THE
EUROPEAN UNION MAY BE ON THE VERGE OF REGIME COLLAPSE
Executive
Summary:
- Surging popularity of ISLAMOPHOBIA
- EUROPEAN politicians of the far right and left polarized public debate
- The same resentments that ate away at the SOVIET and YUGOSLAV federations have begun to erode popular support for the EUROPEAN UNION
- The rise and fall of Tina (“There Is No Alternative”)
- The GERMAN equation: an exemplar of continental fiscal rectitude
- EU members subjected to heavy doses of austerity have witnessed a steep rise in the number of people living below the poverty line
- HUNGARY - the axis of illiberalism
- A new illiberal axis connecting BUDAPEST to BEIJING and MOSCOW would have far-reaching implications.
- Far right shift in EUROPE
- Realignment of EUROPEAN politics
- As the EUROPEAN model has become associated with austerity, not prosperity, that virtuous circle has turned vicious
- The EU turned a continent that seemed destined to wallow in “ancestral hatreds” into one of the most harmonious regions on the planet
- EUROPE’S unity in diversity may be an appealing concept
Not long after the BERLIN
WALL fell a quarter of a century ago, the SOVIET UNION collapsed, the UNITED
STATES squandered its peace dividend in an attempt to maintain global
dominance, and EUROPE quietly became more prosperous, more integrated, and more
of a player in international affairs. Between 1989 and 2014, the EUROPEAN UNION
(EU) practically doubled its membership and catapulted into third place in
population behind CHINA and INDIA. It currently boasts the world’s largest
economy and also heads the list of global trading powers. In 2012, the EU won
the Nobel Peace Prize for transforming EUROPE “from a continent of war to a
continent of peace.”
In the competition for
“world’s true superpower,” CHINA loses points for still having so many
impoverished peasants in its rural hinterlands and a corrupt, illiberal
bureaucracy in its cities; the UNITED STATES, for its crumbling infrastructure
and a hypertrophied military-industrial complex that threatens to bankrupt the
economy. As the only equitably prosperous, politically sound, and
rule-of-law-respecting superpower, EUROPE comes out on top, even if -- or
perhaps because -- it doesn't have the military muscle to play global
policeman.
Background
Information:
EU'S
CONTRADICTIONS
And yet, for all this
success, the EUROPEAN project is currently teetering on the edge of failure.
Growth is anemic at best and socio-economic inequality is on the rise. The
countries of EASTERN and CENTRAL EUROPE, even relatively successful POLAND,
have failed to bridge the income gap with the richer half of the continent. And
the highly indebted periphery is in revolt.
SURGING
POPULARITY OF ISLAMOPHOBIA
Politically, the center
may not hold and things seem to be falling apart. From the left, parties like SYRIZA
in GREECE are challenging the EU’s prescriptions of austerity. From the right, EUROSKEPTIC
parties are taking aim at the entire quasi-federal model. Racism and xenophobia
are gaining ever more adherents, even in previously placid regions like SCANDINAVIA.
Perhaps the primary
social challenge facing EUROPE at the moment, however, is the surging
popularity of ISLAMOPHOBIA, the latest “socialism of fools.” From the killings
at the MUNICH Olympics in 1972 to the recent attacks at CHARLIE HEBDO and a
kosher supermarket in PARIS, wars in the MIDDLE EAST have long inspired proxy
battles in EUROPE. Today, however, the continent finds itself ever more divided
between a handful of would-be combatants who claim the mantle of true ISLAM and
an ever-growing contingent who believe ISLAM -- all of ISLAM -- has no place in
EUROPE.
Background Information:
ISLAM UND EUROPA
IF
CURRENT DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS PERSIST, EUROPE WILL BE MUSLIM BY CENTURY’S END
EUROPEAN
POLITICIANS OF THE FAR RIGHT AND LEFT POLARIZED PUBLIC DEBATE
The fracturing EUROPEAN
UNION of 2015 is not the EUROPE that political scientist FRANCES FUKUYAMA imagined
when, in 1989, he so famously predicted “the end of history,” as well as the
ultimate triumph of liberal democracy and the bureaucracy in BRUSSELS, the EU’s
headquarters, that now oversees continental affairs. Nor is it the EUROPE that BRITISH
Prime Minister MARGARET THATCHER imagined when, in the 1980's, she spoke of the
global triumph of TINA (“THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE”) and of her brand of market
liberalism. Instead, today’s EUROPE increasingly hardens back to the period
between the two world wars when politicians of the far right and left polarized
public debate, economies went into a financial tailspin, anti-Semitism surged
out of the sewer, and storm clouds gathered on the horizon.
THE
EUROPEAN UNION COULD WELL END AS THE SOVIET UNION AND YUGOSLAVIA
Another continent-wide
war may not be in the offing, but EUROPE does face the potential for regime
collapse: that is, the end of the EUROZONE and the unraveling of regional
integration. Its possible dystopian future can be glimpsed in what has happened
in its eastern borderlands. There, federal structures binding together
culturally diverse people have had a lousy track record over the last
quarter-century. After all, the SOVIET UNION imploded in 1991; CZECHOSLOVAKIA
divorced in 1993; and YUGOSLAVIA was torn asunder in a series of wars later in
the 1990's.
Background
Information:
WHO
PROFITS FROM KILLING CHARLIE?
EU IN TURMOIL?
If it’s economic,
political, and social structures succumb to fractiousness, the EUROPEAN UNION could
well follow the SOVIET UNION and YUGOSLAVIA into the waste bin of failed federalism. EUROPE as a continent will remain, its nation-states will continue
to enjoy varying degrees of prosperity, but EUROPE as an idea will be over.
Worse yet, if, in the end, the EU snatches defeat from the jaws of its Cold War
victory, it will have no one to blame but itself.
THE
RISE AND FALL OF TINA (“THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE”)
The Cold War was an era
of alternatives. The UNITED STATES offered its version of freewheeling
capitalism, while the SOVIET UNION peddled its brand of centralized planning.
In the middle, continental EUROPE offered the compromise of a social market:
capitalism with a touch of planning and a deepening concern for the welfare of
all members of society.
Cooperation, not
competition, was the byword of the EUROPEAN alternative. AMERICANS could have
their dog-eat-dog, frontier capitalism. EUROPEANS would instead stress greater
coordination between labor and management, and the EUROPEAN Community (the
precursor to the EU) would put genuine effort into bringing its new members up
to the economic and political level of its core countries.
Then, at a point in the
1980's when the SOVIET model had ceased to exert any influence at all globally,
along came TINA.
At the time, BRITISH
Prime Minister MARGARET THATCHER and AMERICAN President RONALD REAGAN were
ramping up their campaigns to shrink government, while what later became known
as globalization -- knocking down trade walls and opening up new opportunities
for the financial sector -- began to be felt everywhere. Thatcher summed up
this brave new world with her TINA acronym: the planet no longer had any
alternative to globalized market democracy.
Background
Information:
EUROPE
LOOKS WITHIN FOR ROOTS OF RENEWAL
EUROPE’S
GEOPOLITICAL INDECISIVENESS, A HINDERING STONE TO PROSPERITY
Not surprisingly, then,
in the post-Cold War era, EUROPEAN integration shifted its focus toward
removing barriers to the flow of capital. As a result, the expansion of EUROPE
no longer came with an implied guarantee of eventual equality. The deals that IRELAND
(1973) and PORTUGAL (1986) had received on accession were now, like the
post-World War II Marshall Plan, artifacts of another era. The sheer number of
potential new members knocking on EUROPE’S door put a strain on the EU’s
coffers, particularly since the economic performance of countries like ROMANIA
and BULGARIA was so far below the EUROPEAN average. But even if the EU had been
overflowing with funds, it might not have mattered, since the new “neoliberal”
spirit of capitalism now animated its headquarters in BRUSSELS where the order
of the day had become: cut government, unleash the market.
THE
GERMAN EQUATION: AN EXEMPLAR OF CONTINENTAL FISCAL RECTITUDE
At the heart of EUROPE,
as well as of this new orthodoxy, lies GERMANY, the exemplar of continental
fiscal rectitude. Yet in the 1990s, that newly reunified nation engaged in
enormous deficit spending, even if packaged under a different name, to bring
the former EAST GERMANY up to the level of the rest of the country. It did not,
however, care to apply this “reunification exception” to other former members
of the SOVIET bloc. Acting as the effective central bank for the EUROPEAN
UNION, GERMANY instead demanded balanced budgets and austerity from all
newcomers (and some old timers as well) as the only effective answer to debt
and fears of a future depression.
The rest of the old WARSAW
PACT has had access to some EU funds for infrastructure development, but
nothing on the order of the EAST GERMAN deal. As such, they remain in a kind of
economic halfway house. The standard of living in HUNGARY, 25 years after the
fall of Communism, remains approximately half that of neighboring AUSTRIA.
Similarly, it took ROMANIA 14 years just to regain the gross national product
(GDP) it had in 1989 and it remains stuck at the bottom of the EUROPEAN UNION.
People who visit only the capital cities of EASTERN and CENTRAL EUROPE come
away with a distorted view of the economic situation there, since WARSAW and BRATISLAVA
are wealthier than VIENNA, and BUDAPEST nearly on a par with it, even though POLAND,
SLOVAKIA, and HUNGARY all remain economically far behind AUSTRIA.
Background
Information:
THE
EURO HAS BENEFITED GERMANY GREATLY
EUROPE
HAS BECOME GERMANY
EU
MEMBERS SUBJECTED TO HEAVY DOSES OF AUSTERITY HAVE WITNESSED A STEEP RISE IN
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING BELOW THE POVERTY LINE
What those countries
experienced after 1989 -- one course of “shock therapy” after another -- became
the medicine of choice for all EU members at risk of default following the
financial crisis of 2007 and then the sovereign debt crisis of 2009. Forget
deficit spending to enable countries to grow their way out of economic crisis.
Forget debt renegotiation. The unemployment rate in GREECE and SPAIN now hovers
around 25%, with youth unemployment over 50%, and all the EU members subjected
to heavy doses of austerity have witnessed a steep rise in the number of people
living below the poverty line. The recent EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK announcement of
"quantitative easing" -- a monetary sleight-of-hand to pump money
into the EUROZONE -- is too little, too late.
The major principle of EUROPEAN
integration has been reversed. Instead of EASTERN and CENTRAL EUROPE catching
up to the rest of the EU, pockets of the “west” have begun to fall behind the
“east.” The GDP per capital of GREECE, for example, has slipped below that of SLOVENIA
and, when measured in terms of purchasing power, even SLOVAKIA, both former
Communist countries.
HUNGARY
- THE AXIS OF ILLIBERALISM
EUROPEANS are beginning
to realize that MARGARET THATCHER was wrong and there are alternatives -- to
liberalism and EUROPEAN integration. The most notorious example of this new
illiberalism is HUNGARY.
On July 26, 2014, in a
speech to his party faithful, Prime Minister VIKTOR ORBAN confided that he
intended a thorough reorganization of the country. The reform model ORBAN had
in mind, however, had nothing to do with the UNITED STATES, BRITAIN, or FRANCE.
Rather, he aspired to create what he bluntly called an “illiberal state” in the
very heart of EUROPE, one strong on CHRISTIAN values and light on the libertine
ways of the West. More precisely, what he wanted was to turn HUNGARY into a
mini-RUSSIA or mini-CHINA.
“Societies founded upon
the principle of the liberal way,” ORBAN intoned, “will not be able to sustain
their world-competitiveness in the following years, and more likely they will
suffer a setback, unless they will be able to substantially reform themselves.”
He was also eager to reorient to the east, relying ever less on BRUSSELS and
ever more on potentially lucrative markets in and investments from RUSSIA,
CHINA, and the MIDDLE EAST.
That July speech
represented a truly OEDIPAL moment, for ORBAN was eager to drive a stake right
through the heart of the ideology that had fathered him. As a young man more
than 25 years earlier, he had led the ALLIANCE OF YOUNG DEMOCRATS -- FIDESZ --
one of the region’s most promising liberal parties. In the intervening years,
sensing political opportunity elsewhere on the political spectrum, he had
guided FIDESZ out of the LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL and into the EUROPEAN PEOPLE’S
PARTY, alongside GERMAN Chancellor ANGELA MERKEL’S CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS.
Now, however, he was on
the move again and his new role model wasn't MERKEL, but RUSSIAN President VLADIMIR
PUTIN and his iron-fisted style of politics. Given the disappointing
performance of liberal economic reforms and the stinginess of the EU, it was
hardly surprising that ORBAN had decided to hedge his bets by looking east.
Background
Information:
DEPLETED
EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY
REGIME
CHANGE IN EUROPE, FROM DEMOCRACY TO FINANCE DICTATORSHIP?
A
NEW ILLIBERAL AXIS CONNECTING BUDAPEST TO BEIJING AND MOSCOW WOULD HAVE
FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS.
The EUROPEAN UNION has
responded by harshly criticizing ORBAN’S government for pushing through a raft
of constitutional changes that restrict the media and compromise the
independence of the judiciary. Racism and xenophobia are on the uptick in HUNGARY,
particularly anti-ROMA sentiment and anti-SEMITISM. And the state has taken
steps to reassert control over the economy and impose controls on foreign
investment.
For some, the
relationship between HUNGARY and the rest of EUROPE is reminiscent of the
moment in the 1960s when ALBANIA fled the SOVIET bloc and, in an act of
transcontinental audacity, aligned itself with Communist CHINA. But ALBANIA was
then a marginal player and CHINA still a poor peasant country. HUNGARY is an
important EU member and CHINA’S illiberal development model, which has vaulted
it to the top of the global economy, now has increasing international
influence. This, in other words, is no ALBANIAN mouse that roared. A new
illiberal axis connecting BUDAPEST to BEIJING and MOSCOW would have
far-reaching implications.
FAR
RIGHT SHIFT IN EUROPE
The HUNGARIAN prime
minister, after all, has many EUROPEAN allies in his EUROSKEPTICAL project. Far
right parties are climbing in the polls across the continent. With 25% of the
votes, MARINE LE PEN’S NATIONAL FRONT, for instance, topped the FRENCH
elections for the EUROPEAN parliament last May. In local elections in 2014, it
also seized 12 mayoralties, and polls show that LE PEN would win the 2017
presidential race if it were held today. In the wake of the CHARLIE HEBDO shootings,
the NATIONAL FRONT has been pushing a range of policies from reinstating the
death penalty to closing borders that would deliberately challenge the whole EUROPEAN
project.
In DENMARK, the far-right
PEOPLE’S PARTY also won the most votes in the EUROPEAN parliamentary elections.
In November, it topped opinion polls for the first time. The PEOPLE’S PARTY has
called for DENMARK to slam shut its open-door policy toward refugees and
re-introduce border controls. Much as the GREEN PARTY did in GERMANY in the
1970's, groupings like GREAT BRITAIN’S INDEPENDENCE PARTY, the FINNS PARTY, and
even SWEDEN’S DEMOCRATS are shattering the comfortable conservative-social
democratic duopoly that has rotated in power throughout EUROPE during the Cold
War and in its aftermath.
EUROPE’S
NEW CRUSADE?
The ISLAMOPHOBIA that has
surged in the wake of the murders in FRANCE provides an even more potent arrow
in the quiver of these parties as they take on the mainstream. The sentiment
currently expressed against ISLAM -- at rallies, in the media, and in the
occasional criminal act -- recalls a EUROPE of long ago, when armed pilgrims
set out on a multiple crusades against MUSLIM powers, when early nation-states
mobilized against the OTTOMAN EMPIRE, and when EUROPEAN unity was forged not
out of economic interest or political agreement but as a “civilizational”
response to the infidel.
The EUROPE of today is,
of course, a far more multicultural place and regional integration depends on
“unity in diversity,” as the EU’s motto puts it. As a result, rising anti-ISLAMIC
sentiment challenges the inclusive nature of the EUROPEAN project. If the EU
cannot accommodate ISLAM, the complex balancing act among all its different
ethnic, religious, and cultural groups will be thrown into question.
REALIGNMENT
OF EUROPEAN POLITICS
EUROSKEPTICISM doesn't only come from the right side of the political spectrum. In GREECE, the SYRIZA
party has challenged liberalism from the left, as it leads protests against EU
and INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND austerity programs that have plunged the
population into recession and revolt. As elsewhere in EUROPE, the far right
might have taken advantage of this economic crisis, too, had the government not
arrested the GOLDEN DAWN leadership on murder and other charges. In
parliamentary elections, SYRIZA won an overwhelming victory, coming only a
couple seats short of an absolute majority. In a sign of the ongoing
realignment of EUROPEAN politics, that party then formed a new government not
with the center-left, but with the right-wing Independent GREEKS, which is
similarly anti-austerity but also skeptical of the EU and in favor of a crackdown
on illegal immigration.
Background
Information:
IMF
DOCTRINES AND ITS GEOPOLITICAL IMPACT
BANKS
COUNT TEN TIMES MORE THAN EUROPE’S YOUTH
EUROPEAN integration
continues to be a bipartisan project for the parties that straddle the middle
of the political spectrum, but the EUROSKEPTICS are now winning votes with
their anti-federalist rhetoric. Though they tend to moderate their more
apocalyptic rhetoric about “despotic BRUSSELS” as they get closer to power, by
pulling on a loose thread here and another there, they could very well unravel
the EUROPEAN tapestry.
AS
THE EUROPEAN MODEL HAS BECOME ASSOCIATED WITH AUSTERITY, NOT PROSPERITY, THAT
VIRTUOUS CIRCLE HAS TURNED VICIOUS
For decades, EUROPEAN
integration created a virtuous circle -- prosperity generating political
support for further integration that, in turn, grew the EUROPEAN economy. It
was a winning formula in a competitive world. However, as the EUROPEAN model
has become associated with austerity, not prosperity, that virtuous circle has
turned vicious. A challenge to the EUROZONE in one country, a repeal of open
borders in another, the reinstitution of the death penalty in a third -- it,
too, is a process that could feed on itself, potentially sending the EU into a
death spiral, even if, at first, no member states take the fateful step of
withdrawing.
Background
Information:
DEBATE
ON AUSTERITY AND THE EUROZONE
CONCERNS
THAT EUROPE RISKS LOSING ITS COMPETITIVE POSITION
THE
SAME RESENTMENTS THAT ATE AWAY AT THE SOVIET AND YUGOSLAV FEDERATIONS HAVE
BEGUN TO ERODE POPULAR SUPPORT FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION
In EASTERN and CENTRAL
EUROPE, the growing crew who distrust the EU complain that BRUSSELS has simply
taken the place of MOSCOW in the post-SOVIET era. (The EUROSKEPTICS in the
former YUGOSLAVIA prefer to cite BELGRADE.) BRUSSELS, they insist, establishes
the parameters of economic policy that its member states ignore at their peril,
while EUROZONE members find themselves with ever less control over their
finances. Even if the edicts coming from BRUSSELS are construed as economically
sensible and possessed of a modicum of democratic legitimacy, to the EUROSKEPTICS
they still represent a devastating loss of sovereignty.
In this way, the same
resentments that ate away at the SOVIET and YUGOSLAV federations have begun to
erode popular support for the EUROPEAN UNION. Aside from POLAND and GERMANY,
where enthusiasm remains strong, sentiment toward the EU remains lukewarm at
best across much of the rest of the continent, despite a post-euro crisis
rebound. Its popularity now hovers at around 50% in many member states and
below that in places like ITALY and GREECE.
THE
EU TURNED A CONTINENT THAT SEEMED DESTINED TO WALLOW IN “ANCESTRAL HATREDS”
INTO ONE OF THE MOST HARMONIOUS REGIONS ON THE PLANET
The EUROPEAN UNION has
without question been a remarkable achievement of modern statecraft. It turned
a continent that seemed destined to wallow in “ancestral hatreds” into one of
the most harmonious regions on the planet. But as with the portmanteau states
of the SOVIET UNION, YUGOSLAVIA, and CZECHOSLOVAKIA, the complex federal
project of the EU has proven fragile in the absence of a strong external threat
like the one that the Cold War provided. Another economic shock or a
coordinated political challenge could tip it over the edge.
Background
Information:
EUROPE
HAS REACHED ITS ZENITH
NON
EXISTING MULTICULTURAL AWARENESS
OLD
VERSUS YOUNG
UNITY
IN DIVERSITY MAY BE AN APPEALING CONCEPT, but the EU needs
more than pretty rhetoric and good intentions to stay glued together. If it doesn't come up with a better recipe for dealing with economic inequality, political
extremism, and social intolerance, its opponents will soon have the power to
hit the rewind button on EUROPEAN integration. The ensuing regime collapse
would not only be a tragedy for EUROPE, but for all those who hope to overcome
the dangerous rivalries of the past and provide shelter from the murderous
conflicts of the present.
Background
Information:
EUROZONE’S
SHADOW STATES
THERE
IS AS YET NO REVOLUTION IN EUROPE
By John Feffer
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