Europe’s new parallel government

The Cannes G20 summit was marked by the emergence of a new "political-economic lobby", reports El Mundo: the Groupe de Francfort, or Frankfurt Group (GdF), which is composed of eight public figures:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy — increasingly dubbed 'Merkozy' in the European press — but also Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, ECB President Mario Draghi, and Olli Rehn, the EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. The group was born from a chance meeting at the Frankfurt Opera House on 19 October, where all of its members attended a ceremony to mark the end of Jean-Claude Trichet’s tenure as President of the ECB.

For El Mundo, the existence of the informal group has highlighted:

... a conflict between democratic legitimacy and the urgent need to find a solution to the euro crisis. […] Some analysts argue that the new behind-the-scenes government is also the best possible counterweight to the power of “Merkozy”, because the inclusion of European institutions in the GdF also gives a voice to less powerful states.

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Critics of the GdF, who claim it is responsible for the political assasination of George Papandreou and a knife stuck in Silvio Burlusconi’s back, have dubbed it a ‘politburo’ in reference to its absence of democratic legitimacy, while its supporters maintain that it is a necessary antidote euro crisis.