Matt Yglesias on European politics

The deeper reason, though, is that Europe has kind of killed off politics. So much power now rests at the EU level, but the EU doesn’t conduct a recognizable form of democratic politics. Voting for the European Parliament has what David Schleicher terms a “second-order” pattern, where Spanish voters will cast their votes in the European Parliament elections as a way of voicing approval or disapproval for the performance of the prime minister in Madrid. The same is true in Italy, Poland, and so forth.

Regardless of the actual election results, the Parliament is always controlled by a grand coalition with a senior center-right bloc and a junior social democratic bloc. The European Commission — the EU’s version of a cabinet — guarantees each country one Commission slot, so the actual composition of the Commission is a mess based on who controls which country at any given time. And the prime ministers of even small and mid-sized EU countries don’t see moving up to Brussels as a promotion the way American governors become senators or cabinet secretaries run for president.

It’s not exactly an “undemocratic” system, but it’s very depoliticized. You don’t have clear partisan coalitions or a real policy debate, you don’t have incumbents worrying about reelection or ambitious opposition figures looking to gain power. And I think this has consistently undermined Europe’s ability to think clearly about tradeoffs and strike win-win bargains.

That is from this longer (gated but worth it) post on why America has leapt out ahead of Europe in the last few decades.