German intellectuals like Habermas, Enzensberger, and former leaders like Herzog and Boltkestein (though Dutch *g*) have been criticising the European Union’s leadership and the influence of lobbyists and centralistic bureaucrats in the institutions throughout this year.
Now former chancellor Helmut Schmidt joined the choir. In a recent TV documentary about former German finance minister Per Steinbrück and the finance crisis he takes on the leadership and the recent EU enlargement. He is being quoted by euractiv:
There is no leader at the moment. It is a worse situation than we have ever experienced in the 60 years of European integration. [...]
In the Maastricht conference, we were twelve member states. We’ve then become 15 and then 20 and 26 and 27. This is all nonsense. [...]
It was right to give them psychological support. For that a NATO membership would have been sufficient, it would have satisfied even the Americans. But to have them join the European Union, without us having adjusted the rules of that giant club accordingly, that was a catastrophic mistake.
(euractiv.de/own translation, 02 August 2010)
I support the people that care about the future of Europe as a common project. They raise their voice to stimulate a debate and they’re being heard by an intellectual elite, sometimes even politics. Many of these accusations are far too comprehensible. I share much of their criticism. But I cannot take these grumpy old white men serious any longer. Sure, they’ve been there, they’ve done it all. I mean, they basically created the European Union and all that goes with it. But as long as I have the image of Statler and Waldorf in my head, every time they bring up new critique and bash current politics without being anything close to constructive I’m not willing to accept it, even if I share their opinions. (Imagine they blogged. I’m not sure they would comments.)
Update (August 3, 2010):
While I was writing this post Jon Worth thought about Schmidt, too, and why he’s right.
I’m not sure, about that Schmidt piece. Also, I think the Habermas article (the one from Die Zeit?) was quite good. Mainly he critisiced things that can be seen as ‘going wrong’.
But that Enzensberger speech is mainly a piece of shit. This man does not know about any context, he uses the oldest klischees (seriously, does he want to tell me about bananas in 2009?) and does he bring at least one single new thing to the reader? No. I mean, he does not make any single recommendation (other than to spare the people with the commission).
But why do I listen anyway. I shouldn’t let a poet explain the world to me, that defended iraq-war. Maybe he should try to build a european tea-party movement.