Info

Posts tagged european union

Choose another tag?

It should have been a year of reckoning. Instead, it became a year of exposure without consequence.

Across the continent, scandal piled on scandal. In France, Marine Le Pen was found guilty of siphoning nearly three million euros of EU funds into her party machine, only to pivot and cast herself as a victim. In the Czech Republic, the Justice Ministry accepted a forty five million euro crypto payment from a convicted criminal, and the minister resigned as if that were enough. In Brussels, Huawei lobbyists were exposed for quietly greasing the wheels of influence until the European Parliament finally locked them out. And in Greece, the OPEKEPE agricultural subsidy scandal revealed fake farms, phantom livestock, and ministers forced to resign under the weight of a four hundred fifteen million euro EU fine.

Each case made headlines. Each case confirmed what most Europeans already know: corruption is not a series of accidents. It is the operating system.

Eurobarometer’s latest survey captured it in numbers.

Sixty nine percent of Europeans believe corruption is a major problem in their country.

In Greece, that number soars to ninety seven percent.

Italians, Spaniards, Croatians, Czechs, almost all share the same intuition: the game is rigged. At the national level, seventy three percent see their governments as corrupt. At the local level, seventy percent say the same.

Even business itself is seen as contaminated, with sixty one percent of EU citizens believing corruption is baked into its culture.

This is why the scandals no longer shock. Citizens shrug not because they are apathetic, but because they have learned that outrage has no purchase. What was once blush-worthy is now banal. When the bribe is disguised as “lobbying,” when the subsidy is stolen in plain sight, when a train crash kills dozens and the evidence is tampered with, people stop expecting justice. They expect the cover up.

The deeper story is not that Europe is corrupt. It is that Europeans have stopped believing their institutions can be clean. That is more dangerous than the scandals themselves. Once corruption becomes the default, democracy shifts from governance to theater. Politicians perform reform while the machinery keeps running on its real fuel: favors, connections, and opaque money.

Yet signs of resistance flicker. Boycotts in Croatia and Greece against inflated retail prices. Street protests in Slovakia against pro-Russia pivots. Anniversary marches for the Tempi train disaster that turned grief into one of the largest public demonstrations in modern Greek history. These moments suggest people still care, still burn, still know that something better is possible.

The choice now is stark. Europe can treat corruption as another line item to manage, another scandal to outwait. Or it can admit that what people are feeling is not cynicism but clarity. The citizens already know the truth. The question is whether the institutions will finally blush again

They were supposed to be shrines of renewal. Bright kiosks on street corners where citizens could drop plastic, glass, and hope. Instead, they stand as monuments to a darker Greek tradition: turning public money into private gain.

The European Public Prosecutor is now investigating 11.9 million euros in EU recycling funds that were meant to transform waste management. On paper, these kiosks were the symbols of progress. In reality, auditors found prices inflated to five times the market rate, units missing, infrastructure unfinished, and no trace of what happened to the waste they collected.

Greece recycles only 17 percent of its municipal waste. The European average is close to half. Targets for 2025 are not just out of reach, they are a fantasy. The country has already paid more than 230 million euros in fines for failing to manage waste, with more cases pending. Yet corruption itself is recycled endlessly, with flawless efficiency.

Corruption is not a scandal. It is the system.

This story does not stand alone. It joins a long chain of failures.

Recycling kiosks, farm subsidies, phone tapping. These are not separate accidents. They are proof of how Greece works when no one is watching. Corruption here is not the exception. It is the operating system.

Europe’s green facade

Brussels writes checks, then issues fines, but never fixes the structure that allows this to happen. Europe’s climate agenda promises a green future, yet when billions flow into member states, very little prevents them from being siphoned away.

The EU demands recycling targets but does not monitor the projects beyond paper reports. The result is a charade: Brussels gets to say progress is being funded, Greece gets the money, and citizens get an empty kiosk on the corner. Sustainability becomes theater.

The economics of corruption

We need to stop treating corruption only as a moral failure. It is also an economic model.

  • Contractors inflate prices and pocket the difference.
  • Politicians exchange projects for loyalty and votes.
  • Bureaucrats stay silent to protect their careers.

The kiosk was never really about recycling. It was a mechanism to move public wealth into private hands. The loss is not abstract. It means hospitals that remain underfunded, infrastructure that stays broken, and citizens who inherit nothing but cynicism.

The human cost

Every misused euro corrodes trust. People stop believing in the state. They stop believing in Europe. They stop believing in the possibility of change. And when citizens no longer expect better, corruption stops being shocking. It becomes normal.

Greece already carries the scars of austerity, broken promises, and EU hypocrisy. To see climate funds misused at the very moment when the planet is in crisis is not just mismanagement. It is betrayal.

Another EU fine will not change anything

Another investigation that drags for years will not either. What is needed is a complete shift in how public money is monitored.

  • Citizens must be able to see where every euro goes.
  • Contracts must be public, down to the last cent.
  • Those who profit from corruption must be named, shamed, and forced to return what they took.

Until corruption is treated as an economic system rather than a series of isolated scandals, Greece will continue recycling failure itself.

The kiosks are more than failed infrastructure

They are mirrors, reflecting a brutal truth: in a country already drowning in waste, the greatest waste of all is trust. And without trust, there can be no green future, no European future, no future at all.

Another week, another scandal.


A president’s secret files. A prime minister’s offshore stash. A health minister caught partying while hospitals collapse. Greece and developing countries stealing EU money. Ngo’s stealing Eu money
It barely makes the group chat anymore….while people…the majority … just suffers!

We don’t even flinch.
Because deep down, we already expect it.
Not just from one politician, or one country. From the whole machine.

This is not the exception. This is the age.
The age of scandal.

It’s tempting to believe the world is more corrupt than ever.
But it’s not.
What’s changed is that corruption no longer bothers to whisper.
It walks past the cameras like it owns them. The governments own most investigative reporters. The majority of them report only the news they want them to report …to people too tired to question anything.

Secrets used to be locked in filing cabinets.
Now they leak from group chats, deepfakes, metadata, and disgruntled staffers with Wi-Fi.
Anyone can expose anyone.
And yet—nothing really changes.

Once, scandal was a career-ending event.
Now it’s a minor inconvenience. A talking point.
A momentary dip in polling before the next distraction kicks in.

The playbook is always the same:
Deny.
Deflect.
Blame the media.
Then post a photo kissing a baby or petting a dog.
Wait for the algorithm to flush the memory.

The truth is, they’re not even trying to hide anymore.
Because they’ve learned something terrifying:
We’ll keep scrolling.
We’ll be mad. But we’ll move on.
Because there’s always another crisis. Another headline. Another dopamine hit of moral outrage.

We’ve confused exposure with progress.
We think because we see it, we’ve somehow stopped it.
But visibility is not victory.
Outrage is not action.

And scandal is not justice.

There’s an economy around our disbelief now.
A whole ecosystem designed to keep us in a loop of shock, click, forget.
The media monetizes it. Politicians manage it.
And the rest of us?
We watch. We share. We rage. Then we go to sleep.

Scandal has become a spectacle.
Not a breach of trust—but a performance.
And somewhere along the line, we stopped demanding accountability.
We settled for drama.

The most dangerous part of all this?
Not that they lie.
Not even that they steal.

It’s that we’ve started to expect it.
To build our lives around it.
To let our standards rot slowly, because hope feels naïve and memory is short.

They know this.
That’s why they smirk when caught.
That’s why apologies sound like PR scripts.
That’s why scandals pile up faster than consequences.

Because they’ve figured out the one thing that breaks democracy isn’t corruption.
It’s exhaustion.

Maybe the real scandal isn’t that they lied.
It’s how quickly we learned to live with it.

The Mood in Germany is Not a Mood. It’s a Mirror.

Pessimism, the economists say, is rising in Germany.
Consumer confidence: down.
Political trust: down.
Willingness to spend, dream, risk?
Flatlined.

But this isn’t just about one survey or a cautious quarter.

It’s about a nation—and a continent—slipping into psychological recession.

According to BCG, over 60% of Europeans now expect things to get worse—not just economically, but socially, politically, existentially.

They stockpile savings. Cancel plans. Delay futures.
But this is more than caution. It’s chronic anticipation of collapse.

When uncertainty becomes permanent, fear becomes rational.
And fear—weaponized by media, capital, and populists—becomes the most valuable asset of all.

Because anxious people don’t riot.
They downgrade their dreams.

And the question is no longer “Will growth return?”
The question is: What grows in a society where belief has withered?

From Prosperity to Paralysis

For decades, Europe’s deal with its people was simple:

  • Work hard.
  • Trust institutions.
  • Sacrifice stability for unity.
    And in return?
    You get peace, pensions, progress.

But now, prices climb while futures shrink.
Wages stagnate while war creeps closer.
Governments flip like coins.
And people—real people—ask quietly:

“Is this as good as it gets?”

The Real Crisis is Existential, Not Economic

BCG calls it “uncertainty.”
Reuters calls it “pessimism.”
But those are polite words.

What we’re really seeing is:

  • Collapse of optimism.
  • Erosion of civic faith.
  • Emotional austerity.

People aren’t just saving money.
They’re saving themselves from hope.
They’ve stopped investing in the future because no one’s shown them it still exists.

You cannot build an economy on anxiety.
And you cannot sustain democracy on despair.

Who Profits from Uncertainty?

Let’s not pretend this is natural.

Uncertainty is good business—for some:

  • For far-right parties that weaponize fear.
  • For corporations that raise prices in chaos.
  • For media that monetizes panic by the click.

When people fear tomorrow, they become easier to control today.

And while the average German family cuts back on groceries,
the system still rewards those who sell anxiety dressed as advice.

The Myth of Resilience is Wearing Thin

Europe tells itself it’s resilient.
That it has weathered worse.
That it will recover.

But resilience without reform is just endurance.
And endurance without direction is just slow decay.

We keep asking people to adjust.
To tighten. To wait.
But wait for what, exactly?

In the absence of vision, you get drift.
In the absence of leadership, you get longing.

What Comes After the Pause?

This moment—this pause—is dangerous.

Because people who stop expecting things
stop demanding better.
Stop participating.
Stop showing up.

And that is how democracies die:
Not with explosions.
But with resignation.

A continent that forgets how to hope becomes easy prey—for authoritarians, for markets, for silence.

The Only Way Forward Is Through Meaning

This isn’t just about Germany.
It’s about the soul of Europe.

It must stop asking:
“How do we restore confidence in the economy?”

And start asking:

“What do we owe people who no longer believe in tomorrow?”

Because if Europe doesn’t offer more than austerity and algorithms—
if it cannot paint a picture worth waking up for—

then pessimism won’t be a blip.

It will be the new normal.

In spring 2025, the European Commission quietly released a truth it didn’t mean to.
Not a scandal. Not a leak. A statistic.

Only 32% of EU citizens trust their national governments.
Only 36% trust political parties.
Only 38% trust the media.
(Eurobarometer 103, Spring 2025)

And yet—people keep voting, paying, complying.
Not with conviction. With inertia.

This isn’t just a crisis of politics.
It’s a crisis of belief.

The Obedient Disbeliever

We obey because we were trained to.
Not by tyranny—but by trauma disguised as routine.

Two decades of economic collapse, viral panic, war footage, price shocks, migrant “waves,” algorithmic overload, and institutional gaslighting have rewired the average European. Not to think—but to flinch.

You were taught to “trust the process”—even when it forgets your name.
To believe the system is broken, but still sacred.
To fear chaos more than corruption.

This is not democracy.
This is cognitive containment.

The Rise of the Expert God

The same Eurobarometer reveals something else.
A new pantheon of trust:

Trust in doctors: 89%
Scientists: 86%
Universities: 84%
(Eurobarometer 103, T210–T212)

This is not accidental.
We now believe competence is safety.
But representation is danger.

Governments speak. Experts solve.
One performs. The other produces.

So we’ve begun migrating our trust—not upward to leaders, but inward to systems.
Europe doesn’t crave vision anymore.
It craves stability without ideology.

The result?
A technocracy without consent.
Power has slipped—not to the people, but to the calibrated.

Voting Inside a Loop

European Union EU Flag

“I vote, but nothing changes.”
“I protest, and nothing moves.”
“I know they’re lying. But I still do what I’m told.”

This isn’t apathy. It’s ritualized despair.
You still vote—not because you believe. But because you fear what happens if you stop.

This year, 71% of Europeans say they intend to vote in the upcoming European Parliament elections.
(Eurobarometer 103, T140)

But what are they voting for?

  • Rising cost of living is the #1 concern.
  • Migration, security, and inflation follow.
  • Climate change, once a priority, is fading from urgency in many nations.

In other words, people are not voting for the future.
They’re voting against further collapse.

This is how obedience is maintained in exhausted empires.

The Philosophy of Submission

So here’s the raw riddle:
What does it mean to obey a system you don’t believe in?

It means freedom has been reduced to a performance.
A shape you wear. A checkbox you tick.
You feel free because you can “choose”—but only from a menu designed by those you mistrust.

This is post-democracy.
Where participation is mandatory.
But transformation is off the table.

Where “truth” is not what you believe.
It’s what you’re allowed to repeat.

Where trust isn’t earned.
It’s managed, measured, manufactured.

The End of Trust, or Its Evolution?

Perhaps we’re not asleep.
Perhaps we’re evolving past the need to believe in anyone.
Past figureheads. Past slogans. Past salvation by system.

But evolution is not escape.
Unless you name it, you’re still inside it.

So here’s the final incision:

If you no longer trust the system—then who are you still obeying?

Is it fear?
Habit?
Hope?
Or is it simply this:

Obedience is easier than becoming dangerous.

eu

Meanwhile, somewhere in Brussels..