The author reports and comments on how European elites are making a pathetic attempt to preserve the illusion of democracy while supporting a major corporate effort to wrest control of European economies from limitations imposed on corporations by any representative type of government. Preserving democratic illusions is of critical importance to them because the legitimacy of capitalist rule rests on the foundation of these illusions.
If you read any ruling class policy piece for public consumption, you will frequently encounter the word "democracy" or "democratic" sprinkled throughout. Often the word is used as a synonym for capitalism because that is the way they want us ignorant masses to think of democracy. For example, even in a piece which promotes war strategies like a 2008 report from Rand Corporation entitled "Unfolding the Future of the Long War" on pages XVI - XVIII, you will find such references:
This strategy holds that the United States should use decisive conventional military force to change the regime in certain key Muslim countries and impose democracy in its place. [their emphasis] The theory here is that the geopolitical earthquake caused by regime change will empower democratic forces throughout the Muslim world and force much of the Salafi-jihadist warrior community to come out into the open to fight U.S. conventional forces, thus giving the United States a better chance of crushing them decisively. This strategy is part of the “Steady State” because of the continuing focus on building democracy at some level in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although the notion that the birth of democracy in those two countries would cause it to spread throughout the entire Middle East has long since been discredited, one can still argue that the existence of two democratic states in the middle of the Muslim world would create two likely security partners and potential allies for the United States over the long term.