Věra Jourová, the EU Commission’s Vice-President for Values and Transparency until last week, parted ways with her old job by whining about the increasingly pronounced ‘democratic backsliding’ in Europe one last time.
In an interview with Euronews on Thursday, December 5th, Jourová said it was “shocking” to see more and more EU member states planning to replicate measures to protect children from premature exposure to woke ideology or to prevent foreign NGOs from interfering in their democratic processes, despite her best efforts throughout the last five years.
Jourová began by singling out Hungary, the country she said was the most concerning in this regard with its 2021 ‘child protection law’—which banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality and gender-transition in schools without parental consent—and a subsequent piece of legislation to protect the country’s sovereignty from foreign interference.
But despite the European Commission freezing tens of billions worth of EU funds, pressuring other member states into joining its lawsuits against Hungary, and even threatening to take away its membership rights—including the right to vote (and veto) in the European Council—Brussels still has to deal with the alarming trend of similar bills popping up across the EU.
“What is shocking to me is how infectious these laws are,” Jourová said.
The ex-values chief specifically mentioned Bulgaria and Slovakia, which plan to follow suit in banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools, as well as Italy and Romania where there are also concerns about the erosion of LGBT rights.
Interestingly, this didn’t prevent either Romania or Italy from getting an executive vice president in the second von der Leyen Commission, which shows that belonging to the right political camp in Brussels is still more important than whatever the term “EU values” entails.
Another big problem is the gradual erosion of media freedom, Jourová said, primarily pointing at Hungary and Slovakia, as well as the pre-Tusk Polish government.
“The public service media are so important in democratic systems; especially in the era of disinformation, public service media should be the media where people can find trustworthy, fact-checked information, evidence-based truth,” Jourová said.
Now this is the most ironic part coming from her, since it was Jourová who is strongly suspected of having instructed the Slovenian supreme court in 2023 to begin the unprecedented purge of conservatives from the entire media landscape—starting with the public broadcasters, of course. She also called Elon Musk a “promoter of evil” because he allows free speech to flourish on X, which really puts her usual rants about “disinformation” into perspective.
The cherry on top is that, despite being in charge of ‘transparency’ in the EU, Jourová refused to disclose documents related to her Slovenian visit even after being called on to do so by the European ombudsman. Her scandals in the area probably contributed to the decision to no longer include a ‘transparency’ portfolio in the new Commission, although von der Leyen’s utter disrespect for transparent conduct might have been an even greater factor.
Nonetheless, the more someone like Jourová is concerned about the ‘democratic backsliding’ in conservative countries, the more you know those governments are on the right track.
