(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

BY MIKKEL NOEL LANZKY

ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN

Crisis averted. At least for a while. ‘Super’ Mario Monti is forming a new government in Italy and banking technocrat Lucas Papademos is in place in Greece, and German Chancellor Merkel is making the case for even further integration of the Euro zone.

In a speech at a party conference for CDU, which she leads, Merkel called for closer political ties and a common financial policy for the Euro countries. Al Jazeera reports:

“She also called for the creation of a form of economic government, which is not entirely new - she’s brought this up with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, in public before – where countries that spent too much money and didn’t come up with healthy budgets could be dragged before the European Court of Justice and penalized, so that they would adopt healthier financial practices.”

Indeed, these reforms are also being pushed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. As CNBC explains, they are the new power-tandem in European politics, driving the European financial agenda forward.

“Nicolas Sarkozy is speeding up the convergence process with Germany. Not only the tax process but a kind of political tie-up. The couple between Sarkozy and Merkel has never been so strong, so tied-up, and actually there’s a word for that; it’s called ‘Merkozy’.”

With EU technocrats being installed as heads of government and foreign leaders pressuring Greece into giving up referendums, what does this do to democracy in the EU? The Guardian weighs in:

“For many voters in Greece, and Italy too this effective suspension of democracy feels all too here-and-now. Critics of the euro always suggested that at some point a single European economy would collide with the democratic freedoms of European nations. Now, before our eyes, it is happening.”

That sentiment is shared by the Telegraph, which says the behavior of EU leaders toward Greece and Italy resembles a coup:

“The inherent flaws of monetary union have created a crisis of such gravity that EU leaders now feel authorized to topple two elected governments. […] Europe’s president Herman Van Rompuy swooped in to Rome to clinch the Putsch. ‘Italy needs reforms not elections,’ he said.”

Further integration is likely to face opposition from the UK, where Prime Minister David Cameron has promised referendums on EU treaty changes that move power from national capitals to Brussels. But as an analyst says to Bloomberg:

“Merkel’s speech is a warm-up for the big quantum leap toward a two-track Europe. If you wait for the Brits, you’re going to spend a lot of time at the station and the train will never come. If you want to do the quantum leap, you can only do it with the euro zone.”

The Economist also strikes this cord, asking where a further integrated Euro zone would leave those ‘that cannot, or will not, live by Germanic rules’:

“This raises a sense of double standards: one kind of democracy for creditors, another for debtors. Everybody must understand the constraints on Mrs Merkel. But Mr Papandreou commits a “breach of trust” if he calls a referendum. […] Saving the euro requires more pain for some, more generosity from others and fundamental change for all. Is it worth it? Sooner or later, citizens must be asked. Without their support, no reform can last.”

So while Italy and Greece face great challenges in bringing their economies back on track, the EU overall is now faced with the daunting task of devising a way to avoid debt crises in the future: without sidelining its populations in the discussion.

Transcript by Newsy.