Behind the Façade: The Problems Within the EU

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The European Union calls itself “a unique economic and political partnership between 27 democratic European countries” (1) which apparently aims to promote “peace, prosperity and freedom for its 495 million citizens – in a fairer, safer world” (1). While this may be a noble sentiment, in reality the EU is an inefficient, bureaucratic mess. It is my belief that, while the European Union is fundamentally a good idea, it is turning into an undemocratic kleptocracy that will gradually begin to remove our civil liberties while causing great damage to many areas including the environment and society.

One key issue is that the European Union is undeniably unnecessary, especially at the current cost to us. For example, countries under the separate (but linked) European Free Trade Association and Switzerland enjoy the same free trade and movement as EU member countries, without having to pay the tremendous costs. Another example of this is the company called EADS, which makes Airbus, Eurofighter and Eurocopter aircraft. EADS is indeed a brilliant, very profitable, European company that was formed from the merger of almost all aerospace companies within Europe, but it was formed without much help from the EU thus this, is another example that shows the expensive European Union is unnecessary and unhelpful.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU again shows the lack of necessity of the EU. The CAP was designed to make Europe self-sufficient for food after low agricultural productivity due to World War 2. By 1970, it had more than reached this goal, mainly through the highest agricultural subsidies in the world (2). These subsidies usually end up going to the biggest, richest farms, such as €58billion going to just 18% of farms e...

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