International

That the European Union institutions, and above all the European Commission, are looking to reach ever further from their powerbase in Brussels, is something of which we were already aware. What’s new is that the bigwigs from these institutions increasingly express their views on the internal political relations within the member states: Juncker on the elections in Catalonia, Schulz on the coalition-forming in Greece. Without a mandate from anyone whatsoever, these europhiles think that they can preach to their political opponents. This is the umpteenth example of the absence of any democratic propriety.

Juncker plays a refined game. He sent two versions of his answer to a Spanish MEP who had put an official written question. With an eye to todays’ elections in Catalonia, he sent him a comprehensive answer in Spanish in which he threatened automatic rescinding of EU membership should the Catalans secede from Spain. That means that they would have to enter new accession negotiations and that until that time all of their rights, for example in the area of free movement, would be lost. In the English version Juncker kept it shorter: this was a national issue, he said. In the meantime a huge row broke out in the EP and the Commission hastily declared that only the English version counted. So where did the Spanish version come from?

The president of the EP – yup, there he is again – made things even more motley. In an interview with France’s Radio Inter, Schulz complained that the Greek leader Alexis Tsipras had once again opted for an ‘extreme right’ coalition partner. He had even phoned Tsipras himself over the matter, as if the Greek Prime Minister is obliged to provide an explanation of his coalition to the president of the European Parliament. Things can’t get much crazier.

Juncker and Schulz’s misconduct is not only the result of both men wearing europhile blinkers. It can’t be a coincidence that Juncker is from the same political tendency as the Spanish premier, who is vehemently opposed to Catalonia’s secession, and that Schulz belongs to the social democratic current to which Pasok, the party recently decimated by the Greek voters, also belongs. Syriza unmasked Pasok, showing that it was part of the corrupt establishment. It’s logical that the social democrats don’t find this to their taste.

In Brussels you’re always thinking that now we’ve seen the worst. And then it turns out that it can in fact get even worse. From inside the Brussels bubble Juncker and Schulz don’t even shy away from making statements that show enormous disrespect for the voters in Catalonia and Greece. This has nothing to do with democracy – one of those ‘European values’ which they celebrate. Rather, it shows how the European Union has fallen prey to a political establishment that has sold its soul to neoliberalism. Fortunately, as members of the SP we believe in the power of ordinary people; and the more fanatical the petty European bosses become, the more rapidly the day approaches when the game will be up for them.