It is no longer the same Parliament, nor is it the same Union. Everything has changed, mainly because France and Germany have run out of steam, both economically and politically. Of course, this is not the first time that one or the other of Europe’s two leading powers has been weakened, but never before had they been weakened so profoundly and never before at the same time. This has created a political vacuum in Brussels that the President of the Commission is trying to fill by acting as President of the Union.