforms, Merz and his CDU/CSU were elected chancellor on May 6 last year. An “Autumn of Reforms” was to follow, but nothing happened. The new government borrowed a Sondervermögen (special fund) of 500 billion euros on the capital market to modernize German infrastructure. The money is now being used to plug holes in the budget. Instead of “Reformen” (reforms) came “Reformstau” (reform gridlock); because the SPD said “nein.” The cost of interest on the debt burden is rising from 4 billion euros in 2021 to 78 billion now. It is uncertain whether Merz would even survive a “motion of confidence” in the Bundestag at all. He dangles.

Merz lacks a compass. He ambushed the SPD with statements such as the one about old-age provision, “die Rente.” The pension in Germany, rather meager compared with the Netherlands, should not be more than a “basic package.” Pensioners would have to top it up themselves with saving and investing. The SPD exploded: its voter base was struck at the heart. That base is shrinking visibly; the SPD polls around 13 percent, just like the Greens. The CDU/CSU is dropping to 22 percent and the AfD is growing to 28 percent. East Germany is AfD country.

Since Merz is stuck in Berlin, he throws himself into foreign affairs and earned the media nickname Aussenkanzler (chancellor of foreign affairs). But on the larger international stage he fared no better. The war in Iran brought him into conflict with President Trump, with whom Merz had still been in good standing. He called the conflict with Iran “not our war” and added that Iran is “humiliating” America. Trump is threatening to withdraw American troops from Germany.

Germany has no leverage vis-à-vis the United States. Merz keeps losing. So does his French partner, President Macron, who cuts a fine figure in Europe but is a clownish character at home. The American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, pointed out that France, in military operations in Africa, pretends to colonial grandeur but is dependent on American transport aircraft.

There is one arena where Germany does exert direct influence: the EU. There Germany usually protects German showpieces. Traditionally that is the auto industry. The former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, nicknamed “Genosse der Bosse” (comrade of the bosses), stood squarely behind the Volkswagen group in the state of Lower Saxony, where Schröder began his political career.

Merz Finds New EU Taxes Unacceptable

In lobbying work, Germany was usually outdone by France. The French have their pawns in the European Commission; the Germans in the European Parliament. EU enlargement made that pattern more complex. Merz wants to do in Brussels what cannot be done in Berlin.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Commission, wants a total sum of 2,000 billion euros for the 2028-2034 budget period; the European Parliament, like the never-satisfied Very Hungry Caterpillar, even wants 2,200 billion. In the current budget period it is 1,200 billion. She demands new EU taxes. Merz cut straight through it: “unacceptable and impossible to sell.” Von der Leyen fell silent.

Hollowing Out AI Legislation at the European Level

Germany acts more assertively in Brussels the more its own country stagnates. Thus Germany, together with Austria, turns against EU legislative proposals on Artificial Intelligence (AI), calling them “too unambitious.” According to Berlin, “more courage” is needed and it must be “simpler.” It is striking that Germany is practically operating as a “cavalier seul” (going it alone).

Germany wants AI requirements not to be included in the EU’s AI legislation, but to be laid down in the sectoral legislation of the member states. This is a wish of large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch. At least ten member states, including the Netherlands, are opposed. Germany is in fact hollowing out AI legislation at the European level.

Another theme is the “Industrial Fund” of 400 billion euros, where Poland wants a broader regional distribution of projects, while Germany believes that most of the money should go to the most competitive and innovative projects, regardless of geographic location. Poland and Germany have opposing interests. Germany also wants a European Palantir, following the example of the American data-analysis giant.

In order to be less dependent on the United States, Germany is seeking closer contacts with the “Global South,” countries such as Brazil in Latin America, plus Singapore and Australia in Southeast Asia. These are “medium-sized countries,” serving as a counterweight. Germany is also lobbying, as a peacemaker, to become a member of the UN Security Council.

Bonnie and Clyde

The SPD likewise makes its presence felt abroad. Klingbeil was prominently present at the “Global Progressive Mobilization” in Barcelona on April 17 and 18 to warn the world against “the rise of the far right.” That last term is a euphemism, referring to Trump and the AfD. Present were Brazilian President Lula da Silva, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The organizer was Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who set himself up as a champion of the left, something he began during the Gaza conflict. He turned against Israel, closed the Spanish embassy there, and subsequently opened a Spanish embassy in Iran. Sánchez casts himself as the “left-wing conscience” of Europe, while his wife Begoña is being prosecuted in Spain for fraud and corruption. The public prosecutor is demanding a prison sentence of 24 years. The Werdegang (career trajectory) of Sánchez and spouse seems like a Spanish version of “Bonnie and Clyde.”

Fatalism and Stubbornness

Merz and Klingbeil cannot solve their problems in Germany with activism “im Ausland” (abroad). The core of those problems lies in wrong policy: a planned economy and the inability to change course together. German energy and climate policy ushered in economic decline, combined with excessive immigration from countries with completely different cultures. On energy policy, Merz has talked himself into a corner. During a visit by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to Berlin, Merz said: “Previous German governments decided to phase out nuclear energy. That decision is irreversible.”

A fatalistic line of reasoning. The German nuclear power plants have not (yet) been dismantled, but shut down or closed. Some, such as the KKE Emsland in Lingen, just across the Dutch border, could perhaps be brought back into use. But the political courage is lacking. Merz effectively believes: German governments wrongly closed nuclear power plants. That was a mistake, but nothing can be done about it. We carry on undeterred down the wrong road. In short: German “dickköpfigkeit” (pigheadedness).

The quarreling couple Merz-Klingbeil acts tough abroad but is “tote Hose” (dead in the water) at home. Whoever lays the political map of Germany next to the geographic one sees that East Germany largely votes AfD and West Germany is politically fragmented, with a rising AfD in the mix. There is still a wall; not physical but mental.

“The Schmerz of Merz”

Columnist Harald Martenstein recently wrote in Welt am Sonntag: “The GDR had a system of party bigwigs who were cut off from those ‘outside’ and were chiefly preoccupied with holding on to power and with intrigues ‘inside.’ In the GDR, work was simulated, nothing new was created, and problems were camouflaged, until it no longer worked.”

This autumn there are three East German state elections: the city-state of Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With the AfD as frontrunner in the latter two.

The “Schmerz (pain) of Merz” continues. The question is: for how much longer?

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Den Haag mag wel wat minder zelfgenoegzaam zijn over het Hongarije van Victor Orban, zoveel fraaier is onze netwerkcorruptie niet)

For years the Dutch House of Representatives held intense debates about Viktor Orban’s Hungary, for many the contemporary “Count Dracula on the Danube.” His name was treated as a curse, as it was by PRO member of parliament Kati Piri, whose father fled Hungary in 1956. For Piri it was “personal,” even though Orban had earned his stripes as a dissident in the Eastern Bloc. Yet in The Hague “Orban” was the bogeyman. That had more to do with The Hague’s need for an exorcism than with Orban himself. Now he is gone, has acknowledged his defeat, congratulated his opponent Péter Magyar, and left. A real Dracula would have lashed out ferociously.

On 19 May 2021, in her maiden speech in the House of Representatives, Piri spoke about her father and his departure from Hungary during the uprising against the invasion by Warsaw Pact countries in 1956. He saw no future there anymore but occasionally returned as a tourist, from the Netherlands. He would then say: “we are back in that dark country.”

Tired of Orban, but Not of His Policies

Orban grew up in Hungary as a young dissident and in 1989 demanded the withdrawal of the Soviet troops still stationed there. As prime minister he worked toward Hungary’s accession to NATO and the EU. In 2022 there was great excitement in the House because forecasts predicted that Orban would lose the parliamentary elections. Members of parliament such as Piri, Sjoerdsma (D66) and Van der Lee (GroenLinks) looked forward to the fall of the “potentate.” But Orban won, and disappointment remained.

Do these parties now have reason to celebrate? Not really, except that Orban is leaving, and after 16 years as prime minister it was about time. Hungarians had grown tired of the bombastic Orban, but not of his policies. In the new Hungarian parliament, TISZA, the party of Péter Magyar, took 53.3% of the vote and gathered 138 of the 199 parliamentary seats. A convincing victory. Orban’s Fidesz was stuck at 38.1% with 55 seats, while a small nationalist party won 6 seats with 5.8%.

In the new Hungarian parliament sit: the centre-right, the right, and the far right. Not a single left-wing party cleared the 5% electoral threshold; social liberals of the VVD/D66 type, socialists and greens (PRO) also fell by the wayside. And yet, last June, there were members of the Dutch parliament from VVD, PvdA/GL, D66 and the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, to demonstrate in Budapest against the ban on the Pride march, which incidentally took place undisturbed. In short: Dutch politicians demonstrated in Budapest to burnish their own political profile. Their kindred spirits in Hungary were not elected. The name Orban served in the Netherlands as imported glory of resistance.

Cronyism

Criticism of Orban is largely justified. Magyar split off from Fidesz after his wife, Judit Varga, resigned from the Orban government as Minister of Justice. The Hungarian president had granted clemency to a man who turned out to have been involved in child abuse. Varga had co-signed the clemency request. For Magyar that was reason to leave Fidesz and found his own party. The affair caused the Orban government enormous damage.

A carousel of scandals arises when parties and individuals stay in power too long. That certainly applied to Orban. As a dissident he fought for a democracy that under him gradually slid into cronyism: a rule of friends who pass the ball to one another. The bigger the cronyism, the more room for the corruption that ultimately permeates society and blocks the economy. Whoever needs an appointment at the doctor’s must first lay a wad of Hungarian banknotes on the table. That affects the ordinary citizen across the entire country and also explains the scale of Orban’s defeat. As soon as visiting the doctor becomes difficult, the voter’s patience runs out fast. A loud show of support from American vice president J.D. Vance, meant to give Orban a hand, achieves nothing. A grandly announced offer of billions in investment from the U.S. is met with disbelief. The voter wants “bread and butter.”

The Hague’s Cronyism

That cronyism did Orban in. But does the Netherlands have its own “Hague cronyism”? A scarcely transparent system of (political) appointments and subsidy flows in which, of all people, a “progressive administrative elite” hands out jobs and subsidies. Mayors, directors of government agencies, senior civil service posts, NGOs. “Networking” is the key word. “Network corruption” the consequence. The result: the state grows, the economy stagnates.

Long-ruling parties lie at the root of it, as the CDA once did. Orban ruled for 16 years; the VVD now does too. D66 and PRO are taking over the banner. Top positions for male friends, and above all for female ones. That this cronyism breeds intellectual inbreeding and diploma hyperinflation can be seen in the sitting cabinet. The citizen is the one who pays the price and ultimately takes revenge at the ballot box. Precisely what happened to Orban.

Terror Háza

In Brussels the flags came out when the Hungarian voter sent Orban home. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, congratulated Magyar at once. She compared the electoral victory to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. That comparison is typical of an ignorant Commission president who, as a German, ought to be ashamed.

I was recently in Budapest to soak up a bit of the atmosphere and visited the Terror Háza (House of Terror) where the Hungarian secret police made short work of dissidents in 1956. Show trials followed. Those sentenced to death were locked up in small cells in the gruesome building at Andrássy 60, among them Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who advocated a “separate road to socialism.” Von der Leyen thought she would shine, but struck false notes. The crushing of the Uprising was worse than Orban.

Anyone who thinks the Magyar government will dance to Von der Leyen’s tune is mistaken. On 22 January of this year, the “Patriots for Europe” group tabled a motion of no confidence against Von der Leyen. Magyar is currently a member of the European Parliament with 6 fellow TISZA members in the EPP group of Christian Democrats. They effectively backed the motion against Von der Leyen by absenting themselves from the vote, and were punished by the group leadership: a six-month “speaking ban.” That punishment also struck the two-member BBB delegation, which switched to the European Conservatives (ECR). British Conservatives once characterized the EPP as: “a prison run by Germans.”

Von der Leyen expects Magyar to obey. But he has a different agenda. Magyar announced that Hungary will continue importing Russian oil, that it will not take part in EU loans for Ukraine, that it opposes a swift EU accession by Ukraine, and he likewise advocates lifting sanctions against Russia. Moreover, Ukraine must treat its Hungarian minority better. Magyar turns against the EU migration pact; above all, no Islamic asylum seekers. Spot the differences with Orban.

A History Refresher for Von der Leyen

That is not what Brussels wants, nor what the Dutch minority cabinet wants. During the Orban period the EU froze 17 billion euros in EU funds over “the rule of law.” And 10 billion in the Corona Recovery Fund. Von der Leyen uses those sums to force Hungary into an about-face: money in exchange for concessions. In short: a Brussels Diktat! Magyar has room to manoeuvre on the Ukraine support package, but if he caves on asylum, he signs his own political death warrant. Even the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, the former “President of Europe,” did not dare to do that.

Perhaps Von der Leyen will visit Budapest, with the House of Terror and what remains of the Jewish quarter on the agenda, for her much-needed history refresher. The haughty and slogan-laden style of Von der Leyen already comes across as irritating in the Netherlands, but it runs directly counter to the mentality in Eastern Europe, where people are beginning to perceive Brussels as a new version of the former Moscow.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

Day 35 situation report on the Iran conflict covering regional spillover, homeland threats, cyber operations, and diplomatic developments.

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