The Fight for Europe. State of Exception, reloaded

Words have been wielded aplenty to diagnose the EU’s poor state of health and write various prescriptions for treatment. But words have had little effect: the EU is like a patient who won’t accept the disease, let alone the medicine. What’s more, the worse its condition gets, the less effective conventional remedies become, not least because they need a while to take effect – and time is no longer on the EU’s side. Indeed, it may well have reached the stage where the medicine actually worsens the disease. This is clear in the allergic reaction of many citizens to the prospect of a representative EU parliament elected via equal suffrage and equipped with full legislative rights. All they see in such plans is “more Europe” – understood as more for Europe (that is others) not for me.