Becoming an EU-sceptic

I am a convinced European citizen and glad to be a citizen of the European Union - but now that I am approaching the first birthday of this blog, I think I am becoming an absolute EU-sceptic.

The European elections are over, and the lack of European ambition we have seen during the campaign seems to continue after the elections.

After yesterday's political decision by the Council, Barroso looks like the definite candidate for the presidency of the European Commission.

And although I have great confidence in that the European Parliament will show some muscles, I don't see anything speaking against his renomination as the world's most powerless leader of a supranational institution.

The EPP supports him, because, they don't have a less qualified person still able to handle a European administration. The ELDR supports him because they want some of the other power positions in the Commission and the Parliament - which they won't get without EPP support. The Socialists have failed to present an own candidate because they are absolutely divided and thus incapable of running a European campaign from the beginning to the end. The Greens are small but important enough to demand whatever they want without having any impact. And the extreme Left does not even know what kind of Europe it wants.

When I look at all this, I more and more get the impression that the EU has failed to be the project of Europeans.

The EU is the project of power games, mostly between old, worn-out men who try to compare the length of their penises instead of caring for the interests of the continent. In one of these contests, an old Pole now has apparently won the EP presidency over an old Italian guy.

On the one side, the EU is a PR project of technocrats who have no interest in supporting a common European identity and a genuine European democracy, and on the other side, it is the ideal supranational playing field for nationalists who always fight for "the best" of their countries instead of promoting the best for Europe as a whole.

They all lack European ambition, they all lack spirit, and they all don't have any idea where they want this Union to be in 10 years.

The more I watch them doing this, the less interested I am in what they do. The more I listen to their heartless speeches, their superficial declarations, their diplomatic compromises, the more I am convinced that nothing will change.

I think the task of this blog will have to change.

Before the elections, I saw its main task to support information on the European Union and the EP election campaign, because there was and still is a lack of substantive coverage of EU politics. But now that the elections are over, the time for positive-critical coverage is over.

From now on, this blog will look at the EU with more EU-sceptic eyes.

When I say "EU-sceptic" I don't mean a return to nationalist times like many British EU-sceptics. When I say "EU-sceptic" I imply the firm conviction that the present EU institutions are not capable of bringing forward a common Europe.

In fact, I am not even sure that it is the institutions itself that are designed to fail, but I also don't see the actors within these institutions who could give the European Union the impetus it needs. And Barroso is only the tip of the iceberg.

So instead of looking for the successes of the Union, I will look for the failures. Instead of praising good examples, I will dig deeper into the negative ones. To a certain extend I have been doing this already, but from now on, the focus will change:

Finding the wolves in the sheep's clothing will become more important than enjoying the beauty of the herd.

If there is no European opposition within the institutions, then we - europhile EU-sceptics - will need to be a stronger European opposition outside the institutions!

Update: See Nosemonkey's reply to this post.