I have to admit – the European Union and the European mentality is a never-ending puzzlement to me. A study in contrasts of lofty humanitarian language and collective utopian ideals, simultaneously crushed repeatedly by the leviathan nature of the intrusive and authoritarian bureaucracy they’ve created for themselves. Every last edict and scheme hatched to keep the Brussels Brahmins ruling the roost in power and wrest what little heart and soul of rebellion against their dominance still exists from the peasants trapped in their web.
It’s not just the EU – that’s merely the largest example of the phenomenon. It exists in nearly every Western European capital, as their Parliaments circumvent the will of the voters repeatedly, either with deals done before elections – witness Marine Le Pen’s victorious Round 1 party losing after the skullduggery in Round 2 when the 2024 snap elections were held. Or the repeated rebuff of German voters who have chosen Alice Weidel’s Alternativ for Germany repeatedly, only to find them frozen out from their rightful voice in government by the so-called ‘cordon sanitaire’ set up by angry opposition coalitions banding together.
The United States is lectured and hectored by our European superiors on everything from freedom to democracy, even as these same moral nannies blithely do the opposite of what is coming out of their mouths time and again.
This is another one of those confounding incidents where the disparate messages are nothing short of amazing.
If you all remember, I had a post the other day about French farmers spraying pooh in anger over the Mercosur deal, which my favorite Bond villainess, EU Imperial President Ursula Von der Leyen, signed on the 17th of this month.
The massive trade deal between the EU and the South American trade block of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay has spent two long decades percolating and causing much angst among those in the agricultural industry in Europe. Brussels Brahmins went through hell and repeated onslaughts of tractors and furious farmers from Dutch to French, Irish, and in between to get this over the finish line. They felt, especially now, that it would bolster the EU’s standing in South America at a time when the United States and the dreaded Orange Man have the Americans ascendant.
European farmers, on the other hand, have felt betrayed by the very idea of flooding the continent with cheap South American food products, which, infuriatingly to them, are not required to be grown to the stringent standards that EU produce and agricultural products are held to. Worse, there is no quarter given to European farmers in terms of any slack on those requirements to compete on a more level playing field with the incoming flood of foodstuffs.
…The agreement’s advocates consider it a major opportunity for European industries and a way to bolster the EU’s geostrategic position, especially at a time of constant friction with the United States. But it has also drawn outrage from farmers worried about the implications of cheap and lower-standard food from South American countries flooding into the European market.
Mass protests were held the day before the vote in Strasbourg, with thousands of farmers driving tractors surrounding the European Parliament and clashing with police.
Their voices have been heard and acknowledged in some countries, with France’s Macron – who cannot afford to lose another constituency – and Poland’s Nawrocki both refusing to support the deal in the face of quite a bit of EU pushback.
Which makes what happened yesterday really shocking, considering how this was one of Von der Leyen’s pet projects for ever. The EU Parliament in Strasboug was supposed to begin the process to ratify signing this long simmering and controversial agreement, and instead?
Out of the blue, Parliament voted to punt it to the EU Court of Justice!
After clearing major political hurdles after more than two decades, the mammoth trade deal now faces further delay pending a judicial verdict.
The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to refer the EU-Mercosur trade agreement to the EU Court of Justice, a move that significantly delays the deal and could potentially derail its final approval.
As expected, the vote was tight, with 334 MEPs in favour of the referral, 324 against, and 11 abstaining.
The European Commission could still provisionally apply the deal, provided the move were endorsed by member states.
…The Court will now consider whether the trade deal is compatible with EU treaties.
The MEPs who proposed the referral consider that splitting the deal to leave the trade part for the approval of the EU Council and the EU Parliament only was a tactic by the European Commission to “prevent [member states] national parliaments from having their say on the agreement”, and could be considered unlawful by the judges.
The resolution calling to challenge the agreement also challenges the legality of the so-called “rebalancing mechanism” introduced in the agreement, which would allow Mercosur countries to take compensatory measures if future EU laws reduce their exports to Europe.
The referral adopted on Wednesday suspends the approval procedure in the European Parliament, which was set for a final vote in the coming months. The EU top court’s ruling could take more than a year to be issued, and in the interim, the deal’s approval will be frozen.
How about that? A collective body of parliament members who are elected – as Von der Leyen is not – by citizens in their home countries and sent to Strasbourg to represent their countries acted in a contary fashion to what unelected bureacrats had done.
Sounds very democratic for once, doesn’t it?
Good for them.
But, ah – this is Europe.
The German chancellor wasted no time weighing in about the vote the peoples’ representatives took.
HERE, HERE, NOW – LET’S NOT HAVE ANY OF THAT PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY STUFF
You see, Herr Friedrich ‘Old Magoo’ Merz doesn’t like it.
Germany calls to ram through Mercosur deal as EU Parliament throws up roadblock
Major clash looms after European lawmakers send Latin American trade deal for a judicial review that could take two years.
Germany, the chief backer of the European Union’s Mercosur trade deal, called on Brussels to go ahead and implement it even after lawmakers voted on Wednesday to send the accord for judicial review, setting up a major clash between the bloc’s institutions and its two largest economies.
The European Parliament voted by a razor-thin margin on Wednesday to pass a motion to seek a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the EU on whether the Mercosur deal complies with the EU treaties. It was a blow for Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who made a last-minute appeal hours earlier to MEPs to advance the deal.
The vote widened a rift between France, which has fought an epic rearguard action against the Latin American megadeal to protect its farmers, and a Germany desperate to boost industrial exporters reeling from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade aggression.
“The European Parliament’s decision on the Mercosur Agreement is regrettable,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on X. “It misjudges the geopolitical situation. We are convinced of the agreement’s legality. No more delays. The agreement must now be applied provisionally.”
The peasants’ decision is ‘regrettable’ because, while it could destroy what’s left of European agriculture, Merz is desperate to avoid the impending collapse of the German industrial sector. So he is more than willing to plow the farmers under, God forbid he should stop building windmills and address the core issue of energy instead.
This is the European version of ‘democracy,’ once again, in all its feudal glory. These leaders allow the peasants the illusion of self-determination – within limits – but if the lower orders should choose unwisely, then the benevolent dictators burst forth to save them from the error of their ways.
I’m delighted they are no longer able to pretend they’re fooling anyone.
Isn’t the EU tactic to keep voting until the ‘correct’ answer is arrived at?
— Trickytaylors (@trickytaylors) January 22, 2026
I am also beyond tickled that we have, at long last, an adminstration who no longer believes that we have to kneel in fealty out of courtesy to tiny tyrants in business suits.
Every time Trump and Co. call these frauds out is a glory unto itself.
That’s how democracy works.
Ed, David, John, and I work hard every day here at HotAir in our efforts to continue revealing Democrats’ plans to lead America down a dangerous path.
But we can’t do it without the help and support of our tremendous VIP community.
Please help us continue to expose Democrats, their unhinged, anti-American progressive allies, and the media’s left-wing protection racket by reading news you can trust. Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your membership!
