Sovereignty is not the same as power

Indeed this is difficult to summarise, but due to the length the attempt must be made.

During a break from that 10-hour Eurogroup meeting, in which I had struggled to reclaim some economic sovereignty on behalf of my battered parliament and our suffering people, another finance minister attempted to soothe me by saying: “Yanis, you must understand that no country can be sovereign today. Especially not a small and bankrupt one like yours.”

This line of argument is probably the most pernicious fallacy to have afflicted public debate in our modern liberal democracies... The problem begins once the distinction between sovereignty and power is blurred.

Sovereignty is about who decides legitimately on behalf of a people – whereas power is the capacity to impose these decisions on the outside world. Iceland is a tiny country. But to claim that Iceland’s sovereignty is illusory because it is too small to have much power is like arguing that a poor person with no political clout might as well give up her right to vote.

An alliance of states, which is what the EU is... can never legitimately strike down or overrule the sovereignty of one of its member states on the basis of the limited power it has been granted by the sovereign states that have agreed to participate in the alliance. There is no collective European sovereignty from which Brussels could draw the legitimate political authority to do so.

Our European Union is disintegrating. Should we accelerate the disintegration of a failed confederacy? If one insists that even small countries can retain their sovereignty, as I have done, does this mean Brexit is the obvious course? My answer is an emphatic “No!”

Here is why: if Britain and Greece were not already in the EU, they should most certainly stay out. But, once inside, it is crucial to consider the consequences of a decision to leave...  Should the Greeks or the Brits care about the disintegration of an infuriating EU? Yes, of course we should care. And we should care very much because the disintegration of this frustrating alliance will create a vortex that will consume us all – a postmodern replay of the 1930s. The EU’s very existence depends on Britain staying in.

The third option is the only one worth going for: staying in the EU to form a cross-border alliance of democrats, which Europeans failed to manage in the 1930s, but which our generation must now attempt to prevent history repeating itself.

This is precisely what some of us are working towards in creating DiEM25 – the Democracy in Europe Movement, with a view to conjuring up a democratic surge across Europe, a common European identity, an authentic European sovereignty, an internationalist bulwark against both submission to Brussels and hyper-nationalist reaction.

Originally shared by Chris Blackmore (The Walrus)

A Guardian "long read" you should  read.

Yanis Varoufakis was rudely ignored when he went to Germany to negotiate. Instead, a "solution" that couldn't possibly work, and left Greece owing twice as much as his suggestions, was imposed, without any  meaningful negotiation.

No, it hasn't turned him against the EU. Read it to the end, I'm not going to risk an incorrect summary. I think his conclusion is correct. We should stay in the EU, and force it into democratic ways, so that it will work better. Not the pathetic pretence at negotiations our useless PR wonk Cameron has performed, but real change, to make it what it should have been.

NB Stupid or offensive comments will be deleted.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/yanis-varoufakis-why-we-must-save-the-eu