You can criticise the EU for a lot of things, but when it comes to investing its money, it does a good job, something that is important when considering the investments in the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war ends, when the EU will be the main provider of funds.
'The problem, in my view, is that the EU has terrible marketing. The people who benefit from EU funding typically don’t realise that it is the EU that pays them.'
Marketing? How often has this been repeated for decades now...
How popular is the EU in the western parts?
The EU has evolved in a rule setting mommy, telling you how to think about basically every political, economical, social and cultural position on the table. From the green 'transition' (where is it?) to immigration, from gender to foreign policy (Kallas...), from trade to 'democracy promotion' (we only like 'our side,' meaning Brussel's side, and to hell with local preferences). Big Sister believes that not only the science but also debate has been settled. Actually, it seems Big Sister doesn't like debate that much to begin with, no wnder eU freedom of speech is much less forcefully enshrined en less broader defined than that of our Big Daddy, the US).
She mingles in member's elections if she dislikes (the possible) outcome while being 'controlled' by a bad joke, pardon, a weak parliament, steered by an unelected Commission of parachuted ambitious midwits (Frans Timmermans paid B of euros to EU ngo's who accorded his green policies...) and no notes are taken at the Council of the European Union where the real decisions are made.
The passivity of the EU during the run-up to Brexit was sorely lacking indeed. "Hey, what about the Erasmus educational program? How about the ESA? How about all those agricultural transfers? How about turning Spain onto a de facto British Florida? How about your kids having the opportunity to live and work across Europe?" would've doubtless resonated with swing voters. Groucho Marx once said "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" ; and now Britain's like a second-string rock band playing shopping malls instead of 10,000-seat arenas ... don't wish too hard for what you want or you just might get it. If Britain had stayed in as a productive partner instead of sending feckless hecklers to the EU Parliament, things might well have been different.
One of the main points of the EU in my mind is to replace local, pig-headed, anti-growth, lobby-directed subventions with supra-national, compromise-based, lobby-influenced but evidence-based subventions.
It started with projects like Airbus, which market fetishists e.g. at the Economist insisted at the time would never fly, so to speak. A government-created British-German-French competitor to Boeing? I'll never get over the fact that the prototype of the rustic backroom-deal pol, FJ Strauss, was the initiator of that one.
Let's not forget that that the EU is unique in that a number of countries yearn to join, such as Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, even Georgia. Who wants to become a new member of the U.S.? Puerto Rico has been on the fence for decades; Hawaii needed to be forced to join. No country wishes to become a new member of the Commonwealth, and as we know, there are wars being fought by those who want to escape the Russian Empire's sphere -- the idea of a country hoping for entry, as Outer Mongolia did in the 1950s, sounds absurd nowadays.
'The problem, in my view, is that the EU has terrible marketing. The people who benefit from EU funding typically don’t realise that it is the EU that pays them.'
Marketing? How often has this been repeated for decades now...
How popular is the EU in the western parts?
The EU has evolved in a rule setting mommy, telling you how to think about basically every political, economical, social and cultural position on the table. From the green 'transition' (where is it?) to immigration, from gender to foreign policy (Kallas...), from trade to 'democracy promotion' (we only like 'our side,' meaning Brussel's side, and to hell with local preferences). Big Sister believes that not only the science but also debate has been settled. Actually, it seems Big Sister doesn't like debate that much to begin with, no wnder eU freedom of speech is much less forcefully enshrined en less broader defined than that of our Big Daddy, the US).
She mingles in member's elections if she dislikes (the possible) outcome while being 'controlled' by a bad joke, pardon, a weak parliament, steered by an unelected Commission of parachuted ambitious midwits (Frans Timmermans paid B of euros to EU ngo's who accorded his green policies...) and no notes are taken at the Council of the European Union where the real decisions are made.
For we don't have to know.
The passivity of the EU during the run-up to Brexit was sorely lacking indeed. "Hey, what about the Erasmus educational program? How about the ESA? How about all those agricultural transfers? How about turning Spain onto a de facto British Florida? How about your kids having the opportunity to live and work across Europe?" would've doubtless resonated with swing voters. Groucho Marx once said "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" ; and now Britain's like a second-string rock band playing shopping malls instead of 10,000-seat arenas ... don't wish too hard for what you want or you just might get it. If Britain had stayed in as a productive partner instead of sending feckless hecklers to the EU Parliament, things might well have been different.
this is very important.
One of the main points of the EU in my mind is to replace local, pig-headed, anti-growth, lobby-directed subventions with supra-national, compromise-based, lobby-influenced but evidence-based subventions.
It started with projects like Airbus, which market fetishists e.g. at the Economist insisted at the time would never fly, so to speak. A government-created British-German-French competitor to Boeing? I'll never get over the fact that the prototype of the rustic backroom-deal pol, FJ Strauss, was the initiator of that one.
Let's not forget that that the EU is unique in that a number of countries yearn to join, such as Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, even Georgia. Who wants to become a new member of the U.S.? Puerto Rico has been on the fence for decades; Hawaii needed to be forced to join. No country wishes to become a new member of the Commonwealth, and as we know, there are wars being fought by those who want to escape the Russian Empire's sphere -- the idea of a country hoping for entry, as Outer Mongolia did in the 1950s, sounds absurd nowadays.
Well said