“Powerful transatlantic forces have reached Inner City of Neutral Vienna ready to destroy Austrian Neutrality,” announces Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn, “Socialists are trembling … Lord Protector Putin is in shock.”

Mr Fehlinger-Jahn epitomises European statesmanship. He is not a statesman. But he acts like one. 

For the uninitiated, Fehlinger-Jahn is an economist who sits on the boards of obscure multinational organisations like the Action Group for Regional Economic Integration of Southern Balkans. Most prominently, though, he shitposts. 

On his Twitter account, Fehlinger-Jahn posts selfies from his travels around Europe — attaching messages in which he holds forth about his passionate pro-NATO and pro-EU opinions. These never have the tone of statements from a private individual. They have the tone of communiqués from a world-straddling politician. 

Above a beaming selfie in Pristina, for example — with his jacket coated with badges of the flags of NATO, the US, Ukraine et cetera — he will post “I can confirm Kosovo is 100% ready for NATO”. Above a frowning selfie, on the other hand, he will post, “Russia, get out of Ukraine now. This is last warning.” 

Fehlinger-Jahn’s tone and ambitions are imperial. Advising President Lula da Silva of Brazil not to work with Russia, for example, he declared, “I make it very clear if you @LulaOficial join hostile axis of Genocide, I will call to dismantle Brazil.” On a platform where plumbers can open accounts as easily as presidents, it is easy to forget that Fehlinger-Jahn speaks only for himself and not as a man with sweeping military heft at his disposal.

But his interests aren’t limited to geopolitics. From a British hotel, last year, he announced, “I call to UK join the global – European standards for plugs. Makes sense – it is not a ideological issue – just common sense.” 

None of this would be as funny if Fehlinger-Jahn was purely a fantasist and not a man with some vague role in European politics, leading an NGO like “Europeans for Tax Reform” and writing for outlets like Emerging Europe and the European Council on Foreign Relations. Apparently, the Russians were disturbed enough by Fehlinger-Jahn’s output to produce a one-hour documentary about him for state TV.

A question presents itself — how big is the gap between a Fehlinger-Jahn and a Guy Verhofstatd? Both seem to collect links to indeterminately influential pan-European organisations. Both speak with a grandeur beyond their actual power. Can speaking before the European Council not just be shitposting at scale?

The statesmanlike posing belies the lack of power

The fakeness of Fehlinger-Jahn’s posting, deliberately or otherwise, reflects the fakeness in European political life. The statesmanlike posing belies the lack of power. Politicians will talk tough about international affairs as if supposed European heavyweights like Germany and France have not had to be dragged kicking and screaming into spending a mere 2 per cent of their annual budgets on defence. The EU beats its chest about tech regulation, with some justice, without Europe’s tech sector being at all competitive. European governments hold forth on every conflict and crisis around the world without being able to even control their borders.

In this light, Fehlinger-Jahn feels like a marvellous parody — except the parody is somehow more appealing than the real thing. Okay, that should be qualified — I’m glad that European politicians are not actually calling for the dismantlement of Russia and Brazil. (Fehlinger-Jahn’s idle calls for war with Russia, in between cups of coffee in Europe’s finest old towns, feel like a satire of a certain kind of think tanker.) 

Yet the sheer energy and joie de vivre of Fehlinger-Jahn remains much more likable than the constipated pedantry and moralism of actual European authorities. Witness him effortlessly executing push-ups in response to mischievous challenges from far right trolls. In his bizarre way, he’s doing his level best to put the “mana” into “managerialism”.

Through the power of shitposting, Fehlinger-Jahn has become more of a European statesman than real European statespeople. A lot of them have no more worldly power than he does, and with far less esprit. 

Still, “fake it till you make it” is a much more effective strategy on social media than in geopolitics.