What is blowing up Europe?

Yesterday (to 23.07.) Tommy Westerlund was publishing a ledare in Hbl which was titled ”EU – Egoistiska Unionen?” in which he deplored the impression that the EU ”blivit en samling stater som i första hand tänker på sitt eget bästa”. And on p.4 of the same issue Jutta Urpilainen was FULLY supporting ”regeringens tuffa Greklandspolitik” for the reason that ”det handlar om hela EU:s framtid”. So, why does the EU definitely NOT grow together into, e.g., a united block of defenders of European-style civilization?

I think I do see rather clearly a number of factors which drive the EU countries apart – but which unluckily nobody thinks it wise to mention loud and clearly. There is (a) democracy, which makes it necessary for every candidate (or other representative of a party) to please possible voters (e.g. by not contradicting their prejudices), (b) the free and profit-oriented media, who think it (justly) profitable to flatter their customers (e.g. by encouraging them in their prejudices, also describing them in subtly positive ways when comparing them to those others beyond the national borders), and (c) the tendency to keep very quiet about any mistakes which the ”elite” might have made (because the media owners want to keep being on good terme with that ”elite”?). Concerning Greece it results in a description of the situation where ”we” (= those who still believe in the neoliberal system) do not see why we should give ”our” money to those ”lazy, corrupt and squandering Greeks”; while nobody even mentions that it was in fact the banks who were giving credit after credit in totally careless and irresponsible ways (and whom, strange enough, now nobody is holding responsible for their carelessness) and that our governments still do not do anything about those tax havens (where the actually corrupt members of the Greek ”elite” have presumably stowed away the money they took).

Altogether, if Europe should get a chance to grow together with the support of its citizens, it would be necessary to (d) put the blame for the problems where it belongs (and hold people responsible accordingly) and (e) counteract the Capitalist tendencies of the profit-oriented media (e.g. by establishing – and paying for – a non-profit weekly paper which were – in, say, three or four languages- distributed over all of the EU and which would EXPLAIN in clear language and with intelligent reasoning what the problems are, where the responibilities are and what should be done). It is of course quite possible that there are still more things which should be done, but I think the above suggestions could at least be a good beginning.