Europe’s Existential Crisis

Americans pay little attention to Europe, other than to sneer at the Euro-elites and bemoan the fecklessness of European leaders. I am guilty of both sins. Mea culpa.

But I am also aware of the coming existential crisis facing Europe as a whole, and the European Union quite specifically.

It comes in several flavors, and all of them are bitter.

First is the shock and embarrassment  posed by the influx of 72,000 North African Muslim wannabe migrants into Ceuta, one of two tiny Spanish enclaves in Morocco, just miles away from the Spanish mainland near Gilbraltar.

The inability — or unwillingness — of the Spanish authorities to repulse them has provoked a Europe-wide reaction, prompting Italy’s center-right prime minister, Georgia Meloni, to impose passport controls on visitors from Spain for the first time since the Schengen accords of 1995 created a “borderless” European space.

Spain retaliated by imposing controls of its own on visitors from Italy.

This week, Meloni teamed up with her center-left Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen to jointly condemn uncontrolled migration.

“We are both proud of Europe’s Christian cultural heritage and want to protect it,” they said on Monday.

“We expect those who come to our countries and choose to make Europe their home to respect our values and not seek to impose ways of life on us that we do not share.”

Meloni drafted a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden condemning lax EU immigration policies, which was joined by Frederiksen and 21 EU leaders.

Immigration has been a long-simmering issue ever since then German Chanceller Angela Merkel opened the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of Syrian “refugees” in 2015. The Ceuta stampede is just the latest chapter.

Fabrice Leggeri, a Frenchman who was executive director of the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency from 2015 to 2022, fought tooth and nail to standardize EU immigration procedures and to transform his bureaucratic backwater into a real law enforcement agency.

He was stymied by the European Commissioner in charge of Home Affairs, Ylva Johanssen of Sweden. “You don’t need guns and uniforms because migrants come in search of love,” she said. “Europe is an ageing continent, so whether you like it or not, it is your job to welcome migrants.'”

Take that, you old right-wing white Christian snook!

Next comes EU enlargement.

Standing at the gates to join the 27-EU members are tiny Montenegro and Albania. Then comes Iceland, should its citizens approve a resumption of EU membership talks in an upcoming referendum.

While only Albania, which is predominantly Muslim, is controversial, if the three are approved they could open the door to membership talks with Ukraine and Serbia.

Ukraine would require a peace deal with Russia, which would be less likely should Ukraine be rewarded with EU membership. Serbia, a Russian ally and gateway to the Russian economy, poses its own problems.

And finally, there is the whole question of democracy and freedom.

EU citizens rail incessantly over the often ridiculous regulations enacted by the unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission that affect their daily lives.

Many of these are motivated by Europe’s powerful “Green” parties and lobbyists. Others stem from the left-wing, anti-capitalist, anti-farmer bias of the Eurocrats.

One case in point: the reintroduction of wolves onto agricultural lands that rid themselves of the predators generations ago. Today, the wolf packs are protected as endangered species even as they devastate sheep herds from Sweden to southern Italy.

I know farmers who brave the authorities and secretly hunt down wolves endangering their livelihoods. They operate as a veritable underground resistance movement, communicating using coded texts, always watchful of the police.

It’s a running joke that a young Swedish girl could get gang-raped by Syrian immigrants and the police wouldn’t lift a finger. But if a farmer got caught killing a wolf, they would exhaust every investigative and prosecutorial resource to put him away for years.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden is certainly aware of the dissenters among the European Parliament, mainly from the populist or center-right parties.

But instead of accommodating them, she is attempting to reinforce the powers of the unelected Commission by doing away with the existing rule of unanimity when it comes to foreign policy decisions.

For years, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban vetoed European Commission policies that invariably criticized Israel, supported the Palestinians, or criticized the United States.

His election loss only emboldened Ms von der Leyden, who frequently clashed with Orban personally and in public.

Now she wants to allow a simple majority of member states to approve foreign policy dictates, a shift that would essentially create the “tyranny of the majority” America’s founders warned about 250 years ago.

Former Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, a former EU Council president, is scathing in his criticism of von der Leyden. “Today, the Commission is trying to take control. That’s not in line with the [EU] treaty,” he told a Belgian magazine in April. “There is super authoritarian governance.”

Much but not all of those new powers came during the COVID years or in response to the war in Ukraine. But the anti-democratic gene runs deep among the Euro-crats.

Former President and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus lived through decades of Soviet Communism imposed on his country after WWII. Already in 2009, he was warning about the lack of democratic institutions within the EU.

“The present decision-making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history… 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.”

Europe and the EU are at a crossroads. Down one road, Europe will become increasingly authoritative, increasingly centralized, while its founding cultures will be increasingly marginalized and demeaned in favor of Muslim immigration and multiculturalism. These were the faults that led Brexit, the British withdrawal from the EU.

Down another, Europe will return to its roots, celebrate its diverse cultures, its Christian and Jewish heritage, and honor the wishes of its member states and their people.

Count me skeptical, but I don’t see that democratic alternative on the horizon, at least not yet.

Except…. except perhaps in the South of France, a part of the world dear to my heart.

I once again returned to the French Riviera for the 82nd anniversary of the August 15, 1944, landings from Cavalaire that helped to liberate France from Nazi occupation. It’s always refreshing to see so many Frenchman, from old to young, donning World War II GI gear and driving through the streets in the jeeps, halftracks, trucks, and Sherman tanks.

As the mayor of Sainte-Maxime reminded us this morning, most of us have never known occupation. We come to the splendid beaches of the French Riviera for fun and leisure.

But imagine what the inhabitants of this town were thinking 82 years ago when they heard the roar of the Sherman tanks and the clanking of their tracks on the streets.

“That was the sound of freedom!” Mayor Vincent Morisse said.

Mayor Morisse invited us to remember the sacrifice of the fallen, and to remember also that the freedoms we enjoy today were purchased at a price.

Amen to that.

I discuss this and more on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can tune in live at 1 PM today on 104.9 FM or 550 AM or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app.

Yours in freedom.

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

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Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.