I would accept that six or seven of the EU states are genuine long-established democracies. Others are – frankly, to borrow Mr Barroso’s diction – on probation, in historical terms. Some do not qualify at all. (I refrain from naming them for fear of extradition by one of their politico-magistrates under the European Arrest Warrant scheme, sold to voters as an anti-terrorism device and now used to muzzle free speech).
As for the EU itself, the organisation toppled the elected governments of Italy and Greece last year, replacing them with EU technocrats.
It ignored the NO votes to the European Constitution in France and The Netherlands, ramming through the slightly-altered text as the Lisbon Treaty without referendums – except in Ireland. When the Irish voted NO to that as well, they too were ignored.
That was the moment when the EU crossed the line altogether and lost fundamental legitimacy (at least for me). Lisbon is a rogue Treaty. Mr Barroso – charming though he may be – is a rogue president of a rogue Commission.
The whole construct has become authoritarian and will become autocratic if this crisis is exploited to force through fiscal union.
So we face democratic danger if they take the necessary steps to rescue the euro, and we face financial danger if they don’t.
Thanks a lot.
It's not like the analogy hasn't occurred to him very recently, either, as here:
It was for this outcome that the Greece’s elected government was toppled last year in an EU Putsch. We now learn from ex-premier George Papandreou that this was "all Sarkozy’s fault".
France’s leader refused to let Papandreou call a referendum on the bail-out terms (which would almost certainly have passed), and Chancellor Angela Merkel went along with this shoddy act of EU colonialism. The EU threatened, in effect, to cut off Troika payments. The PASOK government was replaced by an EU-appointed technocrat. ...
Year after year of "internal devaluation" will drive [Greek] unemployment to catastrophic levels before it breaks the back of the labour movement sufficiently to clear the way for drastic pay cuts. It is basically a Fascist policy. Mussolini pulled it of in 1928 under the Lira Forte policy, but he had coercive advantages.
