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Showing posts from January, 2015

WHOSE SIDE IS THE EUROPEAN UNION ON?

Whose side is the E.U. on? It is a question that would have arisen even without Syriza's election triumph in Greece , since the E.U. has become a divisive issue in the national politics of many member states. Attacks come from across the spectrum: both viscerally anti-E.U. nationalist parties such as UKIP and France's Front National , and radical movements such as Syriza and Spain's Podemos that are not anti-E.U. as such, but strongly oppose the economic policies that are embedded in its institutional structure. The question may be out there, but Eurocrats would prefer not to think in those terms. The E.U. is supposed to be quite the opposite of political: an institutional counterweight to politicisation, seeking out consensus that is good for everybody. The word “harmonisation” is prominent in its vocabulary, reflecting the aspiration of its founding fathers to efface the historical rivalries that have subjected the continent to centuries of conflict. To take sides, get