May 26, 2021
As a generation, the under-30s in Europe have been fed by the textbook a worldview that sees the European Union (EU) as the sole conduit for enlightened, pacified and efficient relations among the nations of the continent. “Ideals” or “values” is the preferred term for those at the helm of the institutions sprung from these beliefs and a worrying lot of the public they’ve conscripted into them. That may be a distinction in kind with the deathlier forms of zealotry that the EU has replaced, but not in the degree to which said ideology is embraced. One belief system or another will necessarily come to govern the way power is apportioned and decisions are made in such an unwieldy locus of power as Brussels, and the one dominant at present demands a growing degree of signle-mindedness from its adherents. A few months upon the arduous conclusion of Brexit from which lessons seem yet to be learnt, the supranationalists closed ranks around the European Commission (EC)’s evidently disastrous vaccine procurement strategy, typecasting any critique as contrary to enlightened technocracy. Drawing on the best of the Uncommonly Decent contrarian spirit, we host two noted critics of European supranationalism to take stock of the past year—Anna Wellisz of the Edmund Burke Foundation and John O’Sullivan of the Danube Institute. Enjoy!
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