To go to much effort to
construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies
within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to
an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To
refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is
just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and
perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical
inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both
ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies
even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in
referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.” In all of these cases of ideological
word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from
within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim
residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed
costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign
policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive
to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.
As Russia’s Putin was ordering
an unprecedented sustained bombing of Kiev, Euronews ran a story asking, “Which
European economy stands to suffer the most from US tariffs?” In the article,
Euronews wrote, “Germany and Ireland are standing out as the two most exposed
EU economies threatened by higher US tariffs, as Brussels works towards a trade
deal with Washington . . .”[1]
That Brussels, meaning the European Commission, was negotiating with Washington
was itself being undercut by the message that the E.U. doesn’t even have its
own economy. Furthermore, the governors of Germany and Ireland could feel free
to undercut the Commission by negotiating directly with the U.S. in the
interest of those two states at the expense of the other E.U. states and
even the E.U. as a whole. It is never good for a whole when a part can
easily exploit a vulnerability in order to put the part’s own interests above
the whole. Is the E.U. even a whole? If
not, as is implied in the article, why is Brussels even negotiating with the Washington?
To expect the Commission to negotiate while portraying the E.U. states as having
the real economies is like a person unilaterally deciding to fight with
one arm tied up! Is it really so important to the political elite in Europe to
cement the Euroskeptic ideology as the basic paradigm by implicitly denying
that an economy exists that stretches across the E.U., even as a large
federalized economy across the ocean is raising tariffs?
“In 2024, the United States was the largest partner for EU exports of goods, making up 20.6% of all EU goods exports outside the bloc.”[2] Even denigrating the European Union to a “bloc” subtly undermines the ability of the Commission to protect the exports to the U.S. from being suffocated by higher tariffs, for how is the U.S. supposed to regard negotiating with a mere “bloc”? To contend that new American tariffs could really hurt the E.U.’s export market and in the very same sentence to refer to the E.U. as a mere “bloc” is logically abhorrent to any rational mind, and yet even in advocating for the E.U.’s exports, the undermining ideology cannot keep silent! C’est absolument incroyable—vraiment. Das ist seltsam. Superbia malum est.
The same self-destructiveness can be seen in yet another Euronews article on the very same day: “The ministers of Israel and Palestine will be in the same room in Brussels a day before the bloc discusses options in response to Israel’s breach of its partnership agreement” with the European Union.[3] The talks were indeed high-stakes, given Israel’s continued daily killing of Palestinian civilians even as they waited in line for food, and yet how is the Israeli delegation to approach negotiations being held by a mere “bloc” of countries? The temptation to go to a governor of a favorably inclined E.U. state to undermine a unfavorable position by the Commission in the negotiations. That the partnership agreement is with the E.U. itself rather than with any of its state governments and yet the E.U. is only a “bloc” shows just how weakening the self-belittling choice of the word, bloc, is. For it is neither Israel nor the Palestinians where came up with that term to describe what the E.U. is; rather, the Europeans did that themselves. Encore, incroyable.
2. Ibid.
3. Shona Murray, Maia de La Baume, and Jorge Liboreiro, “Exclusive: Israel and Palestine to Join High Level Brussels Meeting Despite Tense EU Relations,” Euronews.com, July 11, 2025.
