Lol, desperate british journalists trying to throw shade on europe to feel better for their own Brexit fiasco. EU's gonna collapse any day now!
Except support for it is stronger than ever.
And the "migrant crisis" has been over for a year now. It didn't even create right-wing parties: Those already existed. All it did was give them another scapegoat to focus on, instead of the usual jew/gay/trans boogieman they were attacking before.
The real problem is the usual populists blaming "the other" (migrants, gays, lesbians, transpeople, jews, elites, etc) for all issues while trying to push for laws benefiting the super rich. This works just like it does in the US - the poor people this disenfranchises can then be whipped up into a frenzy against "the other", distracting them from who is actually harming them.
See the AfD in Germany attacking anything they feel is too GLBT-friendly as "Genderwahn". THAT is the main problem the EU is facing right now. You can see that by regressive people on the first page immediately screeching about "pushing civil rights and immigration as Central issues" as the problem - typical right-wing attempts to stir resentment against those of us not existing in a way their ideology can accept.
The very idea that "civil rights" was "pushed" is insane and in no way substantiated by reality. In reality, progress there was incredibly slow, constantly facing sabotage attempts. But I'm sure even the little we managed to achieve is too much, so we can be blamed, as usual.
You can participate and the people have a say. They just have to vote for the Eurpean Parliament.
Bingo.
The EU is something people have a say in. Either by the EU Parliament or by voting their own governments into power. The EU CONSISTS OF ALL INVOLVED GOVERNMENTS.
It's just that politicans love blaming every policy that is bad (but that they supported) on the EU, while taking credit for every policy that benefits their vots as something they "fought against the EU" to get, creating this silly image of some big grand all-powerful EU council pushing countries...
...blending out that this "EU Council" is just the governments of the EU countries deciding things together. That's literally what it is and always was.
