When Europe’s leaders gather in Berlin next Sunday to renew their vows to the European Union, there will be much lofty talk of peace, prosperity and human rights.
But a large number of its citizens associate the EU mostly with something else: bureaucracy.
An FT/Harris poll found that apart from the single market that underpinned the original European Economic Community, bureaucracy is regarded as the feature citizens most associate with the 50-year-old project.
In Britain and Germany bureaucracy was named as the main feature they linked to the EU, outscoring the bloc’s various achievements, not least securing 50 years of peace and helping to spread democracy and prosperity across the continent. When asked what came into their heads when they thought of the EU, 31 per cent named the single market, 20 per cent bureaucracy, 9 per cent democracy and 26 per cent other factors.
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