The future of Europe - EU must walk the walk of democracy

ONE of the valid accusations made by those who wanted Britain to quit the EU before last Thursday’s epoch-defining vote was that the union had become far less democratic than is necessary to sustain a union of almost 30 countries, big or small, affluent or less so. 

Government by faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats, ran the charge — one that is not as easy to refute as it should be. It rang only too true and was a decisive factor in influencing secession.

The accusation will stand again if another challenge to European solidarity follows on the heels of Britain’s over-and-out vote.

The “Leave” camp was able to point to the ongoing humiliation of Greece, contrived with the callous intention of teaching a flagrantly undisciplined economy the hardest of lessons. Poverty is being imposed and used as a tool — shamefully, in our name — to realise neo-conservative political objectives.

This accusation resonated pretty loudly in this small Republic too. The immoral debt, one that is simply unjust no matter how the EU’s aristocracy try to dress it up, imposed on us by the ECB cuts very deeply and shows, tragically, that the EU is not a partnership of equals but one led by a core group that has assumed an authority that is dangerously anti-democratic and must be challenged.

That our politicians, no more than their Greek or Cypriot peers, seem to have run out of options around resolving this corruption of the idea of fairness or even capitalism suggests that the adage — “the monkey with the biggest stick gets all the coconuts” — rings as true in EU relationships as it does anywhere else.

We have already seen an example of that assumed authority, that pretentious inner circle dominance in action during this crisis. The six founding members of the union — Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — met in Berlin over the weekend and presumed to speak for all 28 — still — member states. They announced that they had decided, irrespective of the position of the other 22 members, on how Britain’s disengagement from the union might proceed.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said negotiations should begin as “soon as possible”.

“We say here together, this process should get under way as soon as possible so that we are not left in limbo but rather can concentrate on the future of Europe,” Mr Steinmeier said.

His Dutch counterpart Bert Koenders said the continent could not accept a political vacuum, saying “this will not be business as usual”.

Had all members been involved it is unlikely any other decision could have been reached but it plays straight into the hands of the most malign forces who argue that the EU has split into rulers and the ruled.

This behaviour encourages the narrative that an unaccountable elite is at the heart of the project and that the rest of us should be grateful to be involved at all.

Establishment politics are under siege all around the world because too many people have been left behind and because wealth is ever more concentrated.

The EU leaders need to recognise this and act accordingly or else the British vote will, in time, be seen as just the first step in the destruction of a great, empowering, democratic idea.