One of the themes in Fareed Zakaria's excellent study of the US political system, The Future of Freedom, is that it's possible to have an excess of democratic accountability. I thought of that as I read David Rennie's latest dispatch from EU-land. Too much transparency, he complains, can gum up the works:
I'm serious here. It was Britain, I am ashamed to say, that started this latest campaign to open up as many EU ministerial meetings as possible - though once it looked like becoming a reality, the British soon got cold feet. Then, alas, came the lovely, transparent Finns, who hold the current rotating presidency of the EU, and decided, in a Nordic niceness sort of way, to open up as many deliberations as possible.
And what is the result? I'll tell you the result, as I could have told you the result months ago, before the doors were opened. Ministers playing to their domestic special interests back home, unable to make any painful concessions, even when it would be in everyone's interests... Let the TV cameras in, and you make such deals and compromises impossible...
So have I turned completely native, signing up to horrid Brussels secrecy? Not at all...If the CEO came to watch your next routine meeting at work, or it was filmed for training purposes, just how much really useful work would you get done?