8:15PM GMT 01 Nov 2011
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Shall I tell you the truly terrifying thing about the EU? It’s not the absence
of democracy in Brussels, or the ease with which Eurocrats swat aside
referendum results. It’s the way in which the internal democracy of the
member states is subverted in order to sustain the requirements of
membership.
George Papandreou, the luckless Greek leader, is the latest politician to find
himself being chewed up because he stands in the way of the Brussels
machine. On Monday afternoon, Papandreou announced a referendum on whether
to accept the EU’s bail-out terms. He had evidently had enough of the antics
of the opposition party, New Democracy, which kept insisting that Greece
remain in the euro, while opposing all the austerity measures necessary to
that end – an outrageous stance given that New Democracy ran up the deficit
in the first place. Papandreou hoped to force his opponents off the fence:
in favour of the spending cuts or against euro membership. Perhaps he also
hoped to put pressure on the EU to offer more generous terms.
I wish I could convey the sheer horror that his proposal provoked in Brussels. The first rule of the Eurocracy is “no referendums”. Brussels functionaries believe that their work is too important to be subject to the prejudices of hoi polloi (for once, the Greek phrase seems apposite). Referendums are always seen as irresponsible; but, at a time when the euro is teetering on the brink, Papandreou’s proposal was seen as an act of ingratitude bordering on treason.
Across the palaces and chanceries of the continent, Euro-elites closed ranks. Nicolas Sarkozy’s spokesman described Papandreou’s announcement as “irrational and dangerous”, Angela Merkel’s called it “irritating”, Silvio Berlusconi’s “negative”. Such phrases, in the mouths of government officials, suggest purple, choking rage.
The Athens establishment lined up with them. Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy, vowed – with splendid disregard for his party’s name – to prevent a referendum “at all costs”. Constantine Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, called the proposal “an act of political blackmail”. All these insults were provoked by the suggestion that people be allowed to determine their future through the ballot box.
Euro-enthusiasts in Brussels and in Athens are ready to bring down an elected government rather than allow a referendum. Yet the funny thing is that Papandreou is a Euro-enthusiast. He fervently wants to remain in the euro, and had been planning to campaign for a Yes vote. His sin, in the eyes of Brussels, was not to hold the wrong opinions, but to be too keen on democracy. Leninists had a term for people who, while they might be committed Bolsheviks, none the less behaved in a way which endangered the movement. They were called “objectively counter-revolutionary”. Poor Papandreou finds himself in this category.
Nor is he the first. When it became clear that Ireland was to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Bertie Ahern was required to fall on his sword lest the corruption allegations seeping about him tainted the Europhile cause. He was replaced by Brian Cowen, the former Europe minister, who went on to lose the referendum anyway. Cowen then refused to accept the verdict, siding openly with Brussels against his own countrymen. Result? Fianna Fáil, the party which had won the most votes at every election since 1932, was extirpated.
Borrowing a phrase from C S Lewis, I think of this phenomenon as the EU’s “hideous strength”. Brussels has a bizarre power to make politicians break their words, split their parties and betray their voters so as to keep the project going. Again and again, it makes good men do bad things.
Think of the way all three British party leaders whipped their MPs against an EU referendum proposal last week – despite the fact that two thirds of the country wanted such a vote, and despite the fact that all three parties were promising referendums on Europe in the last Parliament. Think of the way Margaret Thatcher was ousted, by a combination of Tory Europhiles and Continental leaders, when she made clear her opposition to Jacques Delors’s plans for Euro-federalism.
One of Papandreou’s supporters, a socialist MEP called Anni Podimata, argued that a referendum would bring catharsis. It’s a good metaphor. Catharsis is the purification and emotional renewal that comes at the end of a Greek tragedy. Greece has been through the hubris – the boom years, when the markets pretended that Greek and German debt were interchangeable – and is now suffering the nemesis, but the catharsis has been artificially stayed. Greece won’t begin to grow again until it leaves the euro, writes off its debts and prices itself into the markets.
Eurocrats are prepared to pay any price rather than admit that the single currency was a mistake – or, more precisely, to expect their peoples to pay, since EU officials are exempt from national taxation. The peripheral countries are to suffer poverty, unemployment and emigration, the core countries perpetual tax rises, so that supporters of the euro can save face.
It’s chilling to write these words, but EU leaders are evidently prepared to vitiate Greek democracy and wreck the Greek economy rather than allow the euro to break apart. Yet even if they succeed in Greece, they may find that their efforts are for nothing. Italian bond spreads yesterday were back at the level that usually triggers bail-outs. We are about to see quite how far the Brussels apparat will go in defence of its privileges.
Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for South East England