How telling of the modern state of EU leadership, that such quotes can be given with a straight face.

On Monday, Papandreou had announced plans to hold a national referendum on the EU bailout package for his country and the concurrent austerity measures imposed by his government. The announcement sent global markets plunging and outraged both Merkel and Sarkozy.

Why the outrage? A nation’s elected leader wishes to poll its citizens as to whether to accept an EU bailout (much of which would return to non-Greek banks holding the bonds), or whether to default. In the former case, dramatic austerity measures would be imposed, and sovereign governance lost. In the latter case, a “drachmatic” exit from the Euro would certainly be painful (as would the temporary loss of access to credit markets), but Greece could recover on its own terms, like Iceland and countless other countries have. So the referendum would most basically ask whether or not Greece should suffer more for the sake of foreign bondholders who were foolish enough to buy Greek bonds. Disregarding the moral impropriety of defaulting on one’s debts, it was to be a Greek referendum on Greek self-interest. Thus the outrage! It is an admission that the Greece bailout is not for the benefit of the Greeks.

It will not surprise anyone that this is the same part of the world whose leaders schemed to block, subvert, cancel any sort of direct democracy by their citizens, when the EU constitution / Lisbon treaty were bulldozed through, even where legally required, election-promised, or vetoed (Ireland had to re-vote until it got it “right”).