New spectre of technocracy is haunting Europe

IMAGINE how much international hand-wringing there would be if, say, Nigeria and South Africa decided to club together and put extraordinary pressure on Swaziland to get rid of its elected leaders and replace them with unelected suits.

There would be uproar. Western politicians would hold press conferences to denounce these coup-like antics on the Dark Continent. The UN would have an emergency session.

Yet when the same thing happens in Europe, when powerful West European nations use extreme financial pressure to force a change of government in less powerful European nations, no one seems to mind.

During the past week, something extraordinary has taken place in Europe: two elected governments have been swept aside, largely on the say-so of Germany and France, and replaced by gaggles of unelected experts.

First in Greece, then in Italy, democratic governments have found themselves being finger-wagged out of office by bigwigs based in Brussels, who have decided it would be better, in this era of economic crisis, if technocrats rather than democrats were running these fragile nations.

And there has been very little gnashing of teeth over this behaviour. No emergency UN session. No threat of sanctions against Paris, Berlin or Brussels. It seems that if you are white and you wear a nice suit, and you're a member of the European cultural elite's most beloved club, the EU, you can get away with as much tyrannical behaviour as you like.

A new spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of technocracy. Finally completely exasperated with democracy, the EU elite is doing away with it in favour of sending cliques of experts to govern European nations.

The fall of Greece's democratic government was assured when its prime minister, George Papandreou, suggested an EU austerity package for Greece should be put to a referendum.

The package, agreed by Brussels on October 26, stipulates that Greece will get the emergency bailout funds it desperately needs only if it agrees to raise taxes and slash public-sector pay. So Papandreou felt the Greek people should have a chance to say yes or no to it.

Big mistake. As we know from the hissy fits they threw when the Irish, Dutch and French dared to say no, nee and non in referendums on whether to pass the EU constitution, the oligarchs in Brussels hate nothing more than the thought of hoi polloi having a say on their policies.

So they reacted with spittle-flecked fury to Papandreou's referendum idea. A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Papandreou's behaviour was "irrational and dangerous". German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded it "irritating".

These EU overlords set about pushing Papandreou aside. Brussels told him he should step down, dismantle his government and allow a government of "national unity". And if he refused? Greece would be denied long-term emergency bailout funds and the E8 billion ($10.8bn) aid injection it needs to avoid going bankrupt by next month. In short, Papandreou had two choices: do as Brussels says or let Greece sink into economic oblivion.

In the face of such extreme pressure, he dutifully stepped aside. The unelected cross-party government that has taken his place has no political independence whatsoever. All its leaders must sign a "letter of trust" drawn up by Brussels, promising they will fully implement the EU austerity package. The new government's finance department is stuffed with officials from Brussels, meaning Greek politicians no longer have control over national economic affairs. And the government is forbidden from holding an election for at least 100 days because Brussels doesn't want the pesky Greek masses to get in the way of the implementation of its austerity package.

The Euro-elite played a key role behind the scenes in selecting Greece's new Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos. This man has never once stood for election and has no history of political leadership. Yet Brussels loves him because he's a former vice-president of the European Central Bank and, in the words of one economist, that means he "speaks the language and shares the philosophy of the EU".

That is, he's one of Us, one of the Brussels oligarchy, rather than being one of Them, the grubby Greek hordes. In any other context, the expulsion of an elected prime minister in favour of a technocrat chosen by outsiders would be branded neo-colonialism. But the EU and its backers, who are masters of what British satirical magazine Private Eye calls the "EU-phemism", prefer to refer to their bully-boy tactics as "an effort to preserve European unity".

If it wasn't bad enough that the birthplace of modern democracy should now be its graveyard, Italy also felt the prodding finger of Brussels' technocratic tyrants.

Following more turmoil in the Italian markets, Silvio Berlusconi, long loathed by EU suits for his swagger and buffoonery, was pressured into resigning.

With the assistance and blessing of Brussels officials, a post-Berlusconi "government of experts" has been installed. Led by Mario Monti, a former EU commissioner, it is without question one of the most undemocratic governments in the world. It contains not a single politician, not a single elected figure; only "experts" charged with getting Italy back on track.

Monti says the "absence of political personalities" is a good thing, because it will "remove (any) ground for disagreement". That is, the very lifeblood of politics has been zapped from Italian public life, and this is apparently a cause for celebration.

It is striking that supposedly liberal commentators have defended Italy's undemocratic government. Under the headline "In defence of Europe's technocrats", an editor at the pro-EU newspaper The Guardian says "temporary technocrat rule" is an acceptable thing. This is a newspaper that regularly smarts at the lack of democracy in places such as Burma; yet when it comes to defending the EU, that super-cosmo entity so beloved of the chattering classes, it seems democracy becomes negotiable.

There has been some disquiet over what has happened in the past week, however, even in pro-EU circles. Some have expressed concern about the "technocratic turn" in Europe.

What these observers don't realise is that this is not a "turn". It is the extreme logical conclusion to the EU project.

The EU has always been driven by hostility towards national sovereignty and by disdain for the demos. Through the EU, national European governments could go over the heads of their annoying electorates, while liberal activists, bored rigid with trying to engage with the tabloid-reading hordes, could seek instead to set the political agenda through aloof, faraway institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights.

The EU has always elevated technocracy above democracy and expertise over engagement, providing a forum in which the cultural elites could escape the madding crowd, pool their expertise and devise allegedly enlightened ways of organising society without needing to consult the throng. All that has happened is that, at a time of economic crisis, this process has been speeded up. In Greece and Italy we can see the liberal EU project in all its naked, tyrannical, oligarchical glory.