[Al-Khwarizmi]

I'm not anti-EU, on the contrary, but honestly the claim is true in practice. I'm not going to give you any hard data, but I think it's just obvious in plain sight.

At least in my country, almost all the debate in news outlets is about national or local issues. EU regulations do come up, but they are always depicted as something that comes "from above" and not tied to specific parties or people. If there is controversy about a national law, the media will blame things on the government or on the opposition (depending on their bias). If there is controversy about an European law, the media will blame an abstract "Brussels"... or directly the government or the opposition anyway, as they're the ones who implement it.

In the EU elections, most (euphemism for all) people I know just vote to the party they prefer in terms of national or regional politics. Almost no one votes because they want a given European directive to be implemented.

Sometimes I have actually made some effort to find out what each of my country's parties voted in some EU decision, and most of the times I failed. It's not clear what decisions come from the Commission or from Parliament (many come from the Commission which is not even directly elected but elected by local governments, by the way). And even for those from Parliament, it's not clear how to find detailed results of Parliament votes. Mind you, I'm not saying there is no way - probably there is one, if you are very well informed or have a lot of time, but there is definitely no way that I could find in 20 minutes of Googling, and most people won't make a greater investment than that.

Not sure if it's the same in all countries, and not sure how to fix it... but yes, I do have the perception that EU institutions are detached from citizens.

That said, this has its pros. If citizens had more of a say, we'd probably have no low-emmission zones, no or almost no pollution regulations, etc. Many environmental policies that are, IMO, unquestionably good, are pushed to reluctant citizens using the "hey, don't blame me, it comes from Brussels" wildcard, and we are better for it (again, IMO). Sad, but true.

[AlecSchueler]

> I'm not anti-EU, on the contrary, but honestly the claim is true in practice

I agree that it's under reported but I don't think it's because the EU is far away or detached from the people. The media simply don't tell us what's going on. There's no regular programmes in my country covering it. There are shows like that for local politics and for national politics, and I can even keep up with US politics if I like. But to know what's happening in the EU I have to very actively choose to search for it.

The US is surely more removed but everyone seems to know every detail of what's going on over there.

[aembleton]

In Berlin, the EU has a information shop kind of thing. Its nicely done but is pretty much verbatimin stuff from the EU website. I tried asking a couple of questions to members of staff in there and they didn't seem to have any more knowledge than myself on the inner workings of the EU.

I think its good to have that sort of thing though and I don't think we ever had such a thing in the UK. I would have liked to understood how the EU works better and the interaction between the parliament and the commission.

[carlosjobim]

> The US is surely more removed but everyone seems to know every detail of what's going on over there.

Except for Britain, European nations simply do not have a strong tradition of news publishing and free debate like the United States. In Europe, news mostly came and still comes in the form of dictates from the rulers. That's why it was so important that people had to go to church each Sunday: not to listen to the word of God, but to be told the latest decisions of the king directly from the preacher's pulpit. Later on, non-government affiliated media has mainly been partisan affairs, directly or indirectly controlled by political parties.

With a weak tradition of free speech and press, it is no wonder that European journalists prefer to sit around all day and read reporting on American politics and summarise for their readers, instead of doing some actual investigating, reporting and interviewing.

[toyg]

That's just anglo spin, sorry - and pretty galling coming from a country where Fox News thrives and propaganda is rife (Judith Miller, anyone?). Same for Britain, dominated for decades by agendas set by Rupert Murdoch's properties.

European traditions in terms of journalism are as good as any. The problems of modern media are the same everywhere: nobody wants to pay for quality journalism, so only people with deep pockets end up footing the bill and hence setting the agenda.

[oytis]

I follow news about German, British and US politics, and I can't quite understand what you mean. Clearly there is debate in Germany, both in parliament and in press. The author of the discussed article is a German politician himself.

[mistrial9]

news media in the USA has become dysfunctional due to the economic changes of the last 20 years. Local news is not available or just so bad that it is obvious.. and national stories have been co-opted into camps promoted on corporate owned channels.. truly, the US news media is only a ghost of what it was forty years ago

[ufocia]

Don't blame it on the media, though I agree that they're not doing a good job. If you know they're not doing a good job, don't be complacent. Do the research yourself. It's not like this is a secret law and the Internet doesn't exist.

Yes, people should be more focused on what's going on in their back yard, at least on the social level, than another country "half way" around the world.

[AlecSchueler]

I do do the research myself and consider myself a very engaged citizen, but the power of the media to inform poeple shouldn't be overlooked. It's very difficult for someone starting from zero to even know they're missing something never mind what to look for.

[brookst]

The media is demand-driven. What gets attention will generate more coverage, what gets ignored will wither.

If there is no coverage of something it generally means people don’t care. That can be a vicious circle, of course. But as soon as people start paying attention to the small outlets that do cover these things, the bigger ones will adapt their coverage.

[generic92034]

> There's no regular programmes in my country covering it.

There are several ones in mine. However, the huge majority of people is not interested in watching them. Unless it is making the headlines/major news programs, most people only hear about it when it is too late to change anything.

[tormeh]

> "hey, don't blame me, it comes from Brussels"

This is definitely a feature disguised as a bug.

[aembleton]

It has a proper term for it in political science. I wish I could remember what it is. I think its something like offshoring democracy but I'm really not sure.

[Funes-]

>That said, this has its pros. If citizens had more of a say, we'd probably have no low-emmission zones, no or almost no pollution regulations, etc.

Since we would rightly blame corporations for polluting the Earth and not ourselves, we would absolutely do away with low-emission zones, but we would surely crank up pollution regulations for them.

[mrtksn]

I see your point but it appears that countries prefer keeping their sovereignty and as a result EU doesn’t have any direct impact on people lives. Every now and then countries agree on some standardization and it’s only then when people see an EU impact on their daily lives.

[oytis]

> Sad, but true.

That's not only sad - it erodes public trust in democracy, and leads to a rise of populist parties.