Overall, what is advanced as the EU becomes more powerful, is not one nation (Germany, say) but a new and distinctive source of authority altogether, the EU, which is not reducible to any one power. It is intrinsically anti-democratic, and anti-national.
I differ with Marv on a small point of judgment. It is true that the European authorities are very afraid of their publics, and worry that they will rise up against them. But this worry is, sadly, over-exaggerated. There is always the chance that the European publics will get a bee in their bonnet about some EU measure – as they did about the constitution proposal – but for the most part, the populace is not very well organised, and gravitates to immediate issues, but without much endurance, or much organisation bedded down. So, for example, the struggle against the EU constitution did not leave much of a lasting legacy, even though actual political parties (like the New Anti Capitalist Party in France) were founded, they have not really shown a lot of staying power.
Marv is right to to point out that the immediate problem for governments is to moderate investors’ (and lenders’) fears. For that reason most of the proposals are of a propagandistic character, and may deviate from actual policies pursued.
Marv wrote: ‘It may... There have been hints that Merkel and the Bundesbank now accept that the gravity of the crisis requires that the European Central Bank massively step up its bond purchases to counter capital flight, but that they can only reverse course if it is accompanied by the appearance of tougher controls on the national budgets of the debtor states. That is what yesterday's summit was designed to accomplish, but it's unlikely to stem investor panic.’