The EU is a destructive force in European politics. I have lost count of how many governments have been toppled by the economic policies the Euro demands. The French government is the latest casualty, with President Hollande dismissing his Ministers following the opposition of some of them to the austerity policies they are forced to follow to comply with EU and Euro requirements.

If a policy of business tax cuts and spending cuts is to work in France, as it could, it has to be accompanied by an easy money policy from the Central bank and banking system. If you are going to reduce the public sector you need to help augment the private sector. In the Euro area they have decided instead to run a tight money policy by demanding ever more cash and capital from commercial banks to support their lending, and declining to take any offsetting special monetary measures as the US, UK and Japan have done. Ministers complaining about the policy have been dismissed so the President can find more compliant pro Euro Ministers.

Meanwhile, a different kind of EU policy has helped destabilise the government of Ukraine by heightening the disagreements between the pro EU and pro Russia factions within the country. The overthrow of the previous elected President helped trigger a chain of bad events. Now the most recently elected new President has his way and is going to require early elections to a new Parliament. He says he cannot work with the current representatives from the Donbass region who are too pro Russian for his liking.

The Presidential election was brought forward by almost a year, and the new President was elected without any votes being cast in the Crimea, and with most of the polling stations in the Donbass region unavailable. His intention to hold Parliamentary elections on October 26th 2014, three years before the end of the current Parliament’s full term, will also presumably lead to an election in which the most pro Russian parts of the country will be unable to vote. Clearly the Crimea is now under Russian control and will not participate at all. How many of the people in the Donbass region will this time have peaceful access to a polling station? If the pro Russian part of the population does not feel they can have a proper influence on the election it does not augur well for the restoration of Ukrainian unity and peace.

These are yet more reasons why the EU should do less and be more mindful of national and local democracy. Democratic government only works if the consent of all the people to the method of government is maintained. This has been broken in the Ukraine, and is being strained in parts of the Eurozone whose economic performance is poor.