Quote Originally Posted by Papewaio View Post
From the outside it has looked first and foremost about the money. It's not about representation for the people, they can't directly vote for EU officials.
Of course the EU represents the member nations and we want to keep it that way. What's happening with the bail-outs is already democratically questionable. Here's what the Bundesbank said in its latest report, as translated for our English speaking friends by The Telegraph:

The Bundesbank is questioning the legality of the EU bail-outs, warning that the eurozone is drifting towards a debt union without "democratic legitimacy": "The latest agreements mean that far-reaching extra risks will be shifted to those countries providing help and to their taxpayers, and entail a large step towards a pooling of risks from particular EMU states with unsound public finances. Unless there is a fundamental change of regime involving a far-reaching surrender of national fiscal sovereignty, it is imperative that the 'no bail-out' rule – still enshrined in the treaties – should be strengthened by market discipline, rather than fatally weakened."
Since practically no member state will accept 'a far-reaching surrender of national fiscal sovereignty' any attempted move in that direction as per Merkozy is stilborn. And enforcing 'market discipline' under the standing arrangements is nonsense, too. Just today we have heard that Greece's economy is shrinking at an alarming rate. The only way forward is for certain nations to leave the eurozone.

AII