Jürgen Habermas has recently warned that the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is transforming democratic governments into ‘economic government’ threatening not only economic disaster but the end of the world’s first supranational project — the European Union. And, according to Habermas, Europeans seem not to understand their Europe, and instead have used economic austerity as an excuse for denying democratic and constitutional possibilities at submit meetings, bailouts and new anti-democratic economic agreements. Habermas encourages his readers to understand the lessons of the past while looking ahead to new cosmopolitan possibilities freed from the twentieth century experiences of world war and economic depression. And, yet, few seem to be listening or heeding Germany’s most renowned political philosopher. European leaders focus on fiscal integration, Europe-wide banking supervision, and tighter economic policies, but little concern is given to citizen participation in governance. Without democratic integration, the European project risks creating economic, not democratic government. What are at stake are the basic social arrangements created in the post-World War era for sharing the wealth, the burdens and the responsibilities of workers and investors essential to a constitutional democracy. [...]