I'm not saying there isn't waste. It develops in every large organization, public or private. (I sometimes wonder about people — Americans mostly — who want the

I'm not saying there isn't waste. It develops in every large organization, public or private. (I sometimes wonder about people — Americans mostly — who want the government to vanish, but also complain loudly about how their phone operator, insurance company, etc. are the worst. What do they expect to happen if the private sector took over everything?) The relative leanness of the EU is a result of its unique structure. It has almost no executive authority on its own except in specific transnational cases like antitrust where it can fine large corporations. On the level that citizens interact, everything is delegated to national institutions. It's nothing like the federal states that exist elsewhere. For example the US federal government employs almost 50 times more people than the entire EU system, yet EU population is 30% larger.