The EU is not Europe

I may have mentioned this before but a real pet hate of mine is when people call the EU "Europe".  They are not different words for the same thing.

Watching the One Show on BBC1 tonight, they started talking about the European Arrest Warrant and the case of a young man extradited to Greece and currently stranded there, unable to leave the country, while he waits for a trial to answer assault charges.  Except it's not the European Arrest Warrant, it's the EU Arrest Warrant.

The presenter said the EU Arrest Warrant makes it easier to extradite people to any country in Europe.  But that's not true, because there are only 27 European countries in the EU and 19 that aren't.  You won't extradite someone to Albania on an EU Arrest Warrant.  Or Switzerland.  Or Norway, Iceland, Bosnia, Ukraine, Russia ...

The history revisionists in Brussels want to plaster "monuments, memorial sites, and places of remembrance" with blue plaques to commemorate their imaginary contribution to the imaginary shared values and imaginary shared history and culture of the European Empire.  I won't even go there otherwise I'll be up all night ranting at my keyboard instead of sleeping and Gawain has already done the honours in his usual concise and scathing way.  But I will have a little rant about the name of the plaques - the European Heritage Label.  Aaaargh!  EU Heritage Label, not European!

The BBC has a habit of calling the EU "Europe".  The British government does it as well with its Europe Minister and Europe Office, neither of which have a remit outside of the EU.  I've put in a complaint to the BBC about them calling the EU "Europe" and pointing out that they have an obligation to accurately report on the EU.  It won't make the slightest bit of difference but it made me feel better.