Monti's Attack on Parliaments Draws Prominent Criticism in Austria and Germany

In a harshly-worded statement issued in
Vienna yesterday, Ewald Podgorschek, financial policy spokesman
of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPOE), denounced Mario Monti’s
disrespectful remarks on national parliaments, in a newspaper
interview, as an attack on democracy. The division of power,
giving parliaments political control over governments, is a core
aspect of democracy; therefore, Monti’s remarks have to be
rejected in the most categoric terms, Podgorschek said, adding
that one may pose the question of whether Monti’s loyalty still
is more with his former employer, Goldman Sachs, than with Italy
and its people.
In Germany, a Frankfurter Allgemeine daily commentary said
that Monti’s remark that governments had to “educate” their
national parliaments, “tells of a, cautiously formulated, weird
understanding of democracy. He is probably right to say that the
breaking apart of Europe becomes more likely if governments are
totally bound to decisions of their parliaments. What follows
from that, however? Europe can only live on, if the national
parliaments have the least to say? The Federal Constitutional
Court, which is presently deliberating on the ESM, will note
these remarks with interest.”