European Union

“This time it’s different!” announced a major mobilisation campaign by the European Parliament (EP). What was new about the elections to the European Union’s only directly elected institution were changes brought to the EP by the Lisbon Treaty – more competencies, but in particular a closer connection between the decision of European voters and filling the position of head of the European executive. The slogan “This time it’s different!” foreshadowed greater interest and thus also greater voter participation.

On 9 December 2011 all 17 members of the eurozone and countries aspiring to join agreed on a new EU treaty to put strict caps on government spending and borrowing. This intention may, for many different reasons, end up to be yet another paper tiger. One of them may be that EU authorities fail to address a major hole in the system. The hole´s name is public-private partnerships (PPP). Another is Commission´s culture of feeding wasteful projects, no questions asked. In its February 2004 decision on deficit and debt, the Eurostat recommends that “the assets involved in a public-private partnership should be classified as non-government assets, and therefore recorded off balance sheet for government, if both of the following conditions are met: 1. the private partner bears the construction risk, and 2. the private partner bears at least one of either availability or demand risk.”

It is no exaggeration to state that no other country had such a difficult, almost tragic trajectory to EU membership as Croatia’s. As the country approached full membership, the EU was in the midst of a deep political and economic crisis. The revival of nationalism and Europe-wide protests against the neo-liberal reformist agenda and financialisation from different angles cast doubt on the shape of the future European community.

The “nation-state-based” current in Czech politics views German leadership in the EU as problematic and potentially unacceptable. A minority was accusing Germany of hegemony and dictates even before the euro crisis. In 2010, Václav Klaus stated that “Germany [had] achieved through peaceful means the clear European hegemony which it had unsuccessfully sought in two world wars”.