Mario Monti, Italy’s technocrat prime minister, has been speaking a little too freely:

If governments allow themselves to be completely bound by the decisions of their parliaments without maintaining some room for manoeuvre in international negotiations, then a break-up of Europe will be more likely than closer integration.

In normal times, that would be a harmless enough comment. There’s a limit to the extent that any legislature can micromanage international negotiations. But times are not normal.

Open Europe wades in:

Excuse us? An unelected technocrat instructing national governments to ignore their parliaments? Whatever Monti tried to achieve with these remarks, it didn’t work. And he has already experienced a backlash in Germany, where if anything, there’s close to a cross-party concensus over the need for giving the Bundestag more oversight not less, in the wake of the eurozone crisis and the multi-billion euro bailouts. The various rulings handed down by the German Constitutional Court during the eurozone crisis, demanding a stronger role for the Bundestag, also shows how Monti is messing with some pretty fundamental democratic settlements.

Open Europe provides various choice quotes on this topic, of which one of the best is this from Alexander Dobrindt, the secretary-general ) of the CSU, the more right wing half of Merkel’s CDU/CSU, and the sixth most dangerous politician in Europe, according to Der Spiegel, just ahead of Nigel Farage, who must try harder (the real menace is, of course, Monti):

The greed for German taxpayer money is blossoming in undemocratic ways with Mr Monti…We Germans will not be prepared to eliminate democracy in order to finance Italian debts.

To the point, that. To go back to a point I have made before, one of the original aims of what became the EU was to anchor German democracy. Now to save the EU, the oligarchs of Brussels are prepared to sink it.

Open Europe notes:

But Monti’s remarks give testament to a most concerning elitist mentality, which has all too often been evident in the history of European integration: democratic scrutiny is a nuisance that should be avoided wherever possible. If he thinks that the Europe that emerges from the eurozone crisis can be built on backroom deals struck between a handful of EU leaders, under the radar of national parliamentary scrutiny, he may be in for some very unpleasant surprises… National democracy is not only a matter of principle but also serves a practical purpose: actions and policies that enjoy democratic legitimacy have a far greater chance of standing the test of time.

Quite.