Ulrike Guérot ( probably not even an English person!) has criticised the EU as undemocratic! To be fair, the Graun publishes an article like this about once a year, while the rest of it bangs on as usual about the muddles over Brexit, dire warnings from EUrocrats about punishment during the transition period, solemn paternal finger-wagging about clocks ticking and the rest.
This one reminds us that 'Opinion polls show that anti-EU sentiment is held by roughly 30% of the EU’s 500 million citizens. A large majority support the EU but want it to function differently: more democratically'. Not only that:
The EU is searching for answers to a key question: who decides? Who makes the decisions in the EU? It’s never entirely clear. Brussels institutions or nation states? Should it be the European council (which is made up of the heads of state and government) or the regions? The European Central Bank or the Eurogroup, which represents the eurozone finance ministers? Should the region of Wallonia, alone, have a veto over the EU-Canada free trade agreement? And on Greek bailouts, is it the so-called financial troika, is it the European parliament, or should it be the EU’s voters in a referendum?
The primary question is this: how do we decentralise the power that is currently held by a handful of European institutions, and create the conditions for the will of European citizens to express itself politically and be translated into actions and laws?
Should we worry? No -- we just have to democratise, as even some EU leaders are realizing. We were reminded yesterday that universal suffrage is less than 100 years old just in the UK, and that only after a huge struggle, but Guérot urges us to hope and long for the (distant) future:
Of course, to achieve this would require a major shift – with citizens, rather than states, recognised as the sovereign actors of EU politics. That may sound like a distant or unrealistic prospect, but who is to say that far-reaching ambitions must always be off limits – especially if they’re about giving voters more of a say?...To those who think this is utopian, the European project itself was a utopia until it actually happened.
So when 'the EU' or 'Brussels' or Barnier or Juncker offer a policy or a threat -- whose is it?
