Look who sets the agenda now {europe crisis}

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http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1229891-look-who-sets-agenda-now

Have you noticed that the euro crisis is raising increasingly urgent questions about our democracies like no-one's business? For generations, democracy was quasi-sacred and not up for discussion in Europe. However, the appointment in both Greece and Italy of technocratic governments has now made the question a pertinent one.

As have the increasingly stringent requirements that Europe, under pressure from Germany, has imposed on national policy. As recently as Wednesday last, the European Commission once again warned that that it intends to approve state budgets before they are submitted to national parliaments.

And what are we to make of the strength of national democracies when even fiscally orthodox countries like Germany and Finland start to feel the effect of rising interest rates? Last Wednesday, Berlin’s latest bond issue was only half successful. What’s going on?

Let’s look at Europe. What future for national governments? To cleave to the German model of stability, 27 autonomous countries must put their houses in order, consigning national considerations – like the Netherlands’ Polder model, or that of the Rhineland or the Scandinavian welfare model – to the past.

[MNBrewer]

1. To borrow from Dune, "The spice must flow".

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2. It seems very apt. Nt