< wipes tears >
I sympathize, truly, and wonder how you imagine EU/EP could assert tax authority without further alienating disaffected nationals? I realize, that each member is already tied to "paid in" capital to ECB operations and, no less risky, proportionate share of each 7-year budget/re-distributions. To the point: Is the Sarcozy/Hollande/Macron/ path through joint bonds prudent and necessary to this end? Or are you leaning to transnational listing structure to sharpen constituents' focus on democratic EU gov representation?

iirc, there was broad-but-shallow resistance to political group restructure when Macron raise the issue last year.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

I suspect the only thing you have in common with the Farage's of this world is a dislike of much of what the EU now is. But while he seeks to destroy the EU, you seek to reform it.

Actually if you do see the EU through the prism of Brexit, then much of what is alleged about the EU (yes, even the status quo) is false, and those criticisms which are true are often no more true of the EU than they are of the UK, except perhaps in the complexities of scale. So relatively speaking, I would see the EU as an advance on what I suspect the UK will become post Brexit. Even now, I find it difficult to take lectures on democratic accountability from a country with the only entirely unelected House of Parliament in the EU and a civil service famous for it's de facto but unaccountable power.

But of course as you say that is not the only prism through which the EU can be critiqued. One of the benefits of getting Brexit over and done with will be that we can then focus more on how the EU needs to be reformed. The UK as a member would have opposed many of the reforms I suspect you support, so removing the UK from the equation would be a net positive. I haven't got much involved with DiEM25 for reasons of time. A diary on their reform agenda for the EU and EZ would be good!

Criticisms of the design flaws in the ECB and Euro architecture have been reasonably well aired here, but your particular target seems to be the Council which is made up of elected heads of government of the member states. It is therefore the institution most concerned with protecting the national interests of the member states. Clearly if your objective is to develop the EU as a supra national entity, other institutions (particularly the parliament) need to be strengthened to counter balance its influence. But what are your particular criticisms of the Council apart from the lack of transparency in the decision making process also common in national cabinets?

Index of Frank's Diaries