tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36227136.post8318817654660201286..comments2024-01-16T08:40:53.682+00:00Comments on <a href="http://www.openeurope.org.uk">Open Europe</a>: Democracy and transparency remain the biggest victims of the euro crisisOEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00556463374230498875noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36227136.post-22998819907247394872012-02-14T12:53:21.167+00:002012-02-14T12:53:21.167+00:00@Canutely King
Don't get too excited about it...@Canutely King<br /><br />Don't get too excited about it :)<br /><br />This is Open Europe afterall, heavily biased towards westminster.<br /><br />Perhaps Open Europe should put things in perspective: how many UK citizens had the opportunity to vote for the would be PM, Mr. Cameron? Constituency of witney is very small compared to the total electorate of the UK isn't it :)<br /><br />On the euro crisis than: Greece remains completely sovereign. The 'demands' of the eurozone/ECB/whatever are just a quid pro quo. Greece cannot expect to get billions for free can it? It still is sovereign to decide whether it wants help or whether it wants to leave the eurozone.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36227136.post-31015543231608371382012-02-14T10:59:24.592+00:002012-02-14T10:59:24.592+00:00Apart from Papademos all the Ministers in the Gree...Apart from Papademos all the Ministers in the Greek Government were elected in the 2009 elections. Papademos was elected by a majority of Greek Parliamentarians after he was nominated by the Greek President when Papandreou resigned.<br /><br />Mario Monti was elected by the Italian Parliament after he was nominated by the Italian President when Berlusconi resigned. All the Ministers in the Italian government were elected by the Italian Parliament after being nominated by Monti.<br /><br />To bracket them as being similarly technocratic is utter nonsense.Canutely Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07318977471631386327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36227136.post-78852994838110611622012-02-13T21:14:14.298+00:002012-02-13T21:14:14.298+00:00A lot of the measures are as such understandable,...A lot of the measures are as such understandable, seen the situation, the problem is that voters have not been given the right to vote on it.<br /><br />The Commissioner for Greece (or something similar) is a reasonable demand by a creditor from a totally unreliable debtor. The problem here is the timing. Measures and after that an election. The otherway around would be the democratic way.<br /><br />Imho the EU/EZ makes a huge mistake on this point. If a majority of the Greek voters is not more or less structurally for these measures it will not hold. Greece needs at least a decade as it looks now to stabilise things, which means 3-4 elections at least. No way the existing political parties will survive that. Some of them are already as popular as the plague with the rest likely to follow (the likely new PM has brought his saving to Belgium for instance).<br />And what would be wrong after Berlusconi left to have an election in which the major parties say that a technocrat government would take over for the next term. <br /><br />Another issue is the ECB. It is becoming heavily politicised. An unelected body should have a clear task and not sit on the government's chair. So from a democratic perspective basically control inflation and regulate banks and work as lender of last resort for the healthy ones. And that is it. A technical task and trying to avoid that politicians try to use certain possibilities for mostly short term gain.<br /><br />The problem of it all is that as with Greece this will take a decade or more. With in all countries 3-4 sometimes more important elections. It is already difficult to sell more or less unavoidable measures in the countries that receive money, it simply cannot be solved longer term (which is necessary) in the paying countries at least not in a lot of them. Especially when guarantees for Greece become actual money to be paid for Greece. Leading to most likely cuts in services to the local population (as actual payments are budgetitems and guarantees are not). <br />Not many countries need to put a stop to it before the whole house of cards collapses.Riknoreply@blogger.com