Former EU Commissioner Breton to Join Bank of America, Threats to 'Annul' German Elections

As another high-profile politico™ seamlessly moves from Big Gov't to Wall Street, we must never talk about corruption, systemic plundering of taxpayers, or the implications for Joe Q. Public

The cat’s out of the bag—former EU Commissioner for Internal Market (sic) and pro-censorship advocate Thierry Breton (Wikipedia bio) is joining Bank of America as his next gig.

Of course, the EU Commission envisions a ‘cooling-off’ period of 24 months between winding down one’s position of power in Brussels and the taking of a new job (if you’re thinking: 1.5 years w/o a ‘job’ for these poor fellers, don’t worry, they made a killing as commissioners—here’s a list of salaries for EU employees and here’s a piece pointing to monthly salaries of commissioners of around 20,000 euros—that is, plus expense accounts, driver, etc.).

Here’s what the EU Commission did for Mr. Breton, according to Politico (slightly edited for clarity, emphases mine):

The European Commission gave the green light on Thursday for former Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton to take up a new job at the Bank of America, despite a rule that requires a two-year waiting period before starting lobbying jobs…

On Thursday the Commission finally approved his new role, on the condition that Breton not engage in lobbying, particularly on issues related to his former responsibilities [I’m sure Mr. Breton will meticulously adhere to his promises /sarcasm]…

“How is this not a lobbying gig?” German Greens member of the European Parliament Daniel Freund asked Politico.

“They pretend they have cooling-off periods and strict integrity. There is a website [where] all such decisions are published. They sneak it out the back door, but my team monitors such things,” he added.

If you wish to learn ‘more’ about these intrepid formerly ‘public servants’ hunting for new opportunities (on taxpayer dime), see this piece by Euronews.

And now for the main course: Mr. Breton on election integrity, as reported by the Berliner Zeitung a few days ago. Enjoy, if you will.

As always, translation, emphases, and [snark] mine.

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Former EU Commissioner Threatens to Annul German election: ‘We did it in Romania’

Former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton says on television that interference from Elon Musk could lead to the cancellation of the election result in Germany.

By Alexander Schmalz, Berliner Zeitung, 10 Jan. 2025 [source; archived]

Former French EU Commissioner Thierry Breton has raised the possibility of the German elections being cancelled due to Elon Musk’s interference. Breton referred to the Romanian precedent to provoke a possible cancellation of the results of the German elections.

He indirectly admitted that the EU was responsible for the cancellation of the elections in Romania. In an interview with the French television channel RMC, he said:

Let’s keep a cool head and enforce the laws* in Europe. If there is a risk that they will be circumvented and if they are not enforced, this could lead to interference [no-one is safe unless everyone is safe].

According to him, an annulment of the election results in Germany cannot be ruled out:

We did it in Romania and we will obviously have to do it in Germany if necessary [ah, if the hoi polloi votes the wrong™ way, what can one do but overrule them? It’s for the greater good]

Did TikTok Influence the Election in Romania?

A few days before the Romanian run-off election in December 2024 between the far-right [sic] candidate Călin Georgescu [apparently not a fan of Mr. Putin, for otherwise that quip would be there, too] and the pro-EU presidential candidate Elena Lascon, the results from the first round of voting were cancelled. The official explanation was that there were doubts about the proper conduct of the first election round on 24 November. The Supreme Court then ordered a recount [as a thought experiment, imagine ‘doubts about the proper conduct’ of the 2020 US presidential elections in Fulton County, Georgio, or Maricopa County, Arziona—and ask yourself: should the Supreme Court have ordered a recount?]

During the election campaign, it had already come to light that the less-known Georgescu was supported by an influencer campaign on TikTok [ah, the evil Chinese boogeyman: ask yourself why there is a concerted push across the ‘collective West’ to introduce digital ID for social media]. More than a hundred influencers spread election recommendations in favour of Georgescu [is that really illegal?]. The campaign is said to have collected a total of 2.4 million clicks. Many wondered to what extent a TikTok campaign, of all things, could be decisive in the more rural Romania with around 18m eligible voters.

Shortly before the run-off election, the EU Commission tightened its monitoring of TikTok. Brussels justified the move with the risk of ‘manipulation’ [please allow me to translate from Eurocrat-speak: ‘we don’t like it because social media undermines the gig we’ve got going: mimimimi—but keep in mind that Romanian voters dislike this kind of meddling in what they perceive as their affairs (which, of course, for Brussels, it is not)].

[the Berliner Zeitung incl. an embedded posting on X/Twitter, which Substack doesn’t permit—hence I’m providing a screenshot plus the link]

Breton Talks About the Chat between Elon Musk and Alice Weidel

Breton, who was one of the pioneers of social network regulation in Europe, also commented on US billionaire Elon Musk’s support for the AfD during the interview on Thursday morning [Mr. Breton and his ilk appear to fear ‘right-wing populism™’]. He addressed the upcoming livestream of AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and the X leader [which took place on 9 Jan. 2025 (via the BBC, histrionics in the original) and incl. quite some moments, such as the one when Ms. Weidel and Mr. Musk agreed that ‘Hitler was a communist’ (you cannot make this up)]

From the moment the programme is broadcast in Europe via a regulated platform, Elon Musk must follow the European rules. As regards the AfD, we have to follow them. It goes without saying that we will take all necessary measures to ensure that he complies with the law*. If he does not comply, he will face fines and possibly a ban.

Despite Musk’s approach, Breton emphasised that the head of Tesla and X remains just a ‘citizen’ for the time being and is not yet a member of the Trump administration [sense the condescension dripping from

Basically, he has the right to think and say what he wants, even if he does it in a shocking way [I read this as a thinly veiled threat that the EU wishes to control what ‘citizens’ think].

However, the former EU Commissioner warned that what Musk does on social networks, which are also active in Europe, must be regulated. ‘The law* exists’, he said.

In recent weeks, several European politicians have called on the European Commission to intervene and impose sanctions on Musk if his behaviour on his platform X violates European law* on digital services.

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What is ‘the Law™’ Mr. Breton Invokes?

We do need to talk about one issue, though, and that is Mr. Breton’s apparent love of ‘the law™’, which he asserts ‘exists’ and must be ‘enforced’. This is, of course, a circular argument (at best), a tautology, and a nonsequitur (in reality).

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the word he uses repeatedly means what you may think it does. As per the EU’s very own ‘splainin’, here’s what Mr. Breton means when he invokes ‘the law™’ that ‘must be enforced’:

The European Union is based on the rule of law. This means that every action taken by the EU is founded on treaties that have been approved democratically by its members. EU laws help to achieve the objectives of the EU treaties and put EU policies into practice. There are two main types of EU law—primary and secondary…

Treaties are the starting point for EU law and are known in the EU as primary law.

The body of law that comes from the principles and objectives of the treaties is known as secondary law; and includes regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.

So, ‘the law™’ invoked by Mr. Breton and his ilk isn’t a true law in the sense of a parliamentary assembly promulgating new legislation (e.g., an Act of Congress).

By contrast, ‘the 'law™’ invoked explicitly by Mr. Breton, the so-called ‘Digital Services Act’ or DSA is a lot of things, but it ain’t a law in any other sense than the meaning cited above.

In fact, that DSA’s website is singularly misleading due to omission of any explanatory reference as to what kind of—primary or secondary EU—‘law™’ it is, although it comes with warm, fuzzy verbiage:

The DSA regulates online intermediaries and platforms such as marketplaces, social networks, content-sharing platforms, app stores, and online travel and accommodation platforms. Its main goal is to prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation. It ensures user safety, protects fundamental rights, and creates a fair and open online platform environment.

See, ‘the law™’ is all for the greater good and your safety online.

Here’s a clue courtesy of Wikipedia (of all places):

The Digital Services Act^[1] (DSA) is an EU regulation adopted in 2022 that addresses illegal content, transparent advertising and disinformation. It updates the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000 in EU law,^[2][3] and was proposed alongside the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The DSA applies to online platforms and intermediaries such as social networks, marketplaces and app stores.^[4] Key requirements include disclosing to regulators how their algorithms work, providing users with explanations for content moderation decisions, and implementing stricter controls on targeted advertising. It also imposes specific rules on "very large" online platforms and search engines (those having more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU).^[5]

So, ‘the law™’ invoked by Mr. Breton is, specifically, a piece of ‘secondary law’ as defined by the afore-linked EU website.

It is part of the family of law-like decrees or executive orders that incl. ‘regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions’, and since we have learned that the DSA is a ‘regulation’, here’s what that means:

Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries.

Two things: first, the DSA is a piece of regulation that was cooked up by Eurocrats in Brussels or Strasbourg and published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 19 Oct. 2022. That’s all it took for a EU bloc-wide ‘law™’ to be imposed on all member-states. Yes, the DSA is published in the name of both the EU Council (the supreme soviet, if you like, which consists of all union heads of gov’ts) and the EU Parliament (which is not a real parliament as it has no legislative authority, which is concentrated in the hands of the Commission plus the Council), but that’s window-dressing.

Second, here’s a short quote from the DSA’s preamble, specifically paragraph (12), which ‘splains’ the purposes of this ‘law™’ quite concisely:

For the purpose of this Regulation the concept of ‘illegal content’ should broadly reflect the existing rules in the offline environment. In particular, the concept of ‘illegal content’ should be defined broadly to cover information relating to illegal content, products, services and activities. In particular, that concept should be understood to refer to information, irrespective of its form, that under the applicable law is either itself illegal, such as illegal hate speech or terrorist content and unlawful discriminatory content [clearly, this applies to Mr. Musk and Ms. Weidel of the AfD having a chat on X/Twitter (/sarcasm)], or that the applicable rules render illegal [that’s the arbitrary ‘go to jail’ card here] in view of the fact that it relates to illegal activities.

Thankfully, our overlords in Brussels added a few ‘illustrative examples’ to make it possible for the hoi polloi to actually understand what is meant:

Illustrative examples include the sharing of images depicting child sexual abuse, the unlawful non-consensual sharing of private images, online stalking, the sale of non-compliant or counterfeit products, the sale of products or the provision of services in infringement of consumer protection law, the non-authorised use of copyright protected material, the illegal offer of accommodation services or the illegal sale of live animals. In contrast, an eyewitness video of a potential crime should not be considered to constitute illegal content, merely because it depicts an illegal act, where recording or disseminating such a video to the public is not illegal under national or Union law.

Oh, look, none of these relates to one person having a live-streamed chat with another person on social media. Yet, Mr. Breton repeatedly invokes ‘the law™’ with respect to the possible cancellation of the Bundestag elections.

I presume it’s fair to add that this might happen if that election ends with the ‘wrong™’ results.

Now, since Mr. Breton so likes ‘the law™’—which he proposed, by the way, as the DSA is his ill-begotten child, so to speak—there’s also another sentence that follows the above listing of illustrative examples, and it reads as follows:

In this regard, it is immaterial whether the illegality of the information or activity results from Union law or from national law that is in compliance with Union law and what the precise nature or subject matter is of the law in question.

Now, ‘the law™’ here is so precise that it exhibits revelatory qualities:

The EU Commission decrees the DSA (or any other ‘secondary law™’) that must not even be ‘transposed’—by which is meant the ex post facto promulgation of national legislation authorising whatever executive order was declared in Brussels—yet for said regulation™ to be applied ‘it is immaterial whether the illegality…results from Union law or from national law’.

It’s a classic Catch-22 situation: even if the DSA would not consider what you do online illegal, it may or may not be national legislation that classifies your activities as illegal. You’re literally damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

If you wish to learn ‘more’ about the EU’s inherently anti-citizen nature, please see my essay ‘A Citizen’s Guide to the Subversion of Democracy’, which was published in Café Americain in April 2024. There you may also find out ‘more’ about the legal mechanism how this is typically done, which goes by the term ‘Transposition’.

Bottom Lines

The EU is not your friend, and its increasingly authoritarian rulers are the enemies of freedom and liberty—not merely in Europe but, due to the EU’s influence world-wide, also elsewhere.

I had hoped Mr. Breton would go very far away. Sadly, his Wall Street gig merely reinforces my equally sincerely held belief that the EU Commission consists of sacks of shit feasting, Animal Farm-style, at taxpayer-funded troughs.

I hope to have convinced you that what passes for ‘the law™’ in the EU is both a scam and a gigantic fraud perpetrated on a daily basis.

As to ‘democracy’ in the EU, it’s equally fraudulent—and I shall close on this notion: I’m old enough (lol) to remember the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections™—no worries, none of these terms mean what they say: the EU Parliament is not a legislature, and the elections were equally fraudulent.

In short, these are the results that followed a few weeks of horse-race campaigning by the two major candidates from the mainstream conservatives-in-name-only (the European People’s Party, or EPP) vs. their mirror image on the centre-left (the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, or S&D):

There were televised ‘debates™’ between the leading candidates from the EPP vs. the S&D, yet when the votes had been counted, both factions/alliances lost—while virtually every ‘none of these two’ groups gained votes (incl., hilariously, the EU Greens).

The above screenshot is from this Wikipedia entry, which also explains what followed these ‘elections™’, lest anyone still marvels at the true nature of the EU:

On 26 May 2019, the centre-left and centre-right parties suffered significant losses, while pro-EU centrist, liberal and environmentalist parties and anti-EU right-wing populist parties made substantial gains.^[4][5] The European People's Party led by Manfred Weber won the most seats in the European Parliament, making Weber the leading candidate to become the next President of the European Commission.^[6][7] Despite this, the European Council decided after the election to nominate Ursula von der Leyen as new Commission President.

That’s right: citizens were invited to weigh in, said ‘no, thank you’, to the fake horse-race (big tent coalition of centre-right and centre-left), and because the EU Council—which is the assembly of EU member-states’ heads of government—didn’t like the election results, they installed Von der Leyen.

Sadly, she’s still the figurehead of the EU Commission, doing the bidding of those who run the EU bloc from the netherworld of the Big Gov’t-Big Business-Big Intelligence cabal’s backrooms.

This is whence serpents like Ms. Von der Leyen, Mr. Breton, and their ilk come from.

There also seems a rather great supply of these evil lickspittles whose primary motivation in life is to be cyclists: bend their backs and knees when dealing with the powers-that-be and kicking those who exist below, or beneath, them.

I’m not arguing that this is the worst it’s ever been, but the agit-prop gaslighting about ‘we’re the good guys’ vs. objective reality is both mind-boggling—and enraging at the same time.

I am convinced these people will, in the end, get what they deserve: right now it is contempt, at some point this will become heckling in public, rotten eggs or cakes planted in their faces.

In the final analysis, I hope that once the EU has fallen—and it will fall at some point due to the many internal contradictions—these people will be put on trial and, reminiscent of earlier periods of European history, also spend some time in a pillory.

Given the vainglorious, self-aggrandising predilection of Ms. Von der Leyen, Mr. Breton, and their ilk, I suggest that doing so would be an appropriate form of punishment.