So, the Greek parliament passed the latest batch of “austerity” measures, imposed on them by their creditors, to the accompaniment of looting and burning on the streets of Athens, as the Greek people loudly objected to the reduction in their living standards these impose on them. But has this not been the story of the European Union ever since its founding by those idealists who intended it as a guarantee that there would never be another war in Europe? At no time did the politicians consider whether they were carrying the Europeans peoples along with them? They failed to do that.

The people of Germany no more want to pay for what they see as the profligacy of the southern Europeans than the people of those countries want the effects of the conditions that go along with the repeated “bail out” packages. Eurocepticism has acquired respectability in the UK by being continuously espoused by on or other of the political parties, a luxury not afford to the populations of most of continental Europe whose only way of expressing their disapproval has been to do so on the streets of their cities.

Parliamentary democracy is a condition of EU membership that some aspirant nations struggle to meet, but that democracy should not be abandoned when it becomes inconvenient as  in Greece and Italy with their “technocrat” prime ministers and cabinets.

In the UK the appearances of democracy have been better maintained, and and while rioters of last summer in British cities would probably not be capable of articulating any sophisticated political justification for their actions,  this unrest expressed well the  sullen anger that comes from being constantly ignored, or worse being subjected to repeated spurious “consultation” processes that have a chance of changing policy close to zero. Governments Greek, British or German may ignore the views of their populations but only for so long!