DISINFO: Führer Ursula is striving for absolute power in the EU
SUMMARY
Ursula von der Leyen, we call her Führer Ursula, is trying to siphon off to the European Commission those powers and authorities that, by EU-wide decisions, weren't transferred to Brussels but remain with national governments. And she's very much in this mood.
RESPONSE
Disinformation narrative targeting the President of the European Commission, accusing her of usurping power.
The European Commission cannot itself change the legal allocation of competences between the EU and Member States. Under Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union, the EU may act only within competences conferred upon it by the Member States through the Treaties, while non-conferred competences remain with the Member States.
The President of the European Commission cannot unilaterally alter this division of powers. Changing the EU's competences requires amending the Treaties, agreed by the Member States and ratified under their constitutional procedures. The claim therefore presents an unsubstantiated political allegation as a fact and conflates the European Commission with the EU's collective decision-making system.
As for the accusation of Nazism, pro-Kremlin outlets repeatedly talk about the “revival” of Nazism in the West. Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a widespread pro-Kremlin disinformation technique and has been used by Russia to justify the invasion of Ukraine by portraying it as a “denazification operation”. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground before its full-scale kinetic attack, with “Nazi Ukraine” being one of its most prominent disinformation features.
See other disinformation cases on Josep Borrell, Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen.