[vixen99]

Sadly this 'populist nonsense' has even infected some prominent public intellectuals. Doubtless your comment will put them straight.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/crisis-behind-the-euroc...

From Chapter 6: 'The Inherently Undemocratic EU Democracy'

'A number of prominent public intellectuals put pen to paper to warn not only of a crisis of European democracy, but of a crisis of the very ‘political institution’ of democracy, and particularly its representative and liberal variants. Contemporary manifestations of the ‘hollowing out’ of democracy following the Eurocrisis have taken many forms and several contributions in this volume have dealt with various aspects of the phenomenon.'

' .... a crisis of the EU’s own democratic credentials. Even as they insisted on its purely economic character, commentators were quick to criticise the undemocratic form that the emergency EMU-related responses to the Eurocrisis came to assume, particularly at the European level, where not only parliamentary processes, but also the Treaties’ legal prescriptions, were systematically circumvented'.

[tugu77]

The EU has certainly its issues, no doubt about it. They need to be pointed out and addressed for sure. We are not in disagreement there.

But the flat out denial that EU is in principle a democratic system is just a too simplistic view. It tends to be mostly touted by those populists who ultimately would like to see an authocratic state with themselves in charge.

[izacus]

I think it makes a lot more sense that there's a lot of (especially rich people and US folks) that desperately want EU to fail - either because they're deeply nationalist, see a profit motive or just hate foreigners.

Those will craft narratives that are patently untrue to drive their agenda.