I should clarify that by "hard choices" I mean giving up control of their fiscal matters entirely to the European Union (Similar to how US states function.)

This has nothing to do with cutting more pensions. Cutting pensions is an easy choice, in comparison (and they're still misleading the extent of those in TFA by saying "up to 48%".)

This is a very interesting point. I also believe that a proper fiscal structure for the Euro area is the only way for the Euro to survive long term. This means a Euro government, Euro area taxes, Euro area social systems, etc.

Is this a hard choice? Actually, I suspect that the choice isn't hard at all for Greece. I imagine that the Greek people would be among the easiest to convince of such a change, if it happened in a fair way where all countries are treated equally. If Greece were not treated like a vasal state, but instead simply as one of many countries that together give up some rights to a central democractic Euro government, that might well be a price that the Greek people are willing to pay for recovery within the Euro.

But good luck trying to get the Germans and other northern countries to agree to something like that.

Yeah, I agree that type of "symmetrical" arrangement will never happen. I'm surmising they will either have to come to a one-sided arrangement where fiscal autonomy varies amongst different countries, or Greece (and others) will have to leave the union eventually.

> I should clarify that by "hard choices" I mean giving up control of their fiscal matters to the European Union

Ceding sovereignty to an undemocratic body.

Wonderful.

Well, they ceded the control of their currency to the EU, and I think it's clear that isn't sustainable without more fiscal unity. It's too late to complain now that they have adopted a currency that no longer under the control of their democratically elected leaders.

So the only options remaining for Greece, long term, are to either cede fiscal control as well, or go their own separate way again (grexit) with their own currency.

(But as I said, none of this matter as long as Germany is willing to continue underwriting their debt, which they will continue to do for years, most likely... but not forever.)

Well, why is Germany underwriting their debt? It's not out of the goodness of their heart. It's because Germany didn't want a Greek default to end up giving a haircut to lenders in Euro-denominated sovereign debt. Greece isn't the only country that's "ceded the control of their currency to the EU," and fiscal unity that requires that the Greeks (and the other countries in financial distress like Spain and Italy and Portugal) give up control but doesn't ask countries like Germany and France to do the same isn't really unity, it's exploitation.

> but doesn't ask countries like Germany and France to do the same isn't really unity, it's exploitation.

Yes, if it ever happens that Germany and France need their economy bailed out in the future they should also have to give up some autonomy.

The European Parliament is an elected body. And for the first time, the head of the European Commission, the actual governement of the Union, reflects who won this election.

The EU has some semblance of democracy, but the Troika is certainly not a democratic force, and I doubt any fiscal governance would be democratic.

I thought the EU had a parliament elected by the people of all the various constituencies of Europe.

It does, but it would be a mistake to consider the EU fully democratic.

The European Parliament's power is quite limited in reality, and most of the power is held by the member states and the Commission in practice. It can veto some (but not all) things, but can't even introduce legislation.

And the Eurozone is definitely not democratic, it's run by finance ministers.

It does.

Some people like to call undemocratic elections that did not pan out the way they hoped.

The parliament is not in control of this; it has the power to vote directives up or down, and that's it. Crucially it does not control the ECB.

The European Parliament has the 2 powers that defines a parliamentary regime: it votes the budget and nominates the governement. Without Parliament's explicit or tacit will, nothing happens in the European Union.

I'm not an European, and I get my information from an openly biased source, but this is my understanding:

There is a parliament, but there's no real pan-European parties. So the parliament is dominated by a center-right and center-left coalition which work together to make up the government. The opposition is largely made up of "fuck the EU" protest parties who pride themselves in not participating in any sort of political affairs. And since the voting is the European tradition of "you vote for the party, not individual members," you tend to have members that toe the party lines (unlike the US political system). The end result is that European elections tend not to be able to effect any change in policy in the European Parliament.

The term I heard used for this is "democratic deficit."

The "fucking article" is written by Greece's Finance Minister. His bio at the bottom of the blog post doesn't mention that subtle point that not only is he affected as a Greek, he actually has a horse in the race.

...you, uh, you think he writes blog posts under the assumption that people won't realize he's the Greek finance minister?