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| Mrs. Merkel - a true European visionary with political skills |
An Observer editorial notes: "Seventy years after the founders of modern Europe set out to bring
stability, unity and prosperity to a war-ravaged continent, Europe and
its principal political manifestation, the
European Union,
face a renewed, potentially defining struggle against the re-energised
forces of internal division and fragmentation and external hostility and
encroachment.
The scale of this challenge has yet to be fully
appreciated. Its outcome is wholly uncertain. In consequence, 2015 may
prove a fateful year for all the peoples of Europe.
The challenge comprises many elements, chief of which is whether the
politics of austerity will be replaced by a more flexible,
people-friendly economic regimen. Austerity, mainly in the form of
public spending cuts and attempted deficit reduction, has wrought
huge human and social damage.
One key measure of pain is unemployment. In Spain, joblessness stands
at around 23%. In Greece, the figure is 25%. In some areas of France and
Italy, youth unemployment topped 40% at its highest point. Across the
EU in 2013, 26 million people were unemployed, or one in eight of all
workers.
Many millions more are underemployed.
Austerity has caused tremendous political as well as social strain.
The tough line dictated by chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who will
arrive in London this week, is increasingly resented and there are
clear signs of push-back. France’s new prime minister,
Manuel Valls,
introduced a €30bn reform package designed to boost business and jobs.
His boss, President François Hollande, an old-school socialist, openly
reviles Merkel’s “neoliberal” policy and its main underpinning, the
European stability pact governing national budgets.
“To reform is to affirm our priorities, while refusing austerity,” Valls declared. Another newcomer,
Italian premier Matteo Renzi,
described as “Merkel’s most dangerous rival”, also links structural
reform to a loosening of EU rules, notably Merkel’s holy grail, the 2012
fiscal pact. In November,
both countries won budget reprieves from the European commission.
Still
the only European leader who can credibly claim international statesman
stature, Merkel, who is coming to London on Wednesday for talks with
David Cameron on a range of issues, including the European economy,
faces increasing criticism at home, not least from her centre-left
vice-chancellor and coalition partner, Sigmar Gabriel. He argues the rise of right- and leftwing populism across Europe can only be checked by rapid economic improvements.
Nor can Merkel count on useful support from the new European commission president,
Jean-Claude Juncker,
or, more surprisingly, from Britain’s government, fellow champion of
austerity and no friend to Hollande. In more skilful hands, David
Cameron’s calls for EU reform might have meshed well with German
priorities for sound money and stability, but Cameron has recklessly
squandered European alliances and opportunities. In any case, he may
soon be out of office.
While recent indicators suggest the worst of the recession is over,
the full extent of the political fallout at grassroots level across
Europe is only now becoming apparent. Elections this year in Greece,
Spain, the UK, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Portugal and Estonia will
provide further proof of the fragmentation of postwar consensus politics
as erstwhile minority parties come to the fore.
In Britain, Ukip, the
Greens and the Scottish Nationalists are aiming to usurp the traditional
centre-left and centre-right parties. Likewise in Greece and Spain, it
seems the centre cannot hold against a surge in support for the
populist, anti-austerity leftwing insurgents of
Syriza and
Podemos respectively.
In Sweden, the two mainstream parties, desperate to keep the far-right
Sweden Democrats
out of government, conspired to form a Merkel-style grand coalition,
thereby effectively denying voters real choice. Finland faces a similar
dilemma over its hard-right, anti-immigrant party.
Last year’s European parliament elections revealed unprecedented,
pan-European dissatisfaction with politics as usual, but Brussels took
scant notice, installing Juncker, a quintessential establishment figure,
and creating a centrist coalition in parliament. Out of touch hardly
describes such complacent behaviour. The significance of the rise of
Europe’s new parties can no longer be denied, nor can they be dismissed
as mere, temporary protest movements.
Yet Europe’s new politics, organic in nature and fast evolving, cannot be easily quantified or defined. Some, such as the
Pegida demonstrators
in Germany, are motivated by racist and anti-Muslim views. Merkel was
entirely right last week to condemn them. But a new poll showed one in
eight Germans sympathises with Pegida. Such views have a more
pernicious, formal presence on Germany’s political stage in the shape of
the anti-euro, anti-foreigner Alternative für Deutschland, which is
eclipsing the old Free Democrats in the way Ukip may eclipse Britain’s
Liberal Democrats.
In each country, new parties produce new imponderables. In Greece,
for example, the growth of leftwing radicalism is in part a response to
the advancing neo-Nazis of
Golden Dawn.
In the case of some of Europe’s secessionists, meanwhile,
self-determination and economic justice have sometimes been confused
with an unattractive, exclusionary nationalism. There is one constant:
everywhere, it seems, immigration is an issue of concern.
The overall effect of these powerful and often conflicting currents
is plain: in prospect is an unstable landscape of weak and fragile
national governments, escalating friction over EU policies, intensifying
north-south eurozone strains and a growing inability to present a
united European front to the world.
A united front is required more than ever, as Europe faces the triple
challenge of mass movements of people, Russian aggression and Islamist
extremism. Almost alone among Europe’s leaders, Merkel continues bravely
to make the case for accepting refugees from conflict in Syria, Libya,
Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere. But as the plight of asylum-seekers trapped
on
the Ezadeen, which arrived in Italy yesterday,
again demonstrated, this is an enormous international problem.
Most
European states, including Britain, have not begun to face up to their
responsibilities in dealing with mass migration and tackling the roots
of the religious extremism that often causes displacement.
After
Vladimir Putin
dismembered a European country by annexing Crimea,
Europe enters 2015
lacking certainty, for the first time since the cold war, that its
borders are secure. It was left to Merkel, again, to point out in
November that Putin’s attempt to re-establish Soviet-era spheres of
influence affects not only Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, but countries
much closer to Europe’s heart, such as Serbia and Bosnia, and EU members
Hungary and Slovakia.
Russia’s expansionist and anti-democratic outlook
recalls the worst aspects of the legacy Europe fought to overcome after
1945. The struggle for a Europe whole, prosperous and free has now
returned with a vengeance."
EU-Digest
