The drive towards a deeply undemocratic European Union

Leigh Phillips, EUobserver´s finance reporter, has written an interesting and important article about the dangerous move towards anti-democratic government in the European Union.

Here are  just of few excerpts:

But under what one Brussels wag recently called the EU's 'techno-party' strategy - replacing elected representatives with technocrats and an end to consideration of fiscal policies by parliaments in favour of fiat by civil-servant 'experts' - nobody has any choice any more about what kind of music they want to listen to.
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Furthermore, if monetary policy has long been insulated from politics and now fiscal policy is to be as well, what on earth is now left for an elected chamber to deliberate on? Judicial and foreign policy? Why not abandon these fields to the ‘experts’ as well? Why bother with elections at all?
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However sympathetic one may be on the face of it to the view that politicians are vile creatures, the implicit suggestion in the idea that now is not the time for "political games" is that politics is mere sport, a distraction that sullies and perverts the One True Path for a society, at all times known by economists (and at that, only certain flavours of economist). It is all right for this dilletantism to proceed at normal times, but, confronted with the worst crisis since the Great Depression, the potential destruction of the eurozone and even the European Union, we must put away these childish things, even if only for a brief period.

Consider for a moment the utter contempt for democracy that silently inheres in such an attitude.
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And even further beneath such sentiment lies a still darker cynicism, not just about politics but about people themselves. A common complaint one hears in the bars and cafes of the European quarter in Brussels is that people are far too stupid, too ignorant of what is in their own best interest.
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Unfortunately Leigh´s definition of the "Techno party" is not very helpful:

The 'Techno Party' may come dressed up as a coterie of independent academics and specialists, but is in fact the party of the market, composed of the very same people that created the crisis in the first place.

The "Techno party" is in reality not "the party of the market", but the party of the current EU leaders and top bureaucrats, who´s aim is to create a United States of Europe.

Lleigh is right about the need for a democratisation, but I still wonder whether he quite understands that "eurosceptics" - or better eurorealists - are the the ones that really believe in a democratic Europe:

And this will only happen when the Greek and Italian people themselves, alongside the Spaniards, Portuguese and Irish, and all Europeans together refuse to keep dancing to the techno beat.
It is time for all those who hold democracy dear to speak out against these moves without fear of being cast as eurosceptics. Indeed, if one believes in Europe, we must speak out all the more loudly. In counterposition to the anti-democratic panic in the chancelleries of Europe that has led to the rule of the Techno Party, it is time to burn down the disco and, as the song says, hang the blessed DJ.

Read the entire article here