Europe’s Order of the Golden Farce

The orders of merit instituted by modern-day states have a rich history behind them. They are, of course, supremely European in conception and tradition. As the heirs to mediaeval Christendom’s dynastic orders of chivalry, they were specifically designed following the tremors of liberalism and the French Revolution as a new aristocracy of service. The new, liberal orders of merit were detached from religious or monarchical allegiance, in keeping with the spirit of the times, and meant instead to recognise collectively beneficial individual achievement—remarkable deeds performed in the name of the republic. Napoleon’s Legion of Honour is perhaps the better-known of these secularised orders; nevertheless, the clever imitations of the century-old knightly societies of the Holy Spirit (France), the Garter (England), Saint Andrew (Russia), Tower and Sword (Portugal), or the Golden Fleece (Burgundy, Austria, and Spain).

Deracinated, meaningless political structures have always craved the charisma provided by performative tradition. A recent example of this is the European Parliament’s absurd new ‘European Order of Merit,’ to be unveiled today in Strasbourg. Why the European Union should have an ‘Order of Merit’ of its own is hard to comprehend. Like their mediaeval ancestors, the whole point of such organisations is that they are fraternities created by a sovereign prince—or, in the republican era, by a head of state. Their European Union is neither a realm nor a nation. As the great French historian Ernest Renan once put it in Qu’est-ce qu’une Nation?, “un Zollverein n’est pas une patrie” (“a customs union is not a homeland”).

That Europe’s grey, dull bureaucratic leadership craves that role for itself and its post-national machinery is no surprise; they have made it amply clear over the decades. But the new attempt will not fail to inspire the derision and merriment of onlookers, European and otherwise. The great Charles V, who was not altogether that far from being something akin to an Emperor of Europe, had the Order of the Golden Fleece. Europe’s Three Disgraces—von der Leyen, Metsola, and Kallas—will have to content themselves with this Order of the Golden Farce.

Perhaps nothing is quite as revealing as the sorry bunch the European Parliament came up with to ‘honour’ with the new order. These are happy coreligionists of the Euro-integrationist project, including Portugal’s former president and prime minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva and leaders from countries that aren’t even EU members, such as Moldova’s Maia Sandu. Fittingly, two of the three ‘Distinguished Members’ of the ‘Order,’ Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Germany’s Angela Merkel, share the greatest responsibilities in Europe’s rapidly collapsing prosperity, tranquillity, and standing in the world. 

Perhaps no figure in the 20th century has caused Europe greater harm than Merkel. In the decades since her “Wir schaffen das” lunacy, the continent has been ravaged by an unprecedented tidal wave of legal and illegal immigrants. To call it exceptional would be a euphemism. It has been unprecedented. Since Merkel opened the gates of Europe to mass immigration, between thirty and forty million non-Europeans have settled in our midst. The process transformed the continent demographically and politically. The mayhem and collective anguish they produced would prove fatal to the very political establishment Merkel embodies. In that regard, the former German chancellor didn’t just prove disastrous to her native Germany and Europe as a whole. She was and is a failure to her own establishment colleagues. 

But Merkel, of course, didn’t just help ravage the country demographically. Her 2011 decision to abandon nuclear power wouldn’t just starve the German industry of a cheap, sustainable, and clean source of power. It also created a major strategic vulnerability for her country and Europe as a whole, absurdly and gratuitously strengthening Russia’s leverage over Europe. Worse still, her flawed 2015 Minsk Agreements would fail disastrously to close the post-Maidan conflict between Moscow and Kyiv. By Merkel’s own public admission, the deal was a sham, designed to buy time for a confrontation that was avoidable and for which her misguided energy policies left Europe most unprepared. 

The consequences of this have been disastrous for Germany. Merkel’s legacy is a country assaulted by mass immigration and in a profound economic and social crisis from which it is yet to recover. Once a model of fiscal self-control and economic success, Berlin is now better known for ballooning deficits, swirling between recession and stagnation, deindustrialisation, and declining exports. Is this the sort of ‘statesmanship’ the Union wishes to commemorate?

Like Merkel, Zelensky is an establishment totem. Like Merkel’s, that adoration is increasingly hard to understand. No one will dispute that the Ukrainian leader has shown personal courage in his role as a wartime leader, but his stubborn opposition to a negotiated settlement to the war is self-defeating. It has been clear since 2023 that Ukraine will only have peace by accepting a large number of painful concessions. This might be unpalatable; it might be seen as unfair. No country has ever enjoyed defeat in battle; no leader has ever been thrilled about signing a disadvantageous treaty. But nations, as well as men, are ever the hostages of reality.

The imbalance in resources between Russia and Ukraine has always meant that Kyiv could not and would not prevail. To continue the war after 2022, when the Ukrainians were in the best possible position vis-à-vis the Russians, was catastrophic for Ukraine as well as Europe. Recently, Ukraine’s Social Policy Minister Denys Uliutin revealed that his country’s population has fallen to around 20 million in 2025 from about 40 million in 2022. For Europe, meanwhile, the continuation of the conflict has meant higher energy prices and accelerated deindustrialisation. And this new case of Zelensky glorification comes at a decidedly bad moment: just days ago, Andriy Yermak, the president’s reputed éminence grise and former second-in-command, was formally accused of corruption. For Zelensky, the affair is nothing less than politically radioactive. 

What is made clear from this is that, as Talleyrand once said of the restored house of Bourbon after the Napoleonic Wars, the EU establishment has “learned nothing and forgotten nothing”. Europe’s elites have presided over the continent’s steady decay, weakening us in ways—and at a pace—that few previous civilisations have experienced. Just forty years ago, Europe was still a genuine centre of political, financial, and industrial power. Today, under its current leadership, it is an increasingly meaningless periphery, silent, irrelevant, and ignored. Honourable men would take a hard look at themselves, apologise, and leave. Instead, those responsible for our naufrage are busier giving each other medals.