Most of the media coverage of and commentary about the Euromess has focused, quite appropriately, on the potential enormous financial losses to European nations, banks and individuals. One proposed route toward a less painful European economic future is to give the Eurozone a centralized governing body with significant power over the member states. Indeed, this was the vision of Europe’s needed evolution among some of the architects of the Euro currency.
Such centralization might help stanch the financial losses caused by the Euromess, but money isn’t all that is at stake. If more and more political and economic decisions are made by transnational bodies based in Brussels (or Berlin), ordinary European citizens may come to see EU government as distant, hard to influence, and lacking in legitimacy.
This risk of “democracy deficit” is the subject of this intriguing article in the Economist, which is well-worth the time of Europe watchers.
[Cross-posted at The Reality-based Community]
