Maybe you are a lawyer? Maybe you are a member of a EU country with similar or even better laws than Sweden? Either way, let’s do our best that we can to give these criminal hell.
I happen to be an EU citizen and some days ago I made a formal complaint to the EU Commission that they are conducting foreign policy that they are explicitly forbidden to do by the EU’s founding charter. They already deleted some tweets and press releases but that is not enough.
In Sweden where I live there is a law that put a bureaucrat in prison for <2 years in prison for doing things outside of their jurisdiction. EU regulations only punish them with loss of pension.
With your help, I hope to increase the possibility of success or the annoyance that this path of complaint. Here is my original complaint:
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To whom it may concern, I have three issues that I need swiftly and clearly addressed:
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I want all members of the EU Commission to immediately stop representing EU in any professional capacity concerning matters of foreign policy.
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I want a public retraction of all statements on foreign policy that the commission has done.
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I want to know the range of disciplinary actions on individuals and other measures that will be taken to insure that it will not happen again.
The commission should not represent the EU externally in foreign policy according to section 3, article 17. (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:C2012/326/01) Yet, there has lately been several of examples of this. Here is the latest example from your own homepage:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_4954
In addition, there are numerous examples on Twitter and widely disseminated public statements where the commission’s president is speaking in an official capacity on foreign policy matters.
This is a clear overreach of power that seriously undermine our democracy and my civic rights as an EU citizen. In Sweden, these overreaches are called “trolöshet mot huvudman” and carries a maximum of two years in prison. I’m sure other countries have their equivalent as this is seen an important form of corruption.
If I see no change and I do not get a timely satisfactory response within 7 days, then I will pursue this elsewhere to it’s furthest extent.
Sincerely,
Their response:
You have refereed to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The EU has clearly and in the strongest wording condemned Hamas violent and indiscriminate terrorist attacks against Israel and deeply feel for the loss of human lives. We strongly emphasis Israel’s right to self defense according to human rights and international law against violent and indiscriminate attacks. We once again voicing for the protection of of all civilian at all times in accordance with human rights. This is a deceleration that is shared by the Commission and all the 27 member States which is evident of the announcement done by the European Council: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/sv/press/press-releases/2023/10/15/statement-agreed-by-the-27-members-of-the-european-council-on-the-situation-in-the-middle-east/
Analysis:
They simply didn’t address the core issue which makes me confident that we can hang them by the nose. The Council’s statement they referred to was done days after the Commission had already made several actions.
The president of the Commission is also a member of the Council. This should not be allowed because the Council do foreign policy while the Commission don’t. She would have to choose one or the other. Perception is still that Ursula von der Leyen is representing the EU as president and not as a council member.
Conclusion:
I’ll be happy with any help I can get but time is of the essence and I will call the EU in 9 h from now and ask them to give all the info as I will pursue criminal charges. Any help is valuable since I’m an engineer and not a lawyer.
Great comment! I will borrow some of your wordings but I want to keep this as simple as possible. The core issue is that the Commission can’t do foreign policy but the Council can. There has been a blur of the roles and they are trying to cover for it.
International law is something else. I can start a new line of questioning around that. Actually, I’d love to do that! However, I don’t want to mix this issue with that. I think that the right body to address war crimes is The European Court of Human Rights. I can sue any state and EU entity there but I need to show damages. That somehow, I am being hurt by their actions.
Good luck with it! (Sorry that I’m not familiar with EU law and can’t be of more help.)
I feel like since they made a statement regarding Israel’s actions and international law that quoting the Geneva Conventions back at them and essentially demanding that they take a stand on this part of international law would expose their hypocrisy and potentially it would provide grounds for how they are overstepping their mandate. By failing to uphold international law while acting as your representative, you might have your foot in the door for proving that they have caused you damages.