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> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should alway

> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of compromise that allows democratic systems to function. In fact, I would make the claim that at least one reason why the US democratic system has become so utterly paralyzed by polarization is because so much of political debate is now happening in the spotlight of social media, instead of behind closed doors where politicians can have the more nuanced conversations that might displease an electorate that is too busy cheering for their team to worry about actually getting anything done. That's not to say this isn't without peril. Behind closed doors, corruption might happen as easily as compromise. I'm just not convinced the risks outweighs the benefits.

selectiveshift 7y ago
If only political grandstanding wasn’t necessary and we could have nuanced discussions in public.
odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
When these discussions impact so many people (various countries affected) I don't believe they should be kept secret. Lets (just for example, I am not saying it happened), during that meeting, the German/French Finance minister said: 'I don't care about the Greek people, we can't let German/French banks fall, so do what you must if you ever want the ECB to lend you money'. Wouldn't the greek people deserve to know and make up their mind about their part in the EU project? (again, I am not saying this happened, but I can see similar backdoor deals being put forward) Lets not forget that any opposition to the EU project by the citizens is seen as misinformed or misleded people. It is never the EU's fault [1] [1] - https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commission-portrays-article-13-opponents-as-a-misled-and-misinformed-mob-190215/ https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commission-portrays-article-13-o... (Sorry, no time to search for other source, but the comments were also published in my local newspapers)
- olivierduval 7y ago
  And even if it was the case... Maybe the logical reasoning is something like: EU need some worldclass banks to be independant, so we can't let a single country trash everything for all other EU countries. I can understand that Greek people would be angry to be "sacrified"... and that's why that kind of meeting is secret! Because to govern is not only to be elected but sometimes to have to take bad choices, when only other choices are worst
  - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
    I am not even againts french/german politicians to do that, they represent their population, but Greek people have the right to know they are being sacrificed for the 'greater good'. And what their representatives did, and to vote accordingly. And if it is a Grexit, so be it, but don't hide things from the population because they are unpopular, specially when they mess with their lives so much.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    If that were the case, the politician would have to be able to explain that to the electorate and convince them of it. If they can't, then that decision should not be taken. That's what democracy should mean - we don't elect representatives so that they can take decisions we don't want but that they think are good for us. We elect representatives because direct democracy doesn't scale.
    - biztos 7y ago
      And yet in 2020, with a little bit of tech know-how, why exactly should it not scale?
    - olivierduval 7y ago
      Actually, that's 2 different points of view on democracy: do we elect people to to do what we want now or to do what is best for us in the long run ? And who is "the people" ? The majority of the numbers (without any though for all minorities) ? The loudest minorities ? At best, both would be same: elected people would explain to the people what is best for them and convince them, then people would want what is best for them in the long run. But sadly, nobody like to be sacrified now for the long term better good of all. And politicians need to be reelected. So politicians have to hide and manipulate to some extend (for what they think is the greater good of most of the population)... "Crowd wisdom" is nice for really specific matters... but not really for managing a population with diversities in the long run.
frandroid 7y ago
It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. I don't think it's unfair to now reveal the contents of these discussions. It's high time to see if it was corruption, or compromise, which happened.
- CarelessExpert 7y ago
  And that makes a lot of sense. The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise, as in the moment it allows politicians to have those private discussions that might allow compromise to occur, while not totally sacrificing transparency in the long-term. And this isn't without precedent. The US declassification system essentially works this way (though it functions over the course of decades, which is probably too long).
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise The eurogroup president is already tasked with the responsibility of address the press and report on the group's deliberation.
- twistedpairs 7y ago
  > It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy That's not true. Greed which benefited Greeks at the time destroyed the Greek economy.
  - RobertoG 7y ago
    Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece (for its own good, of course), were, theoretically, about improving the competitive of Greece and solve the problem of the public debt. Nothing of that have happened. The public debt problem has not being solved and the Greek economy is a disaster. So who is responsible for those mistakes? They failed in their predictions and their failed in their goal (if what they say in public about their goal is the truth, of course). It seems to me that if we leave all those politicians that decide to be "hard" on the Greeks without punishment we will have a clear case of moral hazard.
rossdavidh 7y ago
Given the power that these people wield, and the frequency with which they misuse it, while I agree there could be downsides, I absolutely think the benefits outweigh the risks. I don't even think it's a particularly close call.
Middleclass 7y ago
Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it can be ensured that all data considered will be bundled with the decision. But how can such a thing ever be ensured? We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. It seems a bit much to ask politics to follow that state-of-the-art, which means that closed-doors talks* should be outlawed if the EU wants to have leg to stand on v. rising anti-EU sentiments. *. indefinitely-closed-doors talks. A mandatory post-mortem including release of the talks themselves after a set period of time would go a long way.
- drewbug 7y ago
  > We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. could you elaborate on this?
  - Middleclass 7y ago
    Zero-knowledge proofs can prove that binary code conforms to a specification (e.g. source code) without revealing the process used to turn specification into binary code. In the analogy, the specification is the information provided to government officials and binary code is planned governmental actions. If both are known and the specification process for governmental action is proven it doesn't matter what biases the officials exhibit in the decision process - then the governmental action is proven-good according to the specs (e.g. system of laws) and the information provided (in which it would be relatively easy for citizens to have a say, e.g. "you MAY NOT ignore facts X, Y and Z").
- derefr 7y ago
  The difference is that citizens aren’t trained statesmen, diplomats, or political scientists. That’s the whole premise of representative democracy: that direct democracy (through e.g. having referendums on everything) doesn’t work, because people don’t have time to be good at whatever personally makes them a living and also politics; and so we pay some people to do politics for a living, so that they will have the time and invested practice to make nuanced decisions. Anything that subjects political representatives to constraints under which they have to vote according to exactly the public’s will, forfeits the benefits of representative democracy and replaces them with an implicit direct democracy.
oh_sigh 7y ago
If the discussion isn't public, the decision may be inscrutable. Did leader 1 and leader 2 agree on X because they decided it worked out best for their constituents, or did they both agree to scratch each other's back with some discretionary funds relating to X?
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
I think that was true once upon a time, but the politicians seem as caught up in the partisanship as the voters these days. I also think an awful lot of confidentiality is abused or, in less extreme cases, simply reduces public engagement. I'd like to see the sausage-making being a lot more open, and the public becoming more tolerant of imperfections in our elected officials. Naive as that may seem, it actually seems more achievable to me than that the political class becomes less dysfunctional in the absence of any consistent oversight.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > the politicians seem as caught up in the partisanship as the voters these days. In public, yes. That's the point. One could hope that in private, there's more sanity and less theater. I fear that it's just the same in private as in public, but one can hope.
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    I could see two possible positive outcomes to making a private conversation of that nature public. One, we find some impure but pragmatic horse trading, and the voters breath a sigh of relief at the revelation that the politicians aren't as caught up in partisanship as we'd feared. Two, we find out the reason they aren't caught up in partisanship is that the partisanship is less a disagreement over how to serve voters' interests and more distraction from how they serve their own interests. Making a private conversation public is an extreme measure, but it also seems very appropriate in extreme circumstances.
lowdose 7y ago
The US and the UK are both polarized because of the two party system. In Europe even opinion from the outer fringe are heard and compromises have to be made to govern. People need to be heard. I sometimes also think that the European model of government offering a lot more local influence is a stabilizing factor. Yes it is not that efficient but all people are able to participate in the democracy and this prevents the need to take over control.
- petre 7y ago
  I think the Dutch Parliament election process is a step in a right direction. Anyone capable in securing 1/seats percentage of votes gets at least a seat. The trouble with the EU model of governance is that it's quite a bit too overreaching. Germany has 80M citizens and Greece has 11M. The ods against Greece are 8 to 1. If N. Macedonia would join the EU those ods would be more like 40 to 1. Greece along with Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria should at least make a group like the Visegrad V4 and stick tougether, but sadly it's hard to imagine Greece and N. Macedonia in the same group.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of compromise that allows democratic systems to function. You described an authoritarian system, not a democratic one. The public has the right to know what our elected servants are doing or saying. That's what dictatorships do, they tell the public the decisions without any insight into the process. > That's not to say this isn't without peril. Behind closed doors, corruption might happen as easily as compromise. I'm just not convinced the risks outweighs the benefits. Well if you aren't sure, then it's usually safe to err on the side of principles rather than justifications.

selectiveshift 7y ago

If only political grandstanding wasn’t necessary and we could have nuanced discussions in public.

odshoifsdhfs 7y ago

When these discussions impact so many people (various countries affected) I don't believe they should be kept secret. Lets (just for example, I am not saying it happened), during that meeting, the German/French Finance minister said: 'I don't care about the Greek people, we can't let German/French banks fall, so do what you must if you ever want the ECB to lend you money'. Wouldn't the greek people deserve to know and make up their mind about their part in the EU project? (again, I am not saying this happened, but I can see similar backdoor deals being put forward) Lets not forget that any opposition to the EU project by the citizens is seen as misinformed or misleded people. It is never the EU's fault [1] [1] - https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commission-portrays-article-13-opponents-as-a-misled-and-misinformed-mob-190215/ https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commission-portrays-article-13-o... (Sorry, no time to search for other source, but the comments were also published in my local newspapers)

olivierduval 7y ago
And even if it was the case... Maybe the logical reasoning is something like: EU need some worldclass banks to be independant, so we can't let a single country trash everything for all other EU countries. I can understand that Greek people would be angry to be "sacrified"... and that's why that kind of meeting is secret! Because to govern is not only to be elected but sometimes to have to take bad choices, when only other choices are worst
- odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
  I am not even againts french/german politicians to do that, they represent their population, but Greek people have the right to know they are being sacrificed for the 'greater good'. And what their representatives did, and to vote accordingly. And if it is a Grexit, so be it, but don't hide things from the population because they are unpopular, specially when they mess with their lives so much.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  If that were the case, the politician would have to be able to explain that to the electorate and convince them of it. If they can't, then that decision should not be taken. That's what democracy should mean - we don't elect representatives so that they can take decisions we don't want but that they think are good for us. We elect representatives because direct democracy doesn't scale.
  - biztos 7y ago
    And yet in 2020, with a little bit of tech know-how, why exactly should it not scale?
  - olivierduval 7y ago
    Actually, that's 2 different points of view on democracy: do we elect people to to do what we want now or to do what is best for us in the long run ? And who is "the people" ? The majority of the numbers (without any though for all minorities) ? The loudest minorities ? At best, both would be same: elected people would explain to the people what is best for them and convince them, then people would want what is best for them in the long run. But sadly, nobody like to be sacrified now for the long term better good of all. And politicians need to be reelected. So politicians have to hide and manipulate to some extend (for what they think is the greater good of most of the population)... "Crowd wisdom" is nice for really specific matters... but not really for managing a population with diversities in the long run.

frandroid 7y ago

It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. I don't think it's unfair to now reveal the contents of these discussions. It's high time to see if it was corruption, or compromise, which happened.

CarelessExpert 7y ago
And that makes a lot of sense. The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise, as in the moment it allows politicians to have those private discussions that might allow compromise to occur, while not totally sacrificing transparency in the long-term. And this isn't without precedent. The US declassification system essentially works this way (though it functions over the course of decades, which is probably too long).
- rumanator 7y ago
  > The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise The eurogroup president is already tasked with the responsibility of address the press and report on the group's deliberation.
twistedpairs 7y ago
> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy That's not true. Greed which benefited Greeks at the time destroyed the Greek economy.
- RobertoG 7y ago
  Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece (for its own good, of course), were, theoretically, about improving the competitive of Greece and solve the problem of the public debt. Nothing of that have happened. The public debt problem has not being solved and the Greek economy is a disaster. So who is responsible for those mistakes? They failed in their predictions and their failed in their goal (if what they say in public about their goal is the truth, of course). It seems to me that if we leave all those politicians that decide to be "hard" on the Greeks without punishment we will have a clear case of moral hazard.

rossdavidh 7y ago

Given the power that these people wield, and the frequency with which they misuse it, while I agree there could be downsides, I absolutely think the benefits outweigh the risks. I don't even think it's a particularly close call.

Middleclass 7y ago

Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it can be ensured that all data considered will be bundled with the decision. But how can such a thing ever be ensured? We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. It seems a bit much to ask politics to follow that state-of-the-art, which means that closed-doors talks* should be outlawed if the EU wants to have leg to stand on v. rising anti-EU sentiments. *. indefinitely-closed-doors talks. A mandatory post-mortem including release of the talks themselves after a set period of time would go a long way.

drewbug 7y ago
> We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. could you elaborate on this?
- Middleclass 7y ago
  Zero-knowledge proofs can prove that binary code conforms to a specification (e.g. source code) without revealing the process used to turn specification into binary code. In the analogy, the specification is the information provided to government officials and binary code is planned governmental actions. If both are known and the specification process for governmental action is proven it doesn't matter what biases the officials exhibit in the decision process - then the governmental action is proven-good according to the specs (e.g. system of laws) and the information provided (in which it would be relatively easy for citizens to have a say, e.g. "you MAY NOT ignore facts X, Y and Z").
derefr 7y ago
The difference is that citizens aren’t trained statesmen, diplomats, or political scientists. That’s the whole premise of representative democracy: that direct democracy (through e.g. having referendums on everything) doesn’t work, because people don’t have time to be good at whatever personally makes them a living and also politics; and so we pay some people to do politics for a living, so that they will have the time and invested practice to make nuanced decisions. Anything that subjects political representatives to constraints under which they have to vote according to exactly the public’s will, forfeits the benefits of representative democracy and replaces them with an implicit direct democracy.

oh_sigh 7y ago

If the discussion isn't public, the decision may be inscrutable. Did leader 1 and leader 2 agree on X because they decided it worked out best for their constituents, or did they both agree to scratch each other's back with some discretionary funds relating to X?

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

I think that was true once upon a time, but the politicians seem as caught up in the partisanship as the voters these days. I also think an awful lot of confidentiality is abused or, in less extreme cases, simply reduces public engagement. I'd like to see the sausage-making being a lot more open, and the public becoming more tolerant of imperfections in our elected officials. Naive as that may seem, it actually seems more achievable to me than that the political class becomes less dysfunctional in the absence of any consistent oversight.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> the politicians seem as caught up in the partisanship as the voters these days. In public, yes. That's the point. One could hope that in private, there's more sanity and less theater. I fear that it's just the same in private as in public, but one can hope.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  I could see two possible positive outcomes to making a private conversation of that nature public. One, we find some impure but pragmatic horse trading, and the voters breath a sigh of relief at the revelation that the politicians aren't as caught up in partisanship as we'd feared. Two, we find out the reason they aren't caught up in partisanship is that the partisanship is less a disagreement over how to serve voters' interests and more distraction from how they serve their own interests. Making a private conversation public is an extreme measure, but it also seems very appropriate in extreme circumstances.

lowdose 7y ago

The US and the UK are both polarized because of the two party system. In Europe even opinion from the outer fringe are heard and compromises have to be made to govern. People need to be heard. I sometimes also think that the European model of government offering a lot more local influence is a stabilizing factor. Yes it is not that efficient but all people are able to participate in the democracy and this prevents the need to take over control.

petre 7y ago
I think the Dutch Parliament election process is a step in a right direction. Anyone capable in securing 1/seats percentage of votes gets at least a seat. The trouble with the EU model of governance is that it's quite a bit too overreaching. Germany has 80M citizens and Greece has 11M. The ods against Greece are 8 to 1. If N. Macedonia would join the EU those ods would be more like 40 to 1. Greece along with Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria should at least make a group like the Visegrad V4 and stick tougether, but sadly it's hard to imagine Greece and N. Macedonia in the same group.

dntbnmpls 7y ago

> While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of compromise that allows democratic systems to function. You described an authoritarian system, not a democratic one. The public has the right to know what our elected servants are doing or saying. That's what dictatorships do, they tell the public the decisions without any insight into the process. > That's not to say this isn't without peril. Behind closed doors, corruption might happen as easily as compromise. I'm just not convinced the risks outweighs the benefits. Well if you aren't sure, then it's usually safe to err on the side of principles rather than justifications.