Yannick Laude

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1445148.html

The second in a series of graphic novels published by, I kid you not, the ALDE group in the European Parliament (ie the Liberal MEPs which include the British Lib Dems and, since last year, Fianna Fáil) and available in various languages (I think the English version is Operation Aida).

Our heroic central character, Elisa Correr, exposes a web of corruption involving fellow MEPs and senior European Commission officials, and also persuades the EU to adopt her plan of funding infrastructure projects in nearby countries as long as they are democratic. It's a little earnest and didactic (Elisa asks her dinner guest, "So, are you still the head of unit for [country] in the European Commission?") and the dodgy guys all seem to have Polish names. Also the key policy Elisa is advocating is a thinly disguised version of the Nabucco pipeline project, which I am personally a bit suspicious about; it seems to me to have a lot more support from politicians than from anyone I have met who actually works in the fossil fuels industry.

But the book is a decent effort to convey the frenetic pressure of work that I observe in the European Parliament from those members who take it seriously (which is at least 90% of them). Though it omits the remarkable way in which the Parliament's public spaces get taken over by various receptions with free booze and canapes every working evening from about 7 pm on.… (altro)