Almost nobody in my country of birth Germany questioned the concept of the European Union during my days as a student. Almost everybody and his sister took the concept of the European Union for granted. That was about twenty five years ago. Since my biography resembles a travel catalog, however, I view that shop plentifully more critical than I used to.

Blushing at that outfit from a healthy distance, many a Eurocrat seems to reckon that “we do know better than the population”. Eurocrats hammer out lofty ideas and impose them on the member countries. Every now and then a member country is required to ratify a new treaty by a referendum. In case the country’s population dares reject the treaty, it may vote once more a year or two down the road. Ireland the last time around serves as a case in point.

It looks to me like democracy in Zimbabwe. Even though elections are held, there’s no doubt about the only outcome feasible. After all, Eurocrats reckon that they do know better. By contrast, Ronald Reagan once quipped that “we’re a nation that has a government, not the other way around”. Small government conservatives and the European Union - it sounds like a contradiction in terms. Do ask the British Tories.

Clobbering together a more and more integrated outfit comprising comparatively financially stable countries and financially wobbly ones comes across as a contradiction in terms as well. The latter countries seem to be commonly known already as the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). Greece is rumoured to be quite close to broke. France and Germany are expected to bail Greece out. The purpose of the exercise boils down to preventing a domino effect, which may make the Euro do an albatross.

By the way, a Eurocrat recently announced that he’ll never ever again accept rigged budgets from potential new members joining the club. He evidently referred to Greece. His statement implies that he was aware of the rigging. Despite the rigging, he swallowed things. How shall we say with respect to the European Union? When you mix cheese cake with cow sh___, what you get tastes a lot more like cow sh___than cheese cake.

With respect to future bailing out scenarios, a new shop is being floated in Europe. The new outfit being floated may be dubbed the Euro Fund. If it materialises, the Euro Fund may pull things off along the line of the International Monetary Fund. Which is to say that it could attach painful strings when it comes to bailouts.

Instead of setting up a fire department in charge of bailouts, the European Union may be better off making up its mind. Option one is a progressing integration with few members, which fit the strict bill. Option two is transforming the European Union into a free trade agreement, which more countries are welcome to join - e.g. Serbia and Turkey.

In case the European Union is to transform itself into a free trade agreement, it may even dump its Esperanto currency, the Euro. Despite the Euro, each member country does its own fiscal policy, which makes the cut for another contradiction in terms.

All this is not to say that there aren’t a few nice spots to live and reside across Europe. But that’s a different story altogether.