If the ESM at least solved any of Europe’s problems, these democratic deficits would still be severe but easier to accept. But it does not solve any problems. All it achieves is the transformation of the eurozone into a transfer and liability union without addressing the more fundamental problems of reducing debt levels and restoring periphery competitiveness. Instead of solving problems, the ESM creates new ones: it damages the creditworthiness of those few remaining countries effectively guaranteeing for the ESM. In a worst case scenario, Germany alone would need to shoulder the entire capital of the ESM – which it can’t manage without defaulting itself.

None of the measures proposed is without alternative. To consider other options would require an open and democratic debate – the very debate that Europe’s elites deny their peoples.

Having lost its fiscal sanity, Europe is about to give up its parliamentary democracy as well. When will the citizens of Europe stand up to those who are supposed to represent them?

Beitrag erschien zuerst auf achgut.com