Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (alias Macron and Merkel)

When I saw the excellent performance of Verdi’s opera Macbeth by Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerpen, Belgium, recently, I couldn’t help to compare its story with the power politics as you can see it every day everywhere in the world. Even more, I had to think of a special case, namely the way the new president of the European Commission was chosen by the government leaders and president of the countries of the European Union. Or rather, I had to think of the intrigues by two of them: The French president Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor Angela Merkel. But let me first tell the main lines of the story of the opera, based on the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare (which goes back to a true history that took place in 1040).

The main characters in the opera are the Scottish general Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth. When King Duncan of Scotland is Macbeth’s guest in his castle, Lady Macbeth, in her lust for power and her desire to become Queen of Scotland, incites her husband to murder Duncan. And so Macbeth stabs him, while he is asleep. Now Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become the new King and Queen. However, they fear the Scottish general Banquo, since a prophecy says that his descendants will inherit the throne. Therefore, Macbeth arranges to kill Banquo and his son as well by hiring two men for the job. Banquo doesn’t survive the attempt but his son escapes. The opera ends with the fall and death of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

So far the opera. Now the other story: The nomination of the new president of the European Commission. As is usual in a democracy, after parliamentary elections a new government must be appointed in accordance with the results of the elections. As a rule this starts with the designation of a new prime minister. For the European Union (a confederation of 27 states – assuming that the Union Kingdom has already left the club) this means in the same way that a new European Commission must be chosen, to start with the election of a new president of the commission. On the basis of the results of the elections for the EU parliament the most likely candidate for this function was the socialist Frans Timmermans, with the leaders of the christian-democratic and liberal fractions as acceptable alternatives.

Democracy? In the EU the procedure is that the government leaders and president of the member countries come together in conclave in Brussels, and after long discussions and long nights they come with their nominations for the presidency of the European Commission and for some other important functions and then the parliament gives its consent. Of course, this is the theory, for in practice it is so that only Germany and France decide and that the other government leaders are simply assessors. Actually, what the parliament thinks is unimportant. For isn’t it so that elections are hold only for keeping the people quiet? So, instead of nominating Timmermans (or one of the other acceptable candidates) as president of the European Commission, Macron and Merkel proposed the German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a person who is hardly known outside Germany (and who is the minister of an army known for its broken aircraft and submarines and guns with crooked barrels, and a shortage of everything that an army needs, including soldiers). So when I was in the theatre in Antwerpen a week ago, I couldn’t help to draw a parallel between the opera and the election soap in Brussels: Just as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth first murdered Duncan, the King of Scotland, and then Banquo, their possible rival, in the same way Macron and Merkel first killed Timmermans (too strong) and then Democracy (a future danger). Is there a case of power politics in a “democracy” that is more cynical than what happened there in Brussels? But look what happened to Macbeth and his wife ...

Now it’s up to the parliament to accept the nomination of von der Leyen or not. At the moment that I publish this blog it was not known yet what it will do. Is it important? Sometimes it’s not the facts that count but the intentions are, even if these facts didn’t happen.