An AFP article at Yahoo News concerns Canada's reaction to the EU's inability to sign a trade agreement both negotiated and about which both were excited. This reminded me of something about which I wish to rant, gently I hope.
The officials of Canada and the EU negotiated a trade agreement which both believe will be in their interest - in other words, win-win, not zero-sum. For those who don't follow nitty-gritty European politics, the reason the EU cannot finalize is that one of the two major regions in Belgium held a referendum on it and the people voted it down.
Now you might wonder why a subdivision of a country can kill something at the pan-Europe level. The U.S. equivalent would be half a state voting to nullify, not a state law but a federal law. In the U.S. this is not possible. How, you are wondering, is this possible in the EU?
The EU makes decision by consensus, if any nation won't sign on, an action doesn't go forward. No majority or super-majority votes, everybody has to be on board.
Allowing one member nation to stop progress seems foolish until you realize the EU only exists because each member knows it can stop anything it truly hates. If this decision rule were not in place, many (perhaps most) member states would never have joined, the EU would not exist.
The entire panoply of EU bureaucrats and pan-European regulations is built on a structure that requires unanimity at the macro level, if not at the micro level. Unanimity may be necessary for EU existence but it is also that which means the organization can never act as a nation would, will never be a United States of Europe.
Most of the time the EU work-around is to dodge popular votes on EU matters, Eurocrats hate referenda with good reason. When these are held the people so empowered quite often turn down what the EU wants to do.
A cold-eyed appraisal of the European Union finds it really exists in spite of the will of the people, not because of it. It is government by technocrat, dodging most of the time any reference to the popular will, which it appears to honestly disdain.
The U.S. isn't the only developed region where the governing elites neither reflect the popular will nor value it. The same is very true in the EU as well.
