Our thanks to European Democracy (via Nosemonkey) for this excellent account of the EU budget negotiations, seen, for once, without a distorting emphasis on the precious rebate on which the British media is fixated.
Looks guiltily at feet.
Meanwhile, the Observer blog was talking to a well-placed European official ... no seriously, we were ... whose prescribed measures to bring EU institutions closer to the people they are supposed to represent were as follows:
1) Allow TV cameras to record meetings of the Council, so that everyone can see that it is in fact national governments and not some nebulous bureaucracy that wields power. If heads of government knew they were going to be held to account for what they say and do they might cease discreetly to foster the conspiracy that the Commission tries to run a Federal Europe and they, the noble champions of national democracy, go to Brussels to 'win back' concessions.
2) Suspend the European Parliament and freeze all expenditure on it until there is a pan-European clamour for its restoration.
3) Ban media use of the word Brussels in reference to anything other than the captial of Belgium, so that lazy journalists are forced to identify the specific European institution they accuse of acting (or failing to act) in a given situation.
To this list we can only reasonably add:
4) Forget Ode to Joy, make The Final Countdown by Europe the continental anthem. Or possibly Rock Me Amadeus by Falco.
