Europe will never be the same

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The trending hashtag #ThisIsACoup, is indicative of peoples’ real feelings towards those congregating the Euro Summit. I stand by their side.

An agreement has been reached. A calamity has been _postponed. _Whatever the next hours and days may hold in store for us, in my eyes the European Union has already betrayed its founding principles. They were sacrificed to the altars of an ill-designed single currency. Petty parochialism prevailed over the vision for a United Europe. It happened this time, it can happen on the next occasion.

From this day onward, I see no point in continuing to be a pro-european. The facts have killed the ideals. The laudable cosmopolitan values of trans-border solidarity, cooperation, and tolerance are not realised in the current EU architecture.

This concerns nothing other than the true face of the Union’s decision-making processes; the repulsive actuality of high-level European politics. A desperate government in a weak bargaining position was bullied, humiliated, and forced into submission; a treatment that renders meaningless all of Europe’s stated “values” regarding humanity and democracy.

Are we to maintain a currency, even an EU membership, no matter the cost?

#NotMyUnion

At any rate, this no longer is_ my union_, for I am a democrat while the EU has become a quasi-confederal technocracy, where all key decisions are taken behind closed doors, against the backdrop of circumstantial power relations among national governments.

I will, for the record, resist the siren song of putting the entire blame on the German government. That is too simplistic and pernicious an approach, even though it certainly rests on a number of truths (as do some anti-Greek feelings).

Let us momentarily withdraw ourselves from the fray, in order not to lose sight of the fact that this is a monumental systemic failure. Everything, from the very design of the Euro/EMU to the way EU politics are conducted, has been leading to this eventuality.

We know what Greece’s fate is, and it ain’t pretty. The “good scenario” for the rest of Europe is that everyone suddenly becomes disciplinarian and proceeds with integration along that path. Good luck!