>> Elfriede Jelinek, my other favorite German writer.
>
> She is Austrian, but I agree, a great writer.
Sure, I should've been clearer that German meant the language of her writing, not her nationality. Damn near impossible to translate into English -- she uses puns, grammar, intonation in wild and woolly ways.
But I still think it's too simple to dismiss the EU as a simple tool of neoliberalism. Parts of it are neoliberal, but parts are not. Things like environmental regulation, the structural funds, renewable energy investment, political systems organized around mass parties and proportional representation, workers' rights to unionize, universal health insurance, and powerful public media systems are all embedded in the EU state machinery.
-- DRR