Discussion
If the EU has a future as a political project, it will have to be as a living, breathing repudiation of Ronald Reagan's maxim that "The nine most terrifying words are 'I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'"
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https://pluralistic.net/2026/11/10/worst-of-all-worlds/#show-trials
1/
In other words, the EU's future depends on its ability to publicly perform *competence* and *capacity*. The EU is a technocratic project, and the one trait technocrats *must* show is undeniable technical competence. This is the secret of Zohran Mamdani's administration: being seen in public, constantly fixing things that are broken, and making things that work even better:
https://www.nyc.gov/content/100days/pages/
2/
This is a goal that is largely incompatible with charismatic megaprojects, and unfortunately, that's the EU's favorite kind of project: something big and splashy and worthy of the extreme effort required to squeeze anything through the Byzantine EU approvals process:
https://backofmind.substack.com/p/the-planning-system-system
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Even more unfortunate is that the EU isn't just a technocratic project, it's a *neoliberal* technocratic project, so when it *does* embark on one of these megaprojects, it almost always does so as a "public-private partnership" that sees vast sums transferred to private firms to carry out public works.
4/
Since megaprojects are *always* over-budget and behind schedule, this creates the perfect conditions for absolute banditry, in which private companies overcharge and underdeliver, and before you know it, you're billions poorer and back in Reagan's "most terrifying words" territory.
5/
@pluralistic Dublin City centre has been locked down for a visit by our betters from the EU.
The EU has decided its own shit doesn’t smell and has jumped 27 sharks