The American think tank The Gatestone Institute has published an article by Robert Williams criticising what it describes as growing authoritarianism within European institutions. Caliber.Az takes a closer look at the article's key points.


"Former high-ranking officials from the institutions of the European Union are beginning to speak out against the undemocratic regime of the unelected, untransparent, unaccountable European Commission -- especially under European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.


'Today, the Commission is trying to take control. That's not in line with the [EU] treaty,' said Charles Michel, former president of the European Council.


The European Commission was never meant to have any power beyond what its EU member states granted it. Michel, however, noted that the EU, by using the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other crises, has expanded its authority into areas that were always intended to remain in the hands of member states.


Fabrice Leggeri, who from 2015 to 2022 served as executive director of Frontex, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, has also become extremely critical of the EU, and the European Commission in particular.


Leggeri, after facing continued pushback from the Commission for doing the job that he was hired to do, resigned in 2022.


'I realised that... there was a huge political gap between me and the Commission. My concept of the mission was to establish a law enforcement authority to help nation state authorities protect their borders, not to be an NGO or a humanitarian agency,' he said.


Today, Leggeri is a Member of the European Parliament for France's Rassemblement Nationale party (RN), headed by Jordan Bardella.


 When Leggeri informed Bardella and former party leader Marine Le Pen about what really goes on inside the European Commission.


Von der Leyen -- still under investigation for alleged wrongdoing in the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines in the European Union, "Pfizergate" -- would reportedly like even more power. She has been pushing to abolish EU unanimity rules. Currently, they ensure that in sensitive policy areas -- such as questions of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, finances and taxation, EU membership eligibility and negotiations with potential member states, issues pertaining to justice and home affairs, citizenship and more -- every EU member state has a veto right. Von der Leyen wants to change that to just a majority decision.


After the election defeat of Hungary's Viktor Orbán in April, von der Leyen again pushed her agenda: "I think moving to qualified majority voting in foreign policy is an important way to avoid systemic blockages as we've seen in the past," she said, referring to Orbán's frequent use of Hungary's veto when he was prime minister.


The Middle East Forum's Jose Lev Alvarez described how Orbán, one of Israel's staunchest supporters in the EU, leveraged his country's veto:


'Budapest used its veto power—enabled by the unanimity requirement in European Union foreign policy—to block joint statements condemning Israeli operations in Gaza, sanctions packages aimed at harming communities in the West Bank, and calls for unilateral ceasefires. Diplomatic records show Orbán's government successfully intervened on at least six major Israel-related initiatives between late 2023 and early 2025,' Alvarez said.


Former President and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus warned in a 2009 address to the European Parliament about what others are discovering only now:


'The present decision-making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European Parliament, this arrangement has been missing... Here, only one single alternative is being promoted, and those who dare think about a different option are labelled as enemies of European integration. Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition. It was through this experience that we learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom. That is why political alternatives must exist,' the article writes.


By Aghakazim Guliyev