A neocon dissing of the whole concept of the EU

Stan Veuger of AEI, aka, Neocon Central, mocks the whole idea of the EU in European Parliament: Purposeful or Pitiful? The National Interest 05/30/2014:

I pay pretty close attention to these things, but have no real idea as to whether the left or the right currently holds a majority in the European Parliament. I feel that Herman van Rompuy may have something to do with the majority in the Parliament, and the fact that he has the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk would suggest that he is probably a representative of the center-right of some sort. But maybe not: there are a few other presidents of the European Union, such as the former Maoist José Manuel Barroso, who may also be a Christian-Democrat, though his party is the Portuguese Partido Social Democrata.

This is so obviously a sneer, it's pointless to try to pick any of it apart. But it's not that hard to, for instance, do some online searches to determine that Portugal's Partido Social Democrata is the conservative party. And a couple of clicks at the website of the Socialist International would have shown him that the social-democratic party recognized as such by other leading European social-democratic party is the Socialist Party (PS).

Vueger doesn't seem to think the state of the economy has much to do with politics in the EU. He thinks last week's European Parliament election shows that voters are grumpy about "the European technocracy." But he does allow that the EU should "stop inflicting unnecessary pain on the people with your currency union, deflationary policies, and other utopian schemes you may have not revealed yet." That throwaway suggestion that the EU should just get rid of that silly "currency union" thingamajig does kind of make you wonder just what kind of "pretty close attention" he pays to European economics and politics.

Tags: austerity economics, eu, euro, european union