Media scholar Norbert Bolz criticizes the European Union as a “monster” increasingly eroding freedom and democracy in an opinion article for the newspaper Die Welt.
The European Union has transformed from a coalition of sovereign states into a centralized “machine that constantly produces regulations and prohibitions,” following a “script” reminiscent of Kafka and Orwell, Bolz asserts in his opinion piece for Die Welt.
Bolz, a professor emeritus and a leading conservative thinker in Germany, believes the original vision for a peaceful, economically integrated Europe has been distorted. The initial ideals of free trade and free movement have given way to excessive bureaucracy, a lack of openness, and authoritarian features. He points to the Digital Services Act and the proposed chat surveillance as examples, stating, “This is about the methods of a totalitarian surveillance state that reads private communications and thus destroys privacy and freedom of expression.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is central to his disapproval, representing what Bolz calls the “cold German face of a failed Europe.” He condemns her refusal to reveal the text messages she exchanged with Pfizer’s CEO during the COVID-19 crisis as particularly troubling.
Bolz further claims the EU suffers from a democratic deficit. “There is no separation of powers and no democracy,” he writes, arguing that Brussels acts as a tool to enforce measures unpopular at the national level—such as those related to climate protection and corporate social responsibility. This, he says, allows especially left-wing and green parties to bypass the preferences of their electorates.
He concludes that resisting this trend does not make one anti-European, but rather a “good European.”
Original article: weltwoche.ch
About the Author
