Continuous support of Germany to autocrats is so widely known it even has a name, stabilocracy meaning that a country is ruled by an autocrat that is favourable to German and by extension EU business.
Most blatant support to that kind of leadership happens to be when the German PM and EU commissioners congratulated Serbia on its EU path often just days after some protest or antidemocratic measures done by the Serbian dictator. Or the support that Quinta gave to constitutional amendments which reinforced the control of the current regime over the judicial branch.
Most significant incident was definitely in 2012 when Serbia had tight elections on all levels including parliamentary and presidential elections. The problematic part was that German PM at the time congratulated the new president even before the polls were officially closed. I'm not saying that Germany is the EU but various EU commissioners were not much better over the years, praising Serbian EU path days after controversial anti-democratic actions by the government. Lately this has began to change but it's a little bit late, Serbian president consolidated power not unlike Orbán or Putin.
All this has contributed to lowest support for EU ascension among Serbian population in a generation.
As shown in Hungary for example, that democracy is still very fragile.
The goal of the EU is to remain a partner for now and see that democracy mature and stabilize. As can be seen that the main economic partners are from Europe.
But they are still very dependant on Russia ( more than average) for gas, for example.
What reasons / attitudes / sentiment are you referring to?
> [...] ineffectual administration [...]
Those two words are verbatim what our right-wing parties use to describe the EU as a whole, especially when arguing why we should do our own Brexit and leave the union because we are better on our own.
If this is another "dog whistle" argument, I think you need far more evidence before you smear another user what you assume their motivations are; It's possible to use terminology borrowed from right-wing parties, language is free to use - and ThalesX has explicitly stated their position.
Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment..
1. The "ex"-communist and neomarxist parties became enlightened democrats and the conservatives changed to nationalistic anti democrats.
2. Something changed within the EU, which made it a suitable environment for "ex"-communist and neomarxist to thrive in and reminded the conservatives what was it like to live under old communist regimes.
I think the number 2 is the right explanation. The news about undemocratic Poland, Hungary and occasional other eastern-southern countries is mostly spreading through leftist western media by activist reporters who take for granted what their leftist activist colleagues from eastern countries are feeding them. For a person who reads newspapers in both parts of Europe, that fact is painfully obvious. Throw in some leftist activist MPs (like Sophie in 't Veld) and good old geopolitical power struggles and the world quickly becomes black and white (us vs them).
Unfortunately the communist ideals are very much alive and well, especially in those countries where communism arose from within, without an external force.
Socialism, by definition, is democratic workers' control of the means of production. A socialist dictatorial state is therefore an oxymoron.
If the state itself is controlled by a violent maniac (Stalin, Mao, etc.), and the state owns and controls every aspect of society, including the means of production of course, then there is simply no logical connection to socialism.
The USSR and China claim(ed) they are are democratic and socialist states. The "democratic" part is obviously a lie, and was ever since the beginning, since Lenin stole the revolution - and everyone of course knows this. Why then do people believe the "socialist" part?
There was a running joke in communist countries on this subject too:
There was once an important communist dignitary who was treating a sick cow. After the cow died, he said: "What a shame, I had so many more ideas to try!".
This isn't a changing of goalposts, it is simply ignoring obvious lies and propaganda from a regime famous for its lack of regard for the truth.
The Soviets (factory committees) at best held some sway during the early days of the revolution, before Lenin seized power. By the time Stalin replaced Lenin they were long since just a propaganda tool, hollowed out of any democratic control whatsoever and turned to a simple bureaucratic management unit entirely controlled by the party hierarchy.
This is the 2nd post ignoring the fact that I have declared I am, in fact, not a member of such a group. Assuming that I'm lying, you'd be correct in holding your stance. Considering I am not lying, you are basically closing in the door to communication and possible expansions of subject matter from someone that's really not an extremist in any sense of the word.
That would make you de facto member even if you're not de iure member.
e: and based on Paradox of Tolerance, shutting down communication with anti-system efforts might be the only way. You can't be tolerant to intolerance, you can't be democratic to anti-democracy, etc.
I'm quite surprised that so many don't realize that there exists an entire category of people that are not radical, but do hold opinions on some reforms that should be taken, including the quote that started this conversation "our ineffectual administration".
Speaking of ineffectual administration - I think it might be hard for some people to grasp that any bureaucracy is going to look inefficient. The point of bureaucracy is to replace ad-hoc decision making with a repeatable, documented, audited and justifiable process. Ad-hoc "the dictator decides" is always going to be faster.
Different groups can support the same policies for entirely different, and mutually exclusive reasons.
Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties.
Other parties also have their qualms about government institutions, of course, but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes.