The EU's 'techno party' is hollowing out democracy

EU Observer ^ | 30.11.11 @ 12:56 | Leigh Phillips

[Olog-hai]

Not everybody's into techno music. Some folks are a little bit country; others a little bit rock and roll. 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 favor of fiat by civil-servant 'experts'—nobody has any choice any more about what kind of music they want to listen to. Economic policies will be decided for them, by the experts, by, if you will, those bangin' bureaucrat and banker DJs in Brussels and Frankfurt. …

But technocracy is not to be limited to the allegedly wayward southern pair of states. It is such a grand wheeze, believe the project's deep thinkers, that under proposals for deeper economic integration unveiled by the European Commission last week, the unelected EU executive and the ECB are now to dictate national budgets of all eurozone states. …

The focus must first be on the self-selected Frankfurt Group, the shadowy forum that brings together German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, IMF boss Christine Lagarde, ECB chief Mario Draghi, eurogroup chair Jean-Claude Juncker, the two EU presidents, Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy and economy commissioner Olli Rehn. Designed to bypass the often serpentine European decision-making process, the Frankfurt Group has also been the channel through which much of the pressure on the eurozone periphery has been applied. …

[Olog-hai]

BTW, this is how the ECB coerces governments to take bailout loans. In the case of Portugal:

The ECB pulled the plug on the Socrates administration in Portugal in spring, when the chief of the central bank ordered domestic banks to stop lending to Lisbon in order to force the prime minister into the arms of an EU-IMF bailout program he was reluctant to sign up to.

In March, Portuguese banks announced they would stop buying government bonds if Lisbon did not seek a bailout. Without the support of domestic banks, Socrates had no choice but to request an external lifeline.

Although the then ECB chief, Jean-Claude Trichet, later denied it, the head of the country's banking association, Antonio de Sousa, said that he had "clear instructions" from the ECB and the Bank of Portugal to turn off the tap. Socrates at this point was a dead man walking. A package of additional austerity measures proposed by the then-minority government was defeated when the conservative opposition that would subsequently push through still deeper austerity voted against it. The government immediately fell, the predictable outcome of what Frankfurt had ordered. …

I advise everyone to read the whole article; it's long, but quite revealing.

Last Tuesday, upon Mario Monti's first visit to Brussels after being installed as premier, Barroso argued that the need to take economic decisions out of the hands of politicians is in fact the EU's raison d'être: "After the the Second World War, the countries that founded the European Community created supranational institutions, and now we have the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the ECB. Why? Precisely to have independent assessment and monitoring and also if possible independent enforcement mechanisms that are not subject to political maneuvering."

As shocking as the overthrow of a pair of elected governments in Rome and Athens has been, this gelding of democracy is the plan for the entirety of the eurozone, as Brussels made clear last Wednesday. …

[Kozak]

Oh it’s worse then that. The EU technocrats are trying to dictate to SWITZERLAND what their internal tax policy should be an independent country not even part of their system, claiming they are an illegal low tax haven thus having an “unfair competative advantage” with multinational businesses, and thereatening it with dire consequences if it doesn’t toe the line.

I thought the whole Euro enterprise would crash and burn soon. It’s now clear to me that the elites on both sides of the Atlantic will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to prop up the system, regardless of cost or legality.

[Olog-hai]

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Oh it’s worse then that. The EU technocrats are trying to dictate to SWITZERLAND what their internal tax policy should be an independent country not even part of their system, claiming they are an illegal low tax haven thus having an “unfair competitive advantage” with multinational businesses, and threatening it with dire consequences if it doesn’t toe the line

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They’re trying to bully anyone that is on the European continent and participates in their “economic area”, regardless of whether they’re in the EU or not, or part of the euro or not. Their bullying even extends to the USA.

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I thought the whole Euro enterprise would crash and burn soon. It’s now clear to me that the elites on both sides of the Atlantic will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to prop up the system, regardless of cost or legality

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You bet. The unelected bureaucrats and elites said as much when the euro first came out, and the useful idiots on the American continent merrily go along with it. They wanted a “beneficial crisis” to come along so they could have the excuse to do exactly what they are doing now.

[wolfman23601]

England isn’t in the Euro and they are trying to dictate to them as well as stonewall a popular initiative to put membership to the EU as a whole to a referendum. The US isn’t even on the same continent and they are trying to dictate to the Fed and the IMF. Most FR posters want to claim they are only going after lazy, out of control countries to protect themselves, but fail to see this is a global power grab to take the functions of government and finance farther away from the people.