Less than 24 hours after Britain threw Europe’s postwar order into disarray last Thursday by voting to leave the European Union, dozens of officials from the bloc’s 28 member countries and its executive arm met behind closed doors in a drab Brussels office block to discuss the urgent issues at hand.
The meeting ended without a decision, however, and was followed on Monday by more inconclusive and confidential wrangling in the Albert Borschette Congress Center in Brussels.
The main issue under discussion was not Brexit, as Britain’s departure from the bloc is called, but another divisive cause embraced by British foes of the European Union: the freedom to use certain types of weed killer.
While Berlin, Europe’s de facto capital, has hosted crisis meetings in recent days to discuss how to respond to Britain’s vote, Brussels, the putative capital of Europe, has stuck doggedly to its own stately rhythms. On Friday and Monday, it plowed ahead with arcane debates about weeds, fish, organic farming and other subjects that have come to form the substance of the so-called European project.
This scrutiny of technical minutiae has turned the European Union into a regulatory superpower, allowing it to help set norms and standards used around the world. But that tight focus has crippled its ability to grapple with big issues or to engage with many ordinary people. As the British vote showed, many people feel no connection with what began as an idealistic peace project after World War II, but is now widely viewed as a meddling and undemocratic bureaucratic machine.
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Those who support the idea of turning Europe into a federal state are even hoping that the crisis set off by the British vote will invigorate their sagging cause, a prospect that is unlikely to fly.
British opponents of the bloc campaigned on the idea that the constant meddling of unelected officials in Brussels was holding their country down and destroying its way of life. By banning weed killers, in one example.
“Now EU Fat Cats Want to Ban Our Weed Killer,” read a headline in April in the Daily Express, a British tabloid that supported the Brexit campaign.
In reality, officials in the European Commission have been pushing for months to extend an approval, first granted in 2002 and now set to expire on Friday, for the use in Europe of popular weed killers, like Roundup.
But they had problems getting member states to agree in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feeds. Delays by France, Germany and other governments meant that the issue, like many others in the European Union, continued to be kicked down the road.
“The idea that we wanted a ban was just one of the false myths spread by British tabloids,” said Enricio Brivio, a spokesman for the European Commission’s department that deals with health and food safety. “What could we do? I do not know.”
Mr. Agnew, the UKIP member of the European Parliament, acknowledged that the officials “had actually tried to do the right thing.” He nonetheless derided their fruitless efforts as a symptom of the “E.U.’s shambolic decision making.”
As debates on weed killer and other matters continue in Brussels, the European Commission is trying to avoid a breakdown of its bureaucratic system in the event that the hundreds of British citizens working in the organization suddenly decide to leave. It has assured them that their jobs are safe despite their country’s vote to withdraw.
The most senior Briton in the apparatus, the commissioner of financial services, Jonathan Hill, resigned over the weekend in response to the referendum result.
Some lower officials are hanging tight for the moment, saying they did not come to Brussels just to work for Britain. It remains to be seen, many cautioned, whether Brussels gets the message that there needs to be fundamental reform of the European project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/w...ackage-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
The meeting ended without a decision, however, and was followed on Monday by more inconclusive and confidential wrangling in the Albert Borschette Congress Center in Brussels.
The main issue under discussion was not Brexit, as Britain’s departure from the bloc is called, but another divisive cause embraced by British foes of the European Union: the freedom to use certain types of weed killer.
While Berlin, Europe’s de facto capital, has hosted crisis meetings in recent days to discuss how to respond to Britain’s vote, Brussels, the putative capital of Europe, has stuck doggedly to its own stately rhythms. On Friday and Monday, it plowed ahead with arcane debates about weeds, fish, organic farming and other subjects that have come to form the substance of the so-called European project.
This scrutiny of technical minutiae has turned the European Union into a regulatory superpower, allowing it to help set norms and standards used around the world. But that tight focus has crippled its ability to grapple with big issues or to engage with many ordinary people. As the British vote showed, many people feel no connection with what began as an idealistic peace project after World War II, but is now widely viewed as a meddling and undemocratic bureaucratic machine.
....
Those who support the idea of turning Europe into a federal state are even hoping that the crisis set off by the British vote will invigorate their sagging cause, a prospect that is unlikely to fly.
British opponents of the bloc campaigned on the idea that the constant meddling of unelected officials in Brussels was holding their country down and destroying its way of life. By banning weed killers, in one example.
“Now EU Fat Cats Want to Ban Our Weed Killer,” read a headline in April in the Daily Express, a British tabloid that supported the Brexit campaign.
In reality, officials in the European Commission have been pushing for months to extend an approval, first granted in 2002 and now set to expire on Friday, for the use in Europe of popular weed killers, like Roundup.
But they had problems getting member states to agree in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feeds. Delays by France, Germany and other governments meant that the issue, like many others in the European Union, continued to be kicked down the road.
“The idea that we wanted a ban was just one of the false myths spread by British tabloids,” said Enricio Brivio, a spokesman for the European Commission’s department that deals with health and food safety. “What could we do? I do not know.”
Mr. Agnew, the UKIP member of the European Parliament, acknowledged that the officials “had actually tried to do the right thing.” He nonetheless derided their fruitless efforts as a symptom of the “E.U.’s shambolic decision making.”
As debates on weed killer and other matters continue in Brussels, the European Commission is trying to avoid a breakdown of its bureaucratic system in the event that the hundreds of British citizens working in the organization suddenly decide to leave. It has assured them that their jobs are safe despite their country’s vote to withdraw.
The most senior Briton in the apparatus, the commissioner of financial services, Jonathan Hill, resigned over the weekend in response to the referendum result.
Some lower officials are hanging tight for the moment, saying they did not come to Brussels just to work for Britain. It remains to be seen, many cautioned, whether Brussels gets the message that there needs to be fundamental reform of the European project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/w...ackage-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news