| French far right lurches toward power. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary to lead the EU for the next six months. AfD states aim to govern Germany. Pro-Russian patriarch elected in Bulgaria. In the US, Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance augurs his election route in November. To many readers, these summary titles from 1 July may appear disturbing or even cataclysmic, but they are not surprising. All these developments were largely foreseen in the global or national context. It looks like there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the European Union. Moreover, it is worrying that all the enemies of the EU act according to their plan, while the EU is the victim because it is the only geopolitical entity obviously without a plan. An illustration of this lack of plan and ideas is the agreement reached by national EU leaders to put forward Ursula von der Leyen for a second term at the helm of what appears to be the EU’s most powerful institution, the European Commission. We have already argued that VDL is synonymous with ‘more of the same’. In a democracy, people re-elect a leader, be it a local mayor or a president, when they are satisfied with their performance. The EU performance is far from satisfactory, be it in terms of competitiveness at the global scale or living standards as ordinary people perceive them. With this leadership, fixing the EU economy looks like a mission impossible. The next step is the vote on the von der Leyen candidacy by MEPs in the European Parliament, expected on 18 July. Although the outgoing Commission chief is supported by three mainstream groups (EPP, S&D, Liberals), which have 399 seats, 38 more than the minimum threshold, the vote is secret and the risk of rebel votes should not be underestimated. | 
