The Comprehensive Guide to European Union Shortcuts

This is Part 10 of an ongoing series of EU Shortcuts

X — AND THINGS CONTINUE TO HAPPEN We are not even able to properly record the current state of affairs — let alone prevent ugly things from continuing to happen. This presently unfolding state of (somewhat initial) helplessness or disorientation will persist until these recent uglinesses (profound failures) are written down. These things will continue for as long as only our euro-leaders talk about them, for as long as their creators from the late 20th and early 21st centuries explain things to us in their “serious” lectures. The lectures are given by figures with dazzling radiance and blinding visions, the well-known sons of euro-fathers. They will not tell us about the problems that arose through their own doing; instead, they will gladly point out the enormous opportunities that supposedly lie ahead of us. According to them, we need to aim high…

X/38 Only the Talk Was Good It must always be kept in mind that the cadence of talking should be the very last thing. And what about a question like: “To what extent can talk increase competitiveness?” — a question posed to me by one assertive colleague. “The EU would be a world champion at that!” he answers himself. “Yes, the best in the world,” we reply together. But talk does not help. I did not even get the chance to ask him how the course on assertiveness was — it was a series of evening lectures…

Talk, if there is not too much of it, can contribute to a process. But here it did not. There was so much talk that it began to undermine the structure rather than help anything. Repair will be long and difficult. After all, further facts have also emerged. The Union apparently does not follow the ordinary calendar of mortals. Its planning calendar has no “end of the year.” No end at all. Moreover, its half-year does not have six months, and its week does not have five working days. It cannot have them. What the Union wants to achieve in ten years may in reality take a hundred years. Yet no one seems to mind. What matters is that the sons (of euro-fathers) still have incredible — indeed inexhaustible — enthusiasm. Yes, we are still speaking about our “successful elite”. They have already done so much… A youthfully creative, ageless generation. Simply put, this is our euro-elite, our euro-generation. Where do they get that enthusiasm, that inexhaustible energy? The seemingly endless energy comes from the fact that they actually expend none — they do not use it up, because they merely read what their exuberant structures prepare for them. Ever more exuberant, ever more fervent, higher in quality. Leaders themselves need do nothing — just read nicely. They move as if along the spiral of their “eternal calendar”.

The Union should stop striving to set records, claim first places, and claw its way toward unknown heights. Let us stop the praising chorales right now. Let us sit down for a moment — perhaps that could still help. But even sitting is no longer very comfortable. Some call it sitting on pillars, others call it standing on crutches. We sit and watch. We stand and watch. Still, we do not see things much more clearly…

The EU will function well when the first, say, twenty-five states are found that primarily want to cooperate closely and voluntarily with one another. But we are elsewhere. We are in a period that will long be describable as unhealthy. The EU is at a stage where rot from one part spreads to parts that were healthy until recently.

X/39 Reforms, Revolutions, and Their Creators As the prophet himself said — pardon, progress. Things are happening, and it does not matter whether we want them or not. It is almost exactly as also one gentleman put it — and not from a fairy-tale land. Throughout his entire term of office, incidentally during the period of preparing the euro-constitutional treaty, the British Minister for Europe, Peter Hain, said about the long-needed reform of European institutions: “An overhaul is long overdue”. Too bad that no one then went on to name concretely and realistically all those genuine long-term needs for a “general overhaul”. All that other leaders seemed to say during the repair was that the competences of all three main EU institutions needed strengthening. Who would have dared to say that one of the party organs and its structures might actually be unnecessary?!

The reform scene thus continues slowly… Over the past fifteen — or perhaps more — euro-years, no one responsible has achieved anything concrete regarding genuine reform of euro-institutions, aside from strengthening the European Parliament’s powers and creating various euro-agencies — perhaps to “relieve” the European Commission. There is a strange cracking sound in the air. And it is not bones cracking…

“Integrated structures” are now capable of playing any demanding role. Structures and their officials can stage anything. Even first aid here begins with the dead. Leaders’ influence approaching one hundred, the people’s influence approaching zero.

Whenever further “mature officials” appear, new structures must be created — or new euro-agencies invented. Thousands of documents are adopted, and in the end we collectively discover that the goal of accelerating economic growth has been fulfilled by playful parasites simply by assigning themselves the task “accelerate economic growth”.

Not everyone can set such lofty goals. Not everyone can assign themselves such tasks. Not everyone can raise the bar so high it cries out to heaven. Suddenly the bar is in the clouds. Nothing anywhere — just clouds of hopelessness…

A chance? A way out? The bar is set so high that it is time to ask when the application of common sense will finally begin. So far, all that happens — steadily — is that some solution is being sought. This is the only new “stability” we have brought with us as the EU into an enlarged Europe. For now, we are merely flying in a euro-balloon, learning how to blow correctly. Instructions reaching the sky on how to blow into clouds. The whole world will remember us — euro-revolutionaries — only as those who kept blowing, inflating something, and inflating themselves.

X/40 The Time of Recognition History never sleeps. Thus January 24, 2006 became one of the most significant dates in the history of Europe, the history of the European Union, and — let us not hesitate to say — in the history of euro-humanity. Let us call it the “time of recognition.” On that day, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, came to Paris and seemed to discover France. Before the French National Assembly, he declared something previously unknown, something truly remarkable — namely that “Europe would not have been born without France”. Oui, yes, bravo! And there we are — we feel again as we once did. Comfortably at home, in the warmth of family understanding, surrounded by happiness. And all together, united! Together we have rediscovered good old France! Even today, no matter how fiercely scientific-technological revolution, globalization, capitalist competition, euro-reforms, and who knows what else rage outside — we have our unshakable alliance of France with Europe!! And France, after all, knows its unassailable values…

One could paint it like this. The feeling is truly extraordinary. For some, extraordinarily strange. We feel strongly that we are well taken care of, that no one will divide us — not even the French people! We will not allow our “united Europe” to be disrupted!

Sometimes I do not know whether I am merely dreaming. If only an alarm clock would ring! But nothing happens. And once again that incredible equality rolls over us — equality regardless of head shape, shoe size, or wristwatch type. Almost absolute equality. Almost equality even before euro-law. Equality will be so direct that it will touch us directly and be everywhere. Yet only those who know all regulations, directives, decisions — and more than just those — can navigate it without additional guidance.

Both the former and the current EU Treaty haunt us like a mirror. We hardly know anymore which “European idea” is meant to restore balance between society and the individual. And so we keep searching for something. Are we searching for a new treaty we will no longer fear? Is that the goal? Someone still seems eager to build a unified union for selected members — for a core!?That is society, that is idyll, that is balance, that is union… No matter what we do, we see only a totally politically unified Europe ahead of us! Perhaps, however, we simply entrusted the EU to the wrong people…

Written by Lu Delweiss

To be continued