This should alarm all Europeans. Emily O’Reilly, who’s been serving as the EU’s chief accountability watchdog for more than a decade, reveals that the EU commission is a totally opaque body run by unelected “powerful consiglieri” (a mafia term). politico.eu/article/consigli… She discloses that over her 11-year tenure she was never able to meet even once with Von der Leyen, even though she's the official European Ombudsman which, again, is the watchdog that theoretically needs to hold Von der Leyen accountable... She also says that she's incredibly "frustrated" that her "access to documents" requests to the EU Commission take "months" to be processed and at the end "they still say no". In effect we learn here that the most powerful institution in the EU is run like a black box by unelected officials (the "powerful consiglieri" O’Reilly speaks of) who systematically block oversight attempts, even from their own official watchdog. Which raises the obvious question: if Von der Leyen refuses accountability to Europeans, to whom does the commission answer? It also frankly raises question about O’Reilly herself and the European Ombudsman body: how on earth did she allow herself to be systematically stonewalled and blocked from doing her job for over a decade without raising public alarm sooner about this?

Wow, beautiful and rare takedown of German FM Annalena Baerbock by the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. "I have to be very honest if I may Annalena, the standing of countries like Germany is also a victim [of this conflict]"