Comments on: Bloggingheads and the EU

By: Ukrainian Disappointment.. | afoe | A Fistful of Euros | European Opinion

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:58:26 +0000

[...] You could say much the same about the EU, with the rider that too many people think pretending to be the fireworks, etc, will bring in the dream-hungry youth its grinding seriousness tends to alienate. Which is, I think, what I was drivelling about in this Crooked Timber thread. [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:49:41 +0000

I’d like to vote for more EU blogging here, if I may.

By: Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:30:38 +0000

I was going to say that a key difference, in this matter at least, between the US and EU is that the US government has “Corporate America” to serve as the whipping boy when hard measures have to be undertaken to accommodate competitive pressures from beyond our borders. However, it seems that in many ways the EU shares with certain private sector entities that lack of direct accountability that is essential to the distribution of bitter pills. Can we expect that the EU will achieve the same level of popularity in Europe that “Corporate America” has in the US? The comments in #6 above suggest so.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:50:05 +0000

otto – personally, I take an ‘eat yer greens’ attitude to this. Which is to say that even if there are a lot more people at CT who comment on US politics etc, it’s no harm for them to have to skim past an EU post every once in a while and perhaps get some idea of what’s happening (and they obviously don’t have to read it if they find the topic boring).

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:51:06 +0000

Well, there’s a curious and longstanding feature of EU discourse that everyone sees in it what they want to hate. Righties (in the UK, but also elsewhere in the Anglosphere since 2001 or thereabouts through the process of hard-right British discourse being reinjected to the Republicans) see it as a) a bureaucratic socialist monster and b) an outrageous infringment of national sovereignty.

Note the contradiction in terms – it’s an appalling expansion of state power and an appalling reduction of it at once!

And the hard left is convinced that it’s basically the CIA with a human face.

I theorise that its technocratic style of doing politics is the cause of this phenomenon. Without its own identity, you can project anything on it you want.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:45:57 +0000

Would I be correct in thinking that the impression of the EU in the US is of a body dedicated to deregulation and modernisation? Wow, you should talk to some of the particularly phobic Europhobes in the UK, who are to a man convinced that the EU is here to wrap us up in red tape until we suffocate. How fascinating it is to see such different perspectives.

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:08:11 +0000

Yes.

By: magistra

magistra — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 07:41:48 +0000

Certainly, one of the things that has aroused popular hostility to the EU in France (and to a lesser extent in the UK) is freedom of movement for those seeking jobs, at least now that means lots of Poles coming into their country. The Conservative Party have a problem with condemning this, since it is a measure warmly supported by businesses. The Conservatives tend to be reduced to arguing that we have too many Eastern Europeans coming to UK, but that this is the fault of the Germans/French for imposing transitional restrictions on immigrant employment following EU enlargement.

By: otto

otto — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:11:05 +0000

You know, there’s a slight lack of take-up on EU related discussion issues on CT. I wonder if there’s an EU-studies mailing list or etc which might be a better venue for this sort of post. I’d be interested if there was.

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:50:57 +0000

One issue flowing from this is the extent to which the choice to send these political issues for resolution at the EU “technical” level is still a choice made by national governments to deal with reforms that are in the national interest but can’t be implemented due to vested interests. Consider the standard political logic that certain changes are easier to implement when the national government can “blame Brussels.” On this interpretation, the EU is still doing its job and the backlash is a manifestation of the same political economy that would block an otherwise warranted reform at the national level.