Wednesday 17 February 2010

The Irresponsible Union

I wanted to write a blog post about the irresponsibility of the EU system.

About the fact that whenever something goes wrong, there is nobody to blame for. About the fact that you may find a scapegoat for concrete mistakes, but nobody who is able to correct systematic problems.

I thought I'd mention that the reason why I cannot imagine working for an EU institution is that my experience with national and European governmental organisations was that you can work a lot but that there is almost no way to complain internally about things that go wrong, routines that are useless, communication paths that are inefficient.

Very few people feel responsible for the whole thing, everyone is focused on day-to-day work. Day-to-day problems. The machine has to work, but it doesn't matter where it goes. Your own cogwheel needs to turn quicker and quicker, even when it slows down the whole machine. And if you notice, there is nobody to talk to, at least nobody who could change this.

But I decided not write a blog post about this topic because that is a well-known problem and writing about it won't reach anyone, at least no one who can do anything about it.

2 comments:

AK said...

Very good post. Won't go unnoticed.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
As a fellow social (political) scientist, I recommend this book:
"Political Responsibility and the European Union" by Myrto Tsakatika

http://us.macmillan.com/politicalresponsibilityandtheeuropeanunion