WTH is WRONG with these people? Are they so bought off with oil money they lose their freakin minds? Suicidal. Geez.
Possibly.
It is also possible they feel so far removed from the travails of ordinary people that they are simply not aware of the misery they are causing.
Remember, the EU has been set up as an ultra-elite super-government of great wisdom and immense power. It was the intent of its founders to form this ultra-elite class, that would be able to consider policy decisions from the point of view of pure logic, so that their good intentions could be realized without having to worry about petty politics, of the sort that is unavoidable when you have to deal directly with the ordinary citizens who must live with your decisions and have no security cordon, no gated communities and separate facilities within which to find refuge.
It was precisely this sort of detachment, this sort of faculty-lounge ennui, that our Founders sought to avoid by keeping the majority of power local, in the States and Counties. They knew history, and therefore they knew that greatly concentrated, centralized power tends to insulate itself from ordinary people and rule as if from a throne in the sky.
A particular Star Trek episode comes to mind, as does the movie Elysium.
Just another beneficial crisis to try to induce the people to give up more freedom in exchange for security. Remember, this is the guy most infamous for saying “when it becomes serious, you have to lie” and still got the top EU job he now holds.
In Europe, the entire society is like a liberal college campus. There is no organized opposition, there is no alternative media, and even the “right wing” political parties are just slightly less socialist than the “left wing” political parties. They can go their whole lives without ever being challenged on their leftist ideas.