Let us acknowledge for a moment the fanciful assumption that Europe cares about its values. Let us imagine a Europe where the principles lavishly inscribed on the banners of the European project (rule of law, dignity of the individual, commitment to strategic autonomy) are little more than rhetorical trappings for grandiose speeches in Brussels.
In this parallel Europe, the story that emerges from the pages published by Le Monde regarding French judge Nicolas Guillot at the International Criminal Court in The Hague will be the political scandal of the century. It will be one of those issues that brings down governments and ignites the proud European conscience.
But we do not live in that Europe. In real Europe, no one cared about Guillot’s plight; This is a symptom of our continent falling into a state of unquestioned dependency.
Authoritarians don’t like this
The practice of professional and critical journalism is an essential pillar of democracy. This is why it bothers those who believe they are the bearers of the truth.
The facts of the case, boiled down to its core, are puzzling in the extreme.
Before us is a French citizen. A judge of some renown, a member of a tribunal created by European diplomacy with great efforts to leave behind a past in which war criminals could hide behind their governments. In the exercise of the duties he was sworn to perform, strictly following the procedures of the institution to which he belonged, this judge issued arrest warrants against the former Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defense for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In response, the administration of US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Gilo.
The imposed sanctions constitute a major lesson in emptying European sovereignty. They turn Gilo into an “impersonal person”, not only in the United States, but also in his country, the heart of Europe. Access to the global digital sphere (WhatsApp, all Google apps and social networks such as Facebook and Instagram) is blocked. Even his French bank account is almost unusable, with any payments that require cooperation with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and the (presumably European) SWIFT system blocked. As if that wasn’t enough, when he recently tried to book a hotel room in France, Expedia canceled the reservation after a few hours.
Trump’s success in “flooding the region” with obscene behavior should not distract us from the importance of these events. The US government decided to sanction a European judge (or strip him of his character) for carrying out his official duties in Europe in the context of an institution established at great cost and effort by elected European representatives.
The real tragedy is not Trump’s arrogance: it is in the nature of dominant nations to harass those who harass them. The real tragedy, or perhaps farce, lies in Europe’s reaction. Did our governments respond with united and resounding condemnation? Did they immediately activate retaliatory measures and create European financial and digital channels to protect their citizens and judges from extraterritorial harassment? Unfortunately, the response was a tragicomic scene of complete and complete submission.
European banks, fearing the stern view of a US Treasury official in Washington, rushed to close Jello’s accounts. European companies (whose compliance departments act as extensions of US authorities) refuse to serve him. On the other hand, two European institutions (the Commission and the Council) look the other way, feigning concern and complaining in platitudes about the “complexities” of transatlantic relations. Not only are they failing to protect Gilo, they are actively enforcing US sanctions against a European citizen.
In a week in which the European leadership loudly protested the fact that the United States sidelined it from crafting a peace deal for Ukraine, its silence on Gelo’s treatment has finally normalized the erosion of its authority. In Trump’s view, they have traded the difficult and complex project of sovereignty for the comfortable decline of American protectionism. How else can French President Emmanuel Macron expect Trump to explain his decision to treat the economic assassination of a French judge on French soil as an unfortunate technical glitch or a minor bureaucratic error? Did he and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz really believe that sacrificing their own citizens for Trump would give them a seat at the table where issues of existential importance to Europe such as Ukraine and Palestine were negotiated?
No, Guillot’s Kafkaesque nightmare should not surprise us. What should shock us is the silence that surrounds it. We should be angry not only at America’s actions, but also at Europe’s inaction. The Guillot case is a stark metaphor for Europe: a union of nation-states that helped create an international court to defend its values, and now allows a foreign power to punish one of its own judges for doing so and then helps it carry out the punishment. It is a union that has lost its direction, its spirit and its resolve, and is turning Europeans into compliant additions to the theater of our decline.
A few years later, when almost everyone says they oppose Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the world will remember Judge Gilo fondly. But he will also remember Europe’s leading politicians, not only for their cowardice, but also for their failure to heed the simple fact that those who do not stand up for their values become irrelevant.
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Translated by: Esteban Flamini
* Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister, leader of the MeRA25 party and professor of economics at the University of Athens.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025.
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