MEP Daniel Hannan has a blistering piece on the anti-democratic nature of the EU and how the bureaucracy of the EU doesn’t even come close to representing the will of the people. It is perhaps little wonder that the turnout in this election was so low — it doesn’t particularly matter who you vote for, the outcomes will all be the same. As Hannan puts it:
Lack of accountability is inherent in the EU. You will sometimes hear it said that the Commission, the EU’s governing body, is undemocratic. In fact, uniquely in the Western world, it contrives to be anti-democratic, in the sense that you generally have to lose an election to be sent there: witness Neil Kinnock or Chris Patten.
The core idea of European integration is a sound one. The idea of a federal Europe is even a good idea. However, the way in which the EU is attempting to govern is, to be blunt, ass-backwards. The EU is a polity trying to create a polis rather than the other way around. States aren’t top-down affairs, they are built by the will of the people, and the will of the European people is to avoid becoming ensnared in the bureaucrat’s wet dream that the EU has become. It is a massive social engineering project gone off the rails, and it is no wonder that the EU is insular from the will of the people.
Unfortunately for Europe, the EU is a good idea done badly, and unless the EU comes off its arrogant high horse and embraces democracy, open markets, and governmental transparency no number of largely futile elections will close its fundamental democracy gap.
