In the rarified, oxygen-deprived air of Davos, where the world’s most self-important vultures gather to discuss how best to pick the carcass of the global economy, Ursula von der Leyen has once again taken the stage. The President of the European Commission, a woman whose primary talent is maintaining a perfectly coiffed exterior while the continent she ostensibly leads descends into a structural abyss, spent her time at the World Economic Forum preaching the gospel of 'European independence.' It is a fascinating choice of words for a bureaucratic entity that has spent the last forty years outsourcing its defense to the Americans, its energy to the Russians, and its manufacturing to the Chinese. To call this 'independence' now is like a middle-aged child announcing they are finally moving out of their parents' basement, provided the parents continue to pay the rent, the phone bill, and the insurance premiums.

Von der Leyen’s speech was anchored in the phrase 'seismic change,' a term politicians use when they want to sound like they are observing a natural disaster rather than the predictable consequences of their own staggering incompetence. This 'seismic change,' we are told, necessitates a new, sovereign Europe. It’s a delightful bit of performative sovereignty. The European Union, a construct held together by nothing more than shared debt and a mutual hatred of efficiency, now believes it can pivot toward a glorious future by simply uttering the right buzzwords in a Swiss ski resort. The audacity would be impressive if it weren't so profoundly exhausting. Both the performative Left, with their obsession over 'green transitions' that rely on slave labor in mines they’ll never visit, and the moronic Right, with their fever dreams of isolationist utopias that collapse the moment a ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal, are equally complicit in this delusion.

Then we have the crown jewel of her announcement: the 'historic' trade agreement with India. Von der Leyen beamed at the prospect of a market comprising two billion people. In the neoliberal mind, people are not citizens, souls, or even biological entities; they are simply 'market units.' The strategy is transparently desperate. Having realized that tethering the European economy to an expansionist Russian gas station was perhaps a tactical error, and noticing that China is currently more interested in total hegemony than mutual prosperity, the EU has decided to look for a new dealer. India is the latest target for European desperation. It is not about 'shared values' or 'democratic alignment,' regardless of what the press releases scream. It is about finding a billion new hands to build the trinkets that keep the European middle class from realizing their purchasing power has vanished into the ether.

This 'seismic shift' is less an earthquake and more a controlled demolition. The European Commission wants us to believe that independence is a choice they are bravely making, rather than a cliff they are being pushed off. By framing this trade deal as a victory, Von der Leyen ignores the reality that Europe has nothing left to offer the world but its own nostalgia. We are watching the management of a high-end hospice care facility. The 'independence' they seek is merely the freedom to choose which external power will dictate their interest rates and environmental standards next. Whether it’s Washington, New Delhi, or Beijing, the result remains the same: the European citizen is a passenger on a bus with no driver, listening to a pre-recorded message about the importance of seatbelts.

Davos itself provides the perfect backdrop for this theater of the absurd. There is something truly sickening about discussing 'global shocks' and 'humanitarian necessity' while sipping champagne that costs more than a year’s wages for the 'market units' in the India trade deal. It is a closed loop of elitist self-congratulation. The Left will celebrate the 'multilateralism' of the deal, ignoring the environmental cost of shipping half the planet’s goods across oceans in diesel-choked tankers. The Right will grumble about 'sovereignty' while simultaneously demanding the cheap consumer goods that such deals provide. They are two sides of the same counterfeit coin. Ursula von der Leyen isn’t leading Europe toward a new dawn; she’s just rearranging the deck chairs on a luxury liner that has already hit the iceberg. The 'seismic change' she fears is already here, and no amount of trade deals or Davos oratory will stop the ground from opening up beneath her perfectly polished heels. It’s not independence. It’s a graceful way of falling.