Wednesday, July 24, 2013

This is slightly bizarre

Bulgarians demonstrating against their corrupt politicians (whom, I believe, they elected but that is another story) is not bizarre. Nor is the trapping of "more than 100 politicians, journalists and staff" inside the Parliament building overnight particularly bizarre. I bet most of them were harmless, underpaid staff rather than politicians but that is the way of demonstrations, riots and even revolutions.

What is bizarre in my view is the support voiced by the European Commission for the anti-corruption protests.
EU commissioner for justice Viviane Reding at a Citizens’ Dialogue event in Sofia said she was “very much moved by the strong desire of the Bulgarian citizen to have this change, to fight for democracy, to fight against corruption.”

“My sympathy is with the Bulgarian citizens who are protesting on the streets against corruption,” she said.
Nothing wrong, one might say, with supporting the protesters. I feel the same way myself. But is the Commission now on the side of street protests against the governments of member states? Does it intend to form an alliance in order to strengthen its own position?

2 comments:

  1. WTF has the EU got to do with democracy and the fight against corruption?

    ReplyDelete