> This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity are seriously, factually wrong.
that's because the EU uses national agencies to implement its policies
it is purely the super-high level management
e.g. the employees implementing EU farming/farming policy are employed by the member states goverments, aren't classed as EU employees and aren't paid by the EU budget, despite nearly 100% of their work coming directly from the EU
so of course it looks super-efficient, because national governments are paying to implement what it decides
this is in contrast to the US federal government, or your UK government/local government examples, which have to employ people to do the groundwork
if the spending was correctly attributed the EU budget would be orders of magnitude bigger, as would its number of civil servants
> this is in contrast to the US federal government
I strongly doubt that. The US federal government doesn't run all police forces in the US, or all the environmental agencies, or all the driving-license agencies or whatever. It runs some elements directly - as few as they can get away with, and shrinking.
that's because the EU uses national agencies to implement its policies
it is purely the super-high level management
e.g. the employees implementing EU farming/farming policy are employed by the member states goverments, aren't classed as EU employees and aren't paid by the EU budget, despite nearly 100% of their work coming directly from the EU
so of course it looks super-efficient, because national governments are paying to implement what it decides
this is in contrast to the US federal government, or your UK government/local government examples, which have to employ people to do the groundwork
if the spending was correctly attributed the EU budget would be orders of magnitude bigger, as would its number of civil servants