Two EU irritations (and then I'll shut up for a while)

[steepholm]

On the one hand...

1) The BBC and others continually using "Europe" as a synonym for the European Union. This morning there was a long conversation on the Today programme about "whether Greece would be able to remain part of Europe". That was the usage of everyone involved, including the Greeks themselves. Presumably the alternative is for Greece to be ceded to the Turks and grappled across the Bosphorus? Byron would have conniptions - but the arrogance of this outsized Chamber of Commerce in implicitly claiming the entirety of European culture and history as its peculiar possession is quite astounding.


On the other...

2) The think tank Open Europe talking about repatriating powers from the EU primarily, it seems, in order to strip workers of their rights on pay, working hours and safety and turn Britain into the sweatshop of the world. Their zealotry for helotry may go down well amongst red-braced robber barons, but offers ordinary people every incentive to keep a-hold of nurse.

Comments

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

I must play Devils advocate (awkward bastard that I am). Yes sloppy to equate EU with all of Europe but America = US and not the western hemisphere?
EU as saviour, a each day passes I weigh up what we got from Brussels, without EU law we would be in a sad and sorry place but it is actually far easier to overthrow a regime such as Whitehall if it stands alone;)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes sloppy to equate EU with all of Europe but America = US and not the western hemisphere?

Indeed - and I'm not at all fond of that usage either. But there are differences, which are cumulatively significant, I think. First, the American/US slippage is of very long-standing. I wouldn't start from here, and if a confederation of, say, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela decided tomorrow to start calling itself "South America" I think there'd be hackles raised and rightly so. Second, the word "America" didn't already have a millennia-long history and heritage at the time the USA was set up and "American" started being used as shorthand for "USAian". (The effacement of Native American history is another matter again.) And third, the EU isn't even a state, which arguably makes its self-identification with an entire continent even more hubristic.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

We call it Turtle Island white boy!

[perdix.livejournal.com]

LOVE your allusion to Hillaire Belloc! Poor Jim....

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Politics today is a cautionary tale in itself. :)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

If it really were just an outsized Chamber of Commerce, there wouldn't be all these problems.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

My wish was father to that thought...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Every time I hear about Greece leaving Europe I think of them roping together all the islands and towing the country out past Gibraltar and embarking on a world tour.

It would fit into Hudson's Bay, and the change of climate might be bracing...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

An Arctic Odyssey might make for interesting reading!

Europe

[l. lee lowe (from livejournal.com)]

The arrogance of whom? I thought the BBC was a British institution. (You're making too much, I feel, of what is essential a type of shorthand.)

And commerce moulds the world, like it or not. Just look how Steve Jobs is being deified.

Re: Europe

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm irritated with the BBC for going along with this practice, but it did not originate with them. And it's far from being merely a form of shorthand. ('EU' is quite a bit shorter than 'Europe' anyway.) The Commission is well aware of the power of symbolism. Remember when they all suddenly started rising to their feet whenever "Ode to Joy" was played, a few years ago? It wasn't for the exercise.

Yes commerce is influential - apparently more so than democracy, looking at the recent example of Greece and the current one of Italy. That's not a law of physics, however - but a political position to be resisted. (The Steve Jobs hysteria - like the Princess Diana hysteria before it - had little to do with commerce.)

Re: Europe

[l. lee lowe (from livejournal.com)]

It's not just the BBC. Read the first line of this Guardian piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/09/european-debt-crisis-eurozone-breakup


'EU' is not significantly shorter than 'Europe' when spoken, at least. And more awkward to pronounce (try it). And though I agree about the power of symbolism, I feel it's a terrible pity if the European experiment were to fail. Having lived most of my life in a variety of countries on several continents, I have little patience with (excessive) national loyalties. That is a political position I definitely seek to resist!

EU may not be all of Europe, but it's hard to argue that it's not the most influential/significant part of it, at least in international terms.

I don't agree with you about Jobs. No one would be paying much attention if he hadn't been so commercially successful: he managed to brand an entire industry - or even several.

Re: Europe

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not just the BBC.

I tend to say "European Union": I find that what I lose in milliseconds is more than made up for in clarity. When discussing the effect that the state of the Eurozone is having on the rest of the European Union and on Europe as a whole, it's useful to have three distinct terms for these three distinct things.

I too have little patience with excessive national loyalties. But do you believe that is the only alternative to excessive EU loyalty? (I ask partly because I know you live in Germany, and it's always seemed to me that the attitude of many Germans is - for understandable historical reasons - that if they don't cling to the EU then there's a danger that they'll relapse into extreme nationalism, as if these were the only two possible positions! Expect to see this false-binary argument being used more and more in the coming months, as the rest of the Eurozone countries line up to get the Germans to sign their blank cheques, either directly or through the ECB.) Looking at the Eurozone's leaders' reactions to the current crisis, it is increasingly clear that the most expendable components of the political union as far as they are concerned are democracy and equality. The emergence of the "Frankfurt group" (of which the only elected members are Merkel and Sarkozy) as the Eurozone's effective politburo, along with the frantic attempts not to consult the people in Greece and now Italy, bodes very ill in my view.

People wouldn't have got het up about Jobs if he'd been a bank clerk, it's true; but then people wouldn't have got het up about Diana if she'd remained a nursery assistant. It's not the amount of money he made that people felt strongly about (will we see the same outpouring on the death of the much richer - and at least as altruistic - Warren Buffett?), but his association with a successful brand that touched their lives. Same with Diana.

Re: Europe

[l. lee lowe (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, it's certainly important to use those three terms when needed, and for the most part I'm all for precision in language use. The problem, of course, is to decide where the line between knitpicking and precision lies. But perhaps you're right: the media should be more careful.

And you're absolutely right about German sensitivity to nationalism, but don't forget that I'm an American - and therefore have plenty of my own reasons to fear it! As to whether the Eurozone leaders are prepared to dismiss democracy and equality, this is both exaggerated, in part greatly exaggerated, and imprecise. What do you mean by the Frankfurt group? It's a term I've come across for the first time in this regard.

A crisis is also an opportunity for growth and change. The mistake that was made was to create a Eurozone without a common economic policy. Obviously it's difficult to do so with such diverse interests. But it's equally understandable that the big Eurozone guns are going to end up dominating. This does not mean that they are willing to forgo democracy and equality, as you seem to be suggesting.

Of course people are impressed by how much Jobs made (among other things)! You cannot separate his success as a brand from this measure of it. His brand is only influential if sells - and now we all have to live with the consequences of it (I'm an iPad owner, and I have quite a few things to mutter about.).




Of course I've pointed out the extremes - nationalism vs. unity - but usually one has to chose an orientation, and I prefer to err on the side of a unified Europe. If nothing else, a solid political as well as economic union is absolutely necessary to counterbalance other growing hegemonies.

Re: Europe

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm far from disagreeing with you about much of this. There is no entirely safe course, especially starting from the position in which we find ourselves. I imagine we'll know in a couple of years whether my fears regarding the democratic legitimacy of the new-look EU are well founded or not.

The Frankfurt Group is the name of the inner group running the eurozone crisis. It's all over the net, though usually described in very partisan terms. This report seems reasonably even-handed. The EU has always had a serious democratic deficit, what with its executive body (the Commission) being unelected, but this inner cabal doesn't even have the Commission's degree of answerability. And, since it started working on a crisis caused by a combination of the banks and the EU's own hubris in trying to merge too much and too fast, what have we seen? New Prime Ministers in Greece and Italy, chosen (without reference to the people) very much on the lines demanded by the Frankfurt Group and the markets: one is a banker, the other an ex-Commissioner! That really makes me feel safe...

Re: Europe

[l. lee lowe (from livejournal.com)]

Aha. I'll google 'Frankfurt Group' in German. Perhaps it's known here under a different name - or I've missed it.

Actually, I feel a lot safer with Monti as the likely choice, at least - a tough, experienced negotiator who is prepared to do the hard things.

Since you mentioned Warren Buffett, have a look at this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=2

I probably shouldn't say this in public, but democracy itself has some pretty big deficits (Witness Italy!). Only thing is, what's the alternative?

Re: Europe

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I mentioned Buffett because (from what I've seen of him) he seems a decent cove, despite being a billionaire.

As for democracy, it's like the man said - it's the worst system in the world, apart from all the others.