Democracy has regressed in 15 out of the 17 euro-area countries since 2008, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index. As Bloomberg Brief's Niraj Shah highlights, the index in Greece fell by 0.48 point between 2008 and 2012 as economic policy was increasingly influenced by the ECB, the EU and the IMF, instead of elected politicians. The index in Germany also fell 0.48 point in the same period as membership of the major political parties and election turnout dropped
