Whatever his motives, George Papandreou has wrested any high ground the EU could’ve claimed from their grasp.

I never cease to be amazed by the willingness of media beyond Europe to demonstrate their total ignorance about what’s going on in the EU. One thing that the Papandreou gamble has done is present the EUnatics with a ready-wrapped excuse as to Why Everything Went Wrong Really, No, Really. This from the Atlanta Business News:

‘Sarkozy had hoped the meeting of leaders from the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations, which runs Thursday and Friday, was going to be Europe’s opportunity to assure the rest of the world that a comprehensive plan to deal with the European debt crisis had finally been reached after nearly two years of half-measures, indecision and procrastination. Papandreou’s gambit ended that lofty ambition.’

So there you have it: it’s all George’s fault. How could he despoil Sarko’s lofty ambition by daring to ask the populace what they think, the cynical bastard?

It’s hard for Nicolas Sarkozy to have a lofty ambition, he being a porg an’ all. But trying to be more pc than that observation (which isn’t difficult) I’m left wondering how lofty it is to prefer saving a few thousand dickbrained bankers in preference to millions of Greeks.

This represents one of many downsides to what Papa has done. He could lose the referendum, and plunge the EU into a crisis from which it would never recover. From this crisis, it is very likely that a full-blown global slump could ensue….there having been, naturally,  no possibility at all that such might happen before he pulled this particular rabbit from the hat.

However, what makes the internet unique is its ability to be a record. Perhaps a contemporary Bible – but at the very least, an archive. An infinite archive that only the entire failure of the human race and all its innovation could erase. And what this archived museum will show is that George Papandreou was just about the only politician in the history of the European Union to voluntarily offer government policy for approval by his own electorate.

There remains the age-old debate about whether approval for a specific approach is really the same as giving one’s consent for a regime in total. It isn’t, of course: but in a fascinating piece at the Daily Telegraph, former diplomat Charles Crawford today asked how we, as citizens of the not entirely liberally democratic EU, might withdraw such consent.

A citizenry tends to withdraw its consent in different ways – depending on whether it is dealing with a weak oligarchy (the UK) a bloated autocracy (the EU) or a totalitarian dictatorship (the USSR).

My suggestion would be to watch what happened with Newscorp. The obvious guilt of this big, nasty corporate gargoyle dragged on for months….until evidence emerged about targeting vulnerable or helpless people. At that point, the instinct for pack cooperation kicked in.
The way in which cynical Franco-German concerns for their precious banking idiots have ridden roughshod over ordinary, largely innocent Greeks is now being revealed by a political genius called George Papandreou. What Big never understands is that ultimately, the pack will support the underdog.

In doing so, they withdraw their support from repressive clowns like van Rompuy and Barroso. Wherever the eurocrats go from here, they are going to find it hard (outside Germany) to persuade the rest of us that their actions are justified.