Brussels Won't Be Capital of Europe

As the European debt crisis lumbers along, if it wasn't obvious before it is now: ceding national sovereignty to fiscal integration and political union in Europe will be a nightmare.  Bureaucrats in Brussels, we are told in the New York Times, can impose austerity on poor Greek citizens, but they can't make their own travel arrangements, must fly business class, and have to take private jets in order to visit with Russian officials. 

The CEO of Ryanair, a no-frills European airline, says, "The European Union spends most of its time either suing me, torturing me (a bit much, but he's a CEO), criticizing me or condemning me for lowering the cost of air travel all over Europe."  Efficiency can't stand in the way of comfort and ease for the Eurocrats in Brussels.

Even more outlandish was the requirement that international airlines flying over European airspace buy carbon offset credits for polluting once national, but now European airspace.  The Chinese government has rightly said that they will not play along with this ridiculous ploy to generate revenue for the failing Euro cap and trade system.  Their claims were rejected, but today the Chinese government has declared that one of their large orders for the Airbus 380 is being placed on hold because of EU intransigence over the carbon credit issue.  Can rationality prevail in Brussels?

The Greek government is seeing the effects of the Brussels-imposed austerity, and Spain and Portugal will have to wonder when the cudgels will be wielded on their sovereign economic policies by the Eurocrats.  A European customs union makes sense, a currency union makes a bit less sense, but political union is a non-starter.