Eurozone: Citizens concerned

If the national governments want something better than the impending crash, why don't they get to grips with the issues of democratic empowerment and sufficient powers at European level?

This is where we stand today: Eurozone: A matter of common concern, a real concern for citizens and businesses alike.

According to Jacques Delors, the former president of the European Commission, the euro and Europe are on the brink of the abyss. Notre Europe has collected the interviews and media reactions: Jacques Delors face à la crise de l'euro.

In Le Taurillon, Nessim Znaïen highlighted some proposals by Delors in the interview published by Le Temps.

Spencer Kimball, on European Dialogue, stated that US, EU debt crisis escalates in the face of political gridlock.

The Green MEP Reinhardt Bütikofer cautiously speaks about the need for empowering the European Parliament in the management of the euro crisis.

The calculus of not saving the Euro goes beyond economics, but it is in fact a political decision, Maxime Larive wrote on the Foreign Policy Association blog.

The blog of the office of György Schöpflin MEP noted the threat of intergovernmentalism. The Franco-German plans to govern the euro are expressly designed to circumvent the Commission and the European Parliament. The pressure to reassert state-national interest over a European-level interest neglects and probably damages the EU’s conflict resolution function.

Come September, when, or rather if, the permanent bailout mechanism takes over the role of the ECB, we shall see whether these crisis measures are enough to save the euro, Finn Maigaard wrote on the Foreign Policy Association blog.

Finland insists on getting collateral for participating in the second Greek rescue package. Other eurozone governments have reacted and the markets are raising alarms, Peter Spiegel wrote on the FT Brussels blog.

The current crisis in Europe isn’t just a Greek or German or Irish or Portuguese problem, it’s a European one, Jason O'Mahony wrote.

Protesilaos Stavrou wrote that if things stay as they are then we will reach a dead end that will signal the start of the collapse of the euro and of everything that took decades to build. The blog post offers practical proposals on remedies for the systemic crisis.

The European Central Bank is forced to act as a fire department, because chancellor Merkel postpones the saving of the euro. After months of silence, the German president Christian Wulff finds nothing better to say than to criticise the independent ECB, Eric Bonse wrote on Lost in Europe (in German).

Laurence Boon, on Telos, explains that eurobonds are no miracle cure, but they could be a help on certain conditions.

Megan Green reasons that Eurobonds could work, but we'll probably never know. Throughout the euro crisis, EU leaders have repeatedly demonstrated that their top priority is their own national self-interest, despite the huge potential downside risks this poses to the common currency.

Although the European Union is formally a democracy, it does not act like one. We're in the middle of a massive crisis, but when it comes to the solutions, we are talking about national solutions to European problems, wrote The European Citizen.

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If the national governments want something better, why don't they discuss politically legitimate government and sufficient solutions to European problems?

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Ralf Grahn