Jürgen Habermas on Merkozy's post-democratic approach

Europe's politicians, and in particular German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy, are trying to contravene the principles of democracy for the sake of unclear economic goals, writes philosopher Jürgen Habermas in the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "This is the spectacle of the degeneration of those values and convictions that once embodied the idea of Europe. Some of the protagonists of the financial markets are thinking ahead to what will happen next in this story of decline and collapse. ... The British newspaper the 'Telegraph' reported on a joke circulating in financial circles and apparently also within the British cabinet: it would be good if a military junta forced its way into power in Greece now because military juntas are not allowed to be EU members. ... You don't have to appreciate all the unconscious dimensions of the joke to understand the extent to which the moral agreements of the post-war period are being trampled upon in the name of a higher financial-economical logic. ... The Greek disaster serves however as a warning not to adopt the post-democratic approach that Merkel and Sarkozy have taken. A concentration of power in an inter-governmental committee of heads of government who foist their agreements on national parliaments is the wrong approach." 

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