21/09/2012
Readers of this blog are fully familiar with the EU "elephant in the room" phenomenon, whereby media and politicians present new laws and other imposts as if they were of domestic origin, when in fact the perpetrator is the EU.
What is especially interesting, though, is that this phenomenon is by no means confined to the UK, as we can see from
this article in
Die Welt which laments the increased cost of home building due to more rigorous insulation standards.
These costs, which are said to be putting houses out of the reach of average earners, are put down to the [Federal] "Energy Saving Ordinance", but in fact owe their origin to the EU's
Directive 2002/91/EC of 16 December 2002 on the energy performance of buildings.
Yet, despite
considerable analysis of this law in the German media, not once do you see any mention of the European Union. The
Elefant im Raum is truly invisible.
Nor of course, is this phenomenon limited to Germany. It is particularly noticeable in France when, in the ordinary course of events, you would be had put to it even to realised that the Republic was in the EU. It is only Britain, where "euro-elephant" spotting has developed into something of a fine art, that we have a better appreciation of the role of the EU - and even then, the going is often uphill.
Whether the populations of the member states are being kept in ignorance deliberately is moot, as it is often the case that journalists and politicians themselves are quite ignorant of the role of the EU. Some of this, though, is undoubtedly "constructive" ignorance. They don't know because they don't want to know.
However, as long as the bulk of EU activity is invisible to the people it affects, there will always be difficulty in motivating opposition to the "project". What we know nothing about is never going to bring people out into the streets.
