Democracy Is Tearing Europe Apart, Moans Monti

 

European leaders need to ignore their national parliaments more often or the euro could be forced to break up, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti warned in an interview with Spiegel published August 5.

“If governments allow themselves to be completely bound by the decisions of their parliaments without maintaining some room for maneuver in international negotiations, then a breakup of Europe will be more likely than closer integration,” he said.

Monti, unelected leader, heading a government of technocrats and academics, came to power after Italy’s elected government made financial markets nervous.

But Monti is right. Parliaments in nations like Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have been a persistent stumbling block to EU integration. The public in these countries doesn’t want to see its money being sent overseas. Parliament tends to have a greater fear of the public than the top leaders.

The EU has been an undemocratic institution from the start. European integration has been consistently rejected in referenda across the Continent.

But the desire of national leaders to forge a new Carolingian empire has overcome the will of the public so far. In the face of the euro crisis, anti-European sentiment is hardening and spreading. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party brought down the government, and in Finland the True Finns party is pushing the government toward Euroskepticism.

But it is German parliamentarians who have taken greatest offense at Monti’s remarks: “Greed for German taxpayers’ money is blossoming undemocratic blooms in Mr. Monti,” said Alexander Dobrindt, a Christian Social Union member of parliament.

But there is no democratic way to persuade the richer countries to part with their money and the poorer countries their sovereignty. The euro crisis is pushing Europe down an undemocratic path. An unelected leader calling for elected parliaments to have a smaller role in Europe is proof of this.

There will be protests, but watch for Europe to morph into an undemocratic superstate.