EU -2015: The Year of All Elections for Europe? - by Denis MacShane

2015 is the year when, for the first time in the 65-year-old history of supranational European construction, voters may finally decide if the EU will survive.

Elections to be held in Greece, Britain, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Portugal and Estonia will answer two big questions:

1. Has the disenchantment with the European Union reached a tipping point?
2. Is the 20th century model of big political parties that represent mass political movements in society now over?

The two issues – Europe and the future of political parties – overlap. It is too simplistic to present this as a contest between populist and smoothly functioning politics. After all, no party wins power without a dose of populism.

The core problem is this: So far this century, the traditional 20th century center-right and center-left parties have not shown themselves to be very good at governing.

These two issues have now come to a head in Greece, which will have to hold early elections. This outcome is the result of the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn aligning themselves with the populist left of Syriza and the so-called independent leftists.


Read more: 2015: The Year of All Elections for Europe? - The Globalist