Even if you prefer less Europe - or better: a more balanced Europe - as a leading star, more Europe can sometimes be wonderful. It happens when the EU adopts a policy you see as desirable and necessary. A couple of days ago we got a good example, when BEREC - the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication - released the Net Neutrality implementation guidelines. The guidelines were recieved as a great success by civil society groups, and will solidify net neutrality across the EU.
The example shows that the EU does not always work for the interest of big money - here the telecom companies. But it was a long struggle with a massive involvement of civil society organisations. When BEREC held public consultations during June-July 2016 there were more than 500 000 responses - a historic number for a consultation in the EU. It is also important to note that during the process the member states tended to work for guidelines with loopholes for the IT industry.
Extracting the morale of this story is not so easy. It does not show that only the EU is able to adopt desirable policies. The result could have been the same if BEREC had been a body for European or global intergovernmental cooperation. A tentative conclusion may be that the net neutrality case shows that the supranational EU can be effective if there is an added value for everyone or if the level of conflict between the stakeholders is not to high. Also the importance of a democratic and open decisionmaking is demonstrated.
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