Politics: the right or the wrong sort of medecine for the EU?

From the foreword by Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa:
The debate revolves around the word ‘politicisation’, just as others revolve around words like ‘democracy’, ‘identity’, bureaucracy’, ‘demos’, ‘social’. The fact that the key words of the political vocabulary are gradually poured into the EU mould is in itself significant.
In narrow terms, the issue at stake is whether the European institutions should become ‘politicised’ in the sense in which national institutions are, i.e. whether the right-left divide should become the all pervasive watershed separating participants in the EU policy making, in Parliament, in the Commission and possibly in the Council. Stated in broader terms, however, the debate is about the nature of the EU, on whether it is a polity or a simple organisation, whether its power is technocratic, or bureaucratic, or political; about its legitimacy and democratic control; about the relationship between national and European politics.