Clearly there is a feeling in the Eurozone that the worst has passed and by signing up to the latest pact, governance of the euro becomes viable. Greece looks as if it will get its bail-out and the ECB has been busy pouring cheap money into European banks, many of which are technically bust.
It is not quite as simple as that. There is not a commentator to be found who does not expect more trouble from Greece. Spain is a real mess. Since it joined the Euro, the Italian economy has been flat-lining. But all of this is detail. At the heart of the Eurozone is a profound truth, few are willing to face.
It is the issue of democracy. The EU has become an area, not of vibrant and collective democracy, but one of uniform and intrusive regulation, where governance is in the hands of officials enforcing rules, rather than ministers enacting policy. This is not by accident, it is by choice and for the most part the population of the EU is quite happy with that. The Fiscal pact just signed is not a democratic instrument nor one designed to expand the working of democracy. It is believed that with a combination of bureaucracy, regulation and treaty, it will be possible to manage the challenges faced by a single currency across diverse economies.
This new arrangement is better than the vacuum before and there are signs that euro ministers have found the courage to make decisions. However, at the end of the day money is, or will be, needed to prop up this or that country and that money, or most of it, comes from Germany. This means that the German electorate and the German electorate alone, has the power to determine outcomes. It means the EU is under the financial domination of Germany, whose voters can turn the cash flow on and off. It means voters in other countries can have little to no impact on events.
It is democracy, but of empire, not union. This blog wonders if this is the place for which people thought they were headed. Taken in this context, whether anybody listens to Cameron’s ideas, is neither here nor there. Without Germany’s backing, they are dead in the water anyway.
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Too many cooks spoil the broth.
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