THE MALAISE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Year 2001, Volume: 6 Issue: 4, 0 - 0, 01.12.2001

Salahi R Sonyel

Abstract

Since the publication of my paper entitled ‘The European Union and the Cyprus Imbroglio’ in the Perceptions, June-August 1998,1 the problems facing the European Union have become more acute and are now described as a ‘malaise’ by numerous well-informed researchers and analysts. In this paper I shall reflect and analyse some of their views. In my first paper, I referred to a report by the think tank Demos,2 according to which, across Europe the EU’s standing with its citizens has hit rock bottom: only 46 percent support their country’s EU membership and 41 percent think that their country benefits from that membership. This figure is lower than at any time before. Only half of Europeans identify themselves with the EU institutions or with Europe as a whole. Euro-scepticism, for so long regarded as a ‘British disease’, has spread across the EU —even to the heartlands of France and Germany. Today, the EU is more unpopular with many of its citizens who are kept in the dark about its functions and aspirations. People do not feel part of the EU. They believe that the EU is under the domination of a secretive and unrepresentative élite, and they want something to be done about it.