for 4 years, Brexit has been a cover of really existing European Union’s problems.
It will take years for the European Union’s members to reform, renew and eventually reunite. But there is a real obstacle: to push Brexit, some Eurosceptics within the union have moved from trying to leave the bloc to willing to capture it and destroy it from the inner side of its structure.
The populist problem of the EU does not start or end with Brexit. One of the strangest aspects of the European Union is that, thanks to its bureaucracy, it has created an ideal environment for Eurosceptics to support the anti-European agenda.
Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit party, said that ironically, Brexit would not have happened without the EU legislative branch, the European Parliament.
Some time ago, the EU decided that it would be good for members of the European Parliament to create political groups in parliament. The idea was as follows: if you were a socialist in Spain, you could find your fellow socialists in Sweden or France and work as a bloc.
This led not only to the formation of groups in Parliament, but also of multinational political parties outside it. All these organizations hire staff in Brussels and within their countries. Their travel and living expenses are covered by the EU budget. They can establish think tanks to research and promote their ideas.
From Brussels’ point of view, everything is fine if these members of the European Parliament work to strengthen the union. However, EU funding rules are not transparent and the system is open to abuse.
For example, there is a monthly “total expenditure allowance” of $4,897 per month. A monthly “total expenditure allowance” of $4,897 is provided to all 705 members of parliament. Although this money is intended to be used for “parliamentary activities such as office rent and management costs”, MPs are not required to submit receipts when applying for these expenses.
“I cannot give an example in the public or private sphere, where there is absolutely no financial management, which is almost 40 million euros a year in public money”, – says Nicholas Ayossa, deputy director of Transparency International EU.
Few people have been brought to justice. In 2017, the ultra-right French National Front, Marin Le Pen, was officially investigated by fraudulently using millions of EU dollars to finance national campaigns at home. The National Front has denied these allegations.
Funding is just the beginning. Proportional representation in the EU Parliament also means that extreme right-wing parties that have been ousted from power at the national level have a chance to be elected, have a platform and make friends with like-minded populists across the continent.
“The European Parliament has become a breeding ground for some of these movements”, – says Daniel Freund, a German MP.
Freund explains that the extreme right are ruthlessly effective in squeezing the maximum out of Brussels.
“They are not always ideologically consistent and do not vote together, but they can form political groups to increase things like staff distribution and speaking time in parliament”.