I’m often quite annoyed at the way my local student union occasionally gets itself into a tizzy over the most ridiculous of things, and for some reason this (slightly bitchy) post over at the Economist’s Charlemagne blog caught my eye:
In atmosphere, it combines pomposity with an obsession with perks, a touch of venality (there is much laziness, and sneaky claiming of unjustified expenses), all under a smothering blanket of moral superiority. Nothing excites members so much as their own power and status, and scoring points off national governments or the European Commission, the EU’s turbo-charged civil service. Like a student union with better expenses, it spends inordinate time on subjects which fall outside its legal mandate, like foreign policy, and its views often resemble those of a student union too, in their shrill lack of realism. One national diplomat in Brussels emerged from a recent tussle with the parliament, gasping with irritation: “That place is one big fucking NGO.”
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