Is the Eurocracy ‘Woke’?

François Valentin and Jorge González-Gallarza | Issue 4 | Brussels, Magazine, Uncategorised

From the Archive

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Many thought the EU was too technocratic to embrace the wave of wokeness washing over the West. They may have been proved wrong

What do the phrases “ladies and gentlemen,” “Christmas” and “Mary and John” all have in common? According to an internal 30-page set of “guidelines on inclusive communication” addressed to the European Commission by its Commissioner for Equality, the Maltese Helena Dalli, all of these terms and expressions could be discriminatory and hurt the European Union’s (EU) image as a body of inclusive institutions. Commission employees should, per the memo, consider replacing the terms listed above by “dear colleagues,” “the holidays” and—best of all—“Malika and Julio”. Dalli “proud[ly]” launched the guidelines on October 26, but once the Italian daily Il Giornale leaked the document, the backlash from assorted conservatives, Emmanuel Macron, and the Pope himself proved too severe. Dalli backtracked claiming the document had been “misunderstood”, but it was nonetheless removed from the Commission’s intranet and hasn’t been reuploaded since. The Commissioner’s ill-fated guidelines have sparked a...

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