I’m not one of those who believe that the eurozone is about to fall apart (or that countries such as Greece are about to quit/be forced out), but this Observer article by Peter Oborne on the zone’s troubles is well worth reading, particularly when he shifts his attention to this topic:

The European political class has done something extraordinary: it has turned its back on politics. In a series of brilliant articles and essays, Professor Peter Mair, professor of government at the European University Institute, has shown how western democracy has been hollowed out across the EU. He argues that a new notion of democracy has emerged instead, only stripped of its popular component – Mair calls it “democracy without a demos”. This elite withdrawal from mass electoral politics, characteristic of so many modern European states, has closed out the euro as a subject of legitimate discussion.

And it’s not only the topic of the euro that has been rendered off limits.