The reason ECB gets grief from political leaders is because its legitimacy has a small question mark

You might have noticed that there is a war brewing between President Sarkozy of France and the European Central Bank. Sarko says that the ECB isnt doing much about growth, while the ECB says that Sarko is an economics illiterate.

Economics, the dismal science, has always had a huge amount of politics involved in it. There is a separate branch of politics and economics call as Political Economy even. One of the basics of this theory is that if there is a difference between the economic decision making and the political structures, then the natives will become restless. The most famous example of this was when the Americans revolted against the British, the thrust of the argument being, "no taxation without representation".

Fast forward 200 years and we find President Sarko of France fulminating against the European Central Bank. We find the European Central Bank calling the French President as economically illiterate. Why is this? You can point to many reasons but the main reason is that the ECB does not rest on a politically firm base. The constituent countries like Germany, UK, France, etc, all have their central banks and by and large are considered to be the models of probity. When your central banker says something, they usually accept it and there is political backing for economic decision making.

But the ECB does not have this luxury, while many countries did sign up to the Euro, the European project has always been an elitist project, it never was opened up for strong representation. Look at how the people reacted on the constitution. Yes, many countries voted yes for the constitution, but when were the people asked? how many people were asked if they wanted this? Not many and that is why the French, Dutch, British, Norwegians, Swiss and various others have, at best, an ambivalent relationship with the EC and ECB, and at worst, an adversarial relationship.

And instead of learning from their mistakes, the blithering inbred elitist morons keep plunging away at the stupid constitution (sorry, its a treaty now!). Dont they realise that the fact that Sarko is so much against the ECB means that the treaty is also dead for all practical purposes? No, they know best and we poor citizens are just morons.

Well, I want a referendum on this treaty and I want to vote no! No taxation, no economic impact without my representation!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!