Under the banner of "saving democracy", part of democracy is being buried in Germany:The free competition of political forces as well as the possibility of dismissing governments by giving one's vote to other political forces.

Domestic intelligence services are being politically instrumentalised to criminalise legitimate and permitted political criticism by civil society.

"Qatargate" leads to hysterical excitement in European political and media circles. The fuss has a system - distracting from uncomfortable consequences that this affair will have for all of us: further surveillance and curtailment of liberties.

We have too few effective mechanisms for removing those who run the state. This is one of the biggest flaws of democratic politics. Similarly, every citizen should be able to challenge political and ideological decisions in court.

Migration, globalisation and communitarisation through the European Union are undermining traditional participation in the form of elections; fewer and fewer people are being reached. But declining participation endangers the entire polity.

The campaigns for the EU parliamentary elections degenerate into political folklore. This hides the fact that the EU Parliament has no democratically legitimated constitutional structure comparable to a state.

Whilst yellow vests’ protests in France continue, confusion about causes and effects is growing in the public discourse. Even if the matter is complex the EU’s political elite need to get to the roots of the problem quickly.

The EU elite is constraining the legislative and judiciary powers for the benefit of the executive. With artificial intelligence looming on the horizon, will this turn out to be a fatal development?

Instead of engaging in substantial political discourse within and outside their own ranks, the EU elite continue to promulgate dogmata to justify their ignorance of one another’s sovereignty.