Archive for category: #Europe #EU

The Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco came of age in the 1930s and 1940s, during the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. In 1995, he wrote an essay describing what he called “ur-fascism.” Among the characteristics of ur-fascism are the cult of tradition and the rejection of modernism, the idea that disagreement is treason, fear of difference, appeals to a frustrated middle class, contempt for the weak, and education that focuses on machismo and heroism.[1] While Eco predicted that contemporary forms of fascism would be different—Italy, for example, would not see black shirts parading in the streets as they did during the Mussolini dictatorship—he warned that ur-fascism is always around the corner, appearing in the “most innocent of disguises.” This prediction is now a worrisome trend.

Electoral victories of right-wing coalitions in Sweden and Italy in late 2021 have set up concerning precedents in an already fragile political environment across the European Union (EU). Other far-right parties also advanced in Europe. In Portugal, the party CHEGA! (“Enough”) won 11 seats out of 230 (in the previous elections in 2019, they won only one seat). In France, in the second round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen won 41.5 percent of the vote (almost three million votes more than in 2017), and her National Rally party won 89 seats out of 577 (as opposed to only 7 in 2017). These election results substantiate the claims that Europe is once again going down a dangerous path, flirting with neo-fascism.

The EU is already fraught with tensions and divisions, including the participation of countries that have instituted what political thinker Fareed Zakaria described in 1997 as “illiberal democracy.” In recent years, Hungary, under Vicktor Orbán, and Poland, under the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), have adopted this term to describe a political system. Important elements of what has also been referred to as pseudo-democracy or empty democracy are strong nationalism, government control of the media and the judiciary, the outsized influence of religion and tradition, populism in both rhetoric and leadership, and marginalization of opposition parties and minorities.

. . [The] European Union political integration process has been much slower than the economic one, mostly because of tension between the project of a sovereign Europe and the individual interests of member states . . .

In Poland and Hungary, the formalities of democracy, such as the existence of a parliament and the conduct of elections, have not been eliminated. However, under the current regimes, personal and political freedoms have been limited, if not outright denied, and the rule of law has diminished.[2] An example from Hungary was Orbán’s assumption of full power during the pandemic, which allowed him to rule by decree, with no oversight from check-and-balance institutions. One consequence has been jeopardizing the freedom of the press, putting journalists at risk of imprisonment for publishing information countering data issued by the government.

Understanding the EU Context

Still incomplete, the EU political integration process has been much slower than the economic one, mostly because of tension between the project of a sovereign Europe and the individual interests of member states, who are unwilling to give up some of their independence for a stronger EU. In part, this tension is a result of widespread inflation and the rise of energy costs, but it is also the consequence of a devastating war in Ukraine. Furthermore, the future of the EU has been rocked by “Qatargate,” a bribery and money-laundering scandal in which several members and former members of the EU parliament are accused of accepting bribes from agents of Qatar and Morocco in exchange for influence at the EU parliament. Amid this instability, authoritarian regimes continue to pass repressive policies—especially against women, LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more) people, and refugees. Despite internal tensions, the EU Commission and Parliament continue to oppose these policies. As recently as November 2022, the European Parliament voted to put pressure on the EU Commission and the EU Council to resist Hungarian demands for the release of EU Cohesion Policy funds, aimed at reducing economic disparities among countries in a region.[3] A month later, on December 12, 2022, a committee of EU ambassadors froze 55 percent of those funds because of inadequate measures taken by Hungary to guarantee transparency and true democratic processes.

Across Europe: From Sweden, to Italy, Russia, and Its Allies

Sweden Democrats, a far-right party founded in the 1980s by neo-Nazis, became the second-largest party in Sweden, netting 20 percent of the vote in 2022 elections. While the Liberal Party in Sweden vetoed the presence of Sweden Democrats in a newly formed coalition government by creating a minority government, Sweden Democrats lend external support to the government, meaning they will exercise as much influence as possible in the process of Swedish law-making. In Italy, the victory of the far right was more sweeping and has deeper historical roots. On September 25, 2022, the Brothers of Italy party became the head of a right-wing ruling coalition in Italy, which includes Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s Lega Nord (League) party and Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and a small centrist party called Us Moderates. The Brothers of Italy has origins in the post–World War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was founded by Giorgio Almirante, chief of staff in Mussolini’s last government right after the war. The Italian Social Movement had absorbed in its ranks many fascist sympathizers and officials who had been spared in a general amnesty, approved by the Italian government in 1946 as part of postwar reconstruction. This meant that Italy never actually went through a real “de-fascistization,” following the twenty years of Mussolini’s regime. In a striking example in December 2022, Ignazio La Russa, currently President of the Italian Senate, celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the MSI with an Instagram post, acknowledging his late father’s role as a founder of the party.

The Italian Social Movement had absorbed in its ranks many fascist sympathizers and officials who had been spared in a general amnesty, approved by the Italian government in 1946 as part of postwar reconstruction.

Today, several of the ur-fascist characteristics identified by Umberto Eco are evident in the rhetoric and policies advanced by Vladmir Putin’s regime in Russia and in the rhetoric of parties that somewhat align with Russia’s neo-fascist ideology. Hungary, for instance, has always been close to Putin’s regime, for economic reasons, such as a favorable bilateral agreement on gas supplies and a commitment by Russia to build two new reactors at the nuclear plant Paks—the only operating nuclear power plant in Hungary. There are also sociopolitical reasons (their shared intolerance for opposition leaders and minorities and their vocal hatred of LGBTQIA + rights). In a re-reading of Eco’s essay, Italian journalist Federico Varese analyzed the elements of Putin’s regime as an example of twenty-first-century fascism, including Putin’s obsession with tradition, his inability to tolerate opposing views, his disdain for diversity, and a hang-up, with an international plot twist: the virile hero and a fascination with weaponry.[4]

Crisis Across the Globe

An important question is: how is it possible that parties and movements that were once on the fringes of mainstream politics, such as Brothers of Italy and Sweden Democrats, are today the first or second most popular parties in their countries? Although each country in which these parties and governments now dominate is different, there are many commonalities—also visible in the United States—that help us answer that question. In the United States, the role of former President Donald Trump in encouraging violent insurrection on January 6, 2021 is illustrative. It brought hundreds of radical-right protesters to the capitol building in Washington, DC with the intent of overturning the election of President Joe Biden. It was only the last of many incitements Trump and his acolytes have used to capitalize on people’s discontent in the face of socioeconomic ills. Like their counterparts in Europe, their strategy has been to pit the working poor against immigrants, stoke hatred against so-called elites, and foment racism by scapegoating minority groups. They have done this, all the while denying any responsibility for their actions.

The global economic crisis that began in 2008 has contributed greatly to the rise of neo-fascist groups everywhere. The crisis was worsened by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, affecting millions of people. Although the middle class in both Europe and the United States had survived trickle-down global economic policies, their situation in advanced economies was compromised by the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession. It was worsened by the 2010 sovereign debt crisis. All these factors caused governments, especially in the EU, to inflict austerity measures and cut social services. This, coupled with a series of economic processes that had their roots in neoliberal globalization—such as outsourcing and automation of jobs—caused the impoverishment of larger swaths of Western societies, the shrinking of the middle class, the casualization of the workforce, and rampant unemployment. This loss of jobs was mainly due to the impact of the financial crisis on the gross domestic product (GDP) of several countries and the effects of the sovereign debt crisis on the safety of investments. Add to this, structural unemployment due to industrial automation which had already caused a decrease in entry-level jobs. Loss of jobs and income, and the uncertainty of one’s place in society, among other factors, have increased the popularity of electoral parties that promise easy resolutions to problems or place blame on others for the problems of their constituents.

A Fragmented Left

Although many people are active in social and political movements, these movements are largely fragmented, hardly channeled into formalized decision-making processes. They are seeking social change in an era that privileges individualism, consumerism, privatization, and personal gain over collective action for the common good. In this social and political conjuncture, individual interests are an overarching feature. Social structures and intermediate institutions (political parties, trade unions, schools) have lost much of their cohesive role in society, often replaced by social media and media influencers who pressure us to consume more and more. Even politics has become more personalized than in the past. For instance, in Italy, strong mass parties, such as the former Communist Party and the former Christian Democrats, have been replaced by personalized political formations, starting with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy), established in 1994. Berlusconi’s party was mostly built around his charisma and the power of his media empire rather than on the link between politics and local needs. That link was broken when traditional mass parties disappeared early in the 1990s. The Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party fell in a huge corruption scandal (a “Tangentopoli,” or a widespread bribery system involving major political figures and businessmen). The Communist Party dissolved and changed its name with the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventually underwent a centrist transition. In the vacuum created by the political institutions, Forza Italia changed the way of doing politics while paving the way for the development of other personalized right-wing ideologies, including Trumpism in the United States.

Loss of jobs and income, and the uncertainty of one’s place in society . . . have increased the popularity of electoral parties that promise easy resolutions to problems or place blame on others . . .

But there is another and more significant reason for this rightward shift: tolerance for the existence, as well as the tactics of neo-fascist movements on the part of moderate, centrist, and right-wing parties. In Italy, for instance, small neo-fascist political parties have been allowed to exist and run for elections, despite the fact that the Italian constitution is explicitly anti-fascist[5] and that the Republic of Italy was founded on the ashes of the Fascist regime defeated in 1945. Forza Nuova, for example, has chapters in most Italian cities and has used systematic violence over the years, culminating in a squadrista-like[6] assault on a major trade union in October 2021.

We live in very complex and multifaceted societies that are not easy to govern. Globalization, widespread cosmopolitism, worldwide migration waves, the current inflationary economic crisis, the pandemic, new technologies, the use of new info-telematic technologies, and changes in social relationships have made Western societies much more composite than in the past. It has become very difficult for the political realm to control the economy; in fact, the opposite is true. Multinational corporations have become more powerful than governments; they have accumulated unimaginable amounts of money, while more and more people have a hard time putting food on the table and paying their bills. Furthermore, governments have tried to adopt managerial and technocratic tools to lead a society that instead requires multidisciplinary approaches to be managed. Societies are not firms but are complex systems that need composite responses to problems such as climate change, knowledge in the digital era, and health care in a world where pandemics might become the norm.

Paradoxically, as our societies become more complex, political messaging has become more and more simplified. We are, for example, experiencing the “tiktokization” of politics, which requires little critical thinking on our part and, at the same time, allows anyone and everyone to freely express their opinions and political views. Social media platforms have also been responsible for the spreading of “fake news” as well as racist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic views. This ease of access has been a boon to neo-populists, who are very adept at creating simple and captivating messages that touch nerves, especially with the working class, who feel angry and abandoned by the political parties who are supposed to fight for their rights. In Europe, these include the U.K. Labour Party, among other social-democratic parties. As a result, many working-class people have turned to right-wing parties that have pandered to their discontent. Moreover, a declining trade union movement has been unable to keep up with the challenges the working class has faced in the last couple of decades. In the northern regions of Italy, for example, the decline in union membership is 20 percent less than in previous years. In part, workers have accused trade unions in Italy of becoming business offices to handle paperwork rather than organizations to carry out a struggle for their rights.

In the past, workers felt like part of a meaningful social fabric, in which political parties and trade unions trained, educated, and encouraged them to participate in democratic processes. This is much less the reality today. Also, people have grown dissatisfied with how political parties have failed to address the problems they face daily. This is partly because what once could be solved locally or nationally now requires global responses, which are either inadequate (e.g., the response to climate change) or benefit only the wealthy (such as tax advantages). In an educational vacuum and in times of social rage, ignorance and lack of information grow; workers become more vulnerable to political dissatisfaction or political manipulation. In the end, this can lead to low voter turnout. A case in point: In Italy’s last election, 36 percent of people did not vote and the winning party won with only 26 percent of the vote. This is winning through non-participation.

It has become very difficult for the political realm to control the economy; in fact, the opposite is true. Multinational corporations have become more powerful than governments . . .

Voting for “the new kid on the block” is another impulse that has boosted the fortunes of right-wing politicians and parties in Europe. For most of the twentieth century, the major electoral contests took place between historic parties (e.g., the Socialists and the Gaullist party in France; the Communist Party and the Christian Democrats in Italy). These parties no longer exist or have declined to minimal numbers. Either way, they are doomed to irrelevance. New parties have arisen, very often based on a personal initiative rather than an ideological posture. Many of the political leaders—like Berlusconi, for example—who have personalized politics—have risen to glory only to fall to the ground. This raises a question: Will Brothers of Italy also fall into oblivion or to a secondary role in Italian politics in a few years? It is certainly possible. (The League, one of Giorgia Meloni’s allies in government, lost half of its votes in four years.) Even if this happens, what might remain are the regressive policies of the Meloni government. In the United States, a right-wing Supreme Court majority is a legacy of the Trump presidency. It provides a teachable moment: Although Trump is no longer president, his appointees to the Supreme Court have worked to dismantle progressive policies and legislation, including abortion rights and affirmative action.

The Family as Nation-Building

The sanctity of binary gender and traditional marriages between a woman and a man is central to the rhetoric and policies of most rightwing neo-populist leaders. (These ideas are instantiated in the constitutions of Hungary and Poland.) Appearing before a Vox party gathering in Spain, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni noted the shared view between her party and the Spanish neo-fascist formation: “Yes to the natural family,” she said, “no to the LGBT lobby. Yes, to sexual identity, no to gender ideology.” In this exclusionary view, migrants, refugees, and queer people are demonized in the name of a fight for something pure and sacred—the family. The fetishization of the family is a sort of national self-defense against globalism, a defense of borders against “the other” and a defense against those who want to destroy the so-called natural family.

The sanctity of binary gender and traditional marriages between a woman and a man is central to the rhetoric and policies of most right-wing neo-populist leaders.

In 2021, all extreme right-wing parties in the EU signed an “Appeal for the Future of Europe.” In this document, they denounced the supposed threat of “a super-state imposing an ideological monopoly at the expense of sovereign nations rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition of Europe.” They also claimed that the traditional family is the basis of nation-building and the “fundamental unity of European nations.”[7] The signatories to this appeal have advocated policies for traditional European families as a response to mass immigration.

What is clear is that without creating new political processes to amplify informed democratic participation, there is a very grim future ahead for Europe. Even where neo-fascist movements are not successful in taking power, they are already successful because they have shifted the political narrative, expanding the “Overton Window” definition of acceptability in political policy and political discourse. In other words, they have legitimized what was unthinkable only a few years ago.8 They have managed to turn racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia into bedrock issues of their political platforms. They have distorted the truth to advance their own agendas, flirting with unscientific dogma and conspiracy theory where it suits them.

The question of democracy in Europe and elsewhere is not just a matter of political institution, it is a question of democracy as the power to lift people from poverty, injustice, and ignorance; to provide a system that works for everyone, and not just the privileged few. In Italy, about two million people live in absolute poverty, while almost six million are living in relative poverty. This is in the seventh most industrialized nation in the world, a country of 60 million. Because of a dramatic increase in poverty, Matteo Salvini’s simplistic message of “Italian first” resounds with a great many voters. This scenario is replicated in other parts of Europe and among the MAGA (Make America Great Again) followers in the United States.

Justice Is the Antidote to Neo-Fascism

As long as the ongoing capitalist crisis continues to exacerbate poverty and despair, it will be difficult to counter the appeal of the extreme right wing. It is clear to me that we must strive for a new socioeconomic system, rooted in democratic socialism, a system that promotes sustainable development, a better quality of life for everyone, and social justice in all spheres. To do this successfully, we need to defeat neoliberalism—curb the power of multinational corporations, tax the ultra-rich, and restore labor rights. Neoliberalism must be replaced with sound policies that attend to economic, social, gender, and civil rights.

The growth of a country cannot be measured merely by economic success recorded in indexes. The growth of a country and of our planet should be measured according to sustainable practices and policies, including the real happiness of people—not the happiness of accumulating money, but happiness that comes from a true quality of life. The true quality of life means a decent living wage for everyone, good public services, free education for all, health care for all, and economic policies that promote the common good rather than individual wealth. It also means recognizing that our planet’s resources are finite. We need to promote clean water and air and renewable energy. Only a different paradigm of how we live together on this planet will defeat the forces of eternal fascism.

Editor’s Note

An earlier version of this article appeared here: https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/neofascist-and-authoritarian-trends-in-europe-are-alarming-says-presbyterian-world-mission-area-coordinator/.

Notes

1. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/.

2. https://www.remobassetti.it/cosa-resta-dellademocrazia/democrazie-illiberali/. The author prefers the use of tyrannical democracy rather than illiberal democracy.

3. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/2021-2027_en.

4. https://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2022/08/25/news/il_fascismo_eterno_di_putin_in_un_saggio_di_umberto_eco-362922191/.

5. The XII measure of the transitory and the final measure of the Italian constitution forbid the rebirth of the National Fascist Party, and the 1952 Scelba law introduced the crime of fascist apologia.

6. Squadristi were action squads that in 1919 started intimidating and violently suppressing political opponents, especially those belonging to the labor movement. Soon after, they were absorbed by Fascism as a tool to impose itself on Italian society.

7. https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orbanmarine-le-pen-matteo-salvini-eu-integration-european-superstate-radical-forces/.

8. Overtone is a term used to describe the range of politically acceptable ideas by the mainstream at any given time.

Author Biography

Luciano Kovacs is currently serving as Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Area Coordinator for the Middle East and Europe.

The post Europe’s New Authoritarianism appeared first on New Labor Forum.

The first quarter of 2023 was the deadliest for migrants crossing the Mediterranean since 2017.

–
IV579 – April 2023

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Italy,
Europe,
Migration

On Wednesday, over half a million workers in the UK took part in a “mega strike,” the largest labor protest in the country in over a decade. Around 85 percent of schools were affected or fully closed, most trains stood still, and offices stood empty as workers took to the streets to protest the Conservative government of Rishi Sunak and demand higher wages.

Wednesday’s strike was part of a joint call by different unions grouped in the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to demand wage increases in the face of a 14-percent increase in the cost of living. Inflation in January hit 8 percent, with food increasing by between 13 and 15 percent. Around five percent of British households are reportedly running out of food and struggling to afford to buy more, and a growing number of working families are depending on food banks.

Wednesday’s actions were also a protest against the Conservative Party’s attacks on the right to strike. Workers are calling for the repeal of a recent bill which would mandate minimum levels of service during strike actions such as walkouts, forcing employees in certain sectors to keep working. With this , the struggle is not just directed toward achieving a single economic demand, but takes on a more political character, confronting the anti-worker policies of the UK government; this raises the possibility of the fight expanding beyond the half a million workers who have already taken to the streets.

Among the sectors that went on strike were railroad workers, train drivers belonging to the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) unions, and teachers belonging to the National Education Union (NEU). 70,000 teachers, librarians, and research workers from 150 universities who are part of the University and College Union (UCU) also joined the demonstration, and are poised to continue striking in 17 more days of action during February and March over pay and pension disputes.

Footage captured thousands of teachers marching through London’s Oxford Circus on what has been dubbed “Walkout Wednesday.” The strike included up to half a million civil servants, and resulted in the partial or full closure of an estimated one half of UK schools. pic.twitter.com/HsqZP8PJpO

— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 2, 2023

Wednesday’s “mega strike” comes after several months of strikes by various sectors. During what some called a “summer of discontent,” RMT workers brought British transportation to a standstill. The UCU likewise held labor actions last year, and in December, nurses held their first national strikes in the more than 100-year history of their union.

Support for strikes in these sectors is mixed, though more people support than oppose the actions. At least 53 percent of people support nurses going on strike, while 49 percent support teachers’ strike actions. Overall, only 37 percent of Britons support unions; however, this proportion is up from 34 percent in November.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to play hardball in negotiations, insisting there is no money to grant the demanded salary increases. In the healthcare sector, for example, the government has refused to bump up its offer of an increase between 4.5 and 5 percent, despite soaring inflation. The railway sector has been offered a 9-percent wage increase over two years, a proposal which has been rejected by the workers. The Sunak government is also pushing ahead with its anti-labor minimum service bill.

Union leaderships are so far refusing to call for a joint actions to go on indefinite strike until all demands are met. However, rank-and-file workers continue to vote for new actions and show solidarity with other sectors. Wednesday’s “mega strike” was an expression of workers’ power, and shows the way forward to achieve their demands.

Originally published in Spanish on February 2 in La Izquierda Diario.

Translated and adapted by Otto Fors

The post British ‘Mega Strike’: Half a Million Workers Bring UK to a Halt and Protest Government appeared first on Left Voice.

After a decade that produced a series of shocks, the European Union seems to have weathered its worst moment of crisis. Yet the EU still suffers a fundamental lack of democracy — and the Left should be in the forefront of demanding its reform.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola (at the rostrum) speaks during the conference on the Future of Europe in the European Parliament on December 2, 2022 in Brussels, Belgium. (Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Today, the politics of the European Union don’t offer the Left much cause for hope. From the creation of the Eurozone at the end of the 1990s, to the failed ratification of a European Constitution, to the extortion of Greece by the so-called troika in 2015, being a left-winger in Europe has typically meant fighting against whatever has been implemented under the banner of “Europe.”

Yet the question remains as to how the Left should relate to EU institutions, whose decisions affect hundreds of millions of Europeans, or indeed to the European Parliament, which can meet and deliberate but not produce legislation. Should we reject and ignore the EU? Or should we avoid abandoning the field to neoliberals and the Right, and try to use the EU to give visibility to socialist alternatives?

Founded in 2004 and now home to more than twenty national parties, the Party of the European Left (EL) has opted for the latter approach — either from within governments, such as currently in Spain and Slovenia, or from parliamentary opposition or the streets.

Following an upswing in the wake of the financial crisis, the EL has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years and has parted ways with several member parties. But how is the EL doing today? And what does it see as its task in a time when the political right appears to be gaining steam?

Last month, the Austrian Marxist Walter Baier was elected EL president. Jacobin’s Adam Baltner spoke to him about the limits of EU democracy, opportunities for left-wing politics, and the problems posed by the war in Ukraine.

Adam Baltner

You were recently elected president of the Party of the European Left (EL). What is your analysis of the general state of the Left in Europe?

Walter Baier

First, it’s important to establish that the European left is more than the EL. Trade unions, social movements, ecological movements, feminist movements, artists, scholars — all of these are the Left in a broad sense. And regarding party politics, there are also parties outside of the EL that share some of our goals.

When describing the EL, I actually prefer to speak of the socialist left. After all, the term “Left” implies an identity somewhere on a spectrum ranging from left-liberal to radical left.

Adam Baltner

“Left” is a much vaguer term than “socialist.”

Walter Baier

Yes, and it’s also politically misleading. With the war, we’re now seeing how differences along the left spectrum are becoming more clearly delineated. But this is happening with other questions as well, such as how to approach Islamism and anti-Muslim racism, or whether to stand in solidarity with particular governments that stake a progressive claim.

My concern is the part of the Left that has the overcoming of capitalist relations of production at the center of its program. Right now, I think that the war and the urgency of confronting it sit atop all other questions. But the demands we make in confronting the war are of course dependent on our overall analysis.

The question isn’t whether we’re for or against a multipolar world order — this world is emerging either way.

My overall analysis is that the world is in the midst of an objective process of transformation. The question isn’t whether we’re for or against a multipolar world order — this world is emerging either way. This global process of transition forms the framework within which we have to deal with the ecological crisis. The ecological and social crisis — and above all, the opportunity gap between the Global North and South — are linked in a contemporary crisis of transformation overdetermined by competition between various imperial centers.

This is a very explosive combination. The most important task is to prevent these contradictions from erupting into a world war. This calls for the broadest possible alliances. The point — if you will — is to save the world without losing sight of the fact that another world is necessary and possible.

Adam Baltner

The EU is a notoriously antidemocratic and pro-capitalist institution. It has a variety of mechanisms to promote market liberalization and prevent nationalization. It can even force member states to implement austerity, as we saw most dramatically with the case of Greece in 2015. What might a productive socialist approach toward such an institution look like?

Walter Baier

I agree with what you’ve said. At the same time, the EU exists, and the transnationalization for which it provides a political framework is primarily an economic process from which we can’t simply exit.

The EU is closer to enlightened absolutism than parliamentary democracy.

The EU is neoliberal, just as its member states are neoliberal. And like these, it is just as much of a field of struggle where social, class-determined contradictions are played out. You’re right to point out that the institutional framework of the EU is undemocratic. Given how much more power the European Council has than the directly elected European Parliament, the EU is closer to enlightened absolutism than parliamentary democracy.

If the EU submitted an application for EU membership, it would have to be rejected due to how it allocates power between its institutions. This situation is proving increasingly dysfunctional in the current crisis. At meetings of the Council, nationalist egomaniacs come together and try to promote themselves to their national publics, which often causes resolutions — including useful and necessary ones — to be blocked.

For the EU to be democratic, I believe decisions within all policy areas under its purview would have to be made by a parliament elected on the basis of equal suffrage — one person, one vote. If this were the case, elections — and all other struggles over policy and power — would be contests between class-based programs rather than nations. In other words, we need to create the same framework that socialists have successfully fought for in nation-states.

I don’t really see any alternative to democratizing institutions. If it’s indeed the case that we’re currently in the midst of a great phase of transformation, then we need to acknowledge that it will require changes in property relations as well as in the way each and every person lives. Yet these changes will only happen if they achieve consensus. And consensus emerges from political struggle and ideological confrontation, and ultimately from democracy. The EU will either become democratic or crumble.

Adam Baltner

What will it take to democratize the EU? As the new president of the EL, do you have a specific strategy to push for democratization? And what kind of time frame does this strategy foresee?

Walter Baier

The main instrument of democratization has been and continues to be social movements. The point is to wage transnational European struggles. The current strikes among railworkers defending a standard of living objectively point beyond the borders of nation-states. Here, a movement to defend and expand public ownership is converging with the demands of ecological movements for another system of mobility. The task of the EL as a “connective party” is to forge links such as these, which transform a Europeanization of struggle “in itself” into a Europeanization “for itself.”

At our party congress in December, Marc Botenga, an EU parliamentarian for the Belgian Workers’ Party, said that 2023 has to be a year of campaigns. I agree. This year has to be a year of connecting the EL to social struggles. Of course, this is easier said than done, as the EL is a party of parties and can only act on a strategy that has consensus among all parties. But this is precisely my job as president: to moderate such a consensus.

The 2024 elections for the European Parliament will take place under the sign of confrontation between the socialist left and the radical right. The crisis of neoliberalism means frustration, abasement, and massive social deprivation for wide swathes of the population. In many countries, this is generating a national chauvinism and strengthening the radical right.

The nationalist, radical right, neofascist parties could form the largest group in the European Parliament, and it’s completely obvious that the liberals and conservatives aren’t able to stop them. Who besides the socialist left could become a pole around which forces on the left could regroup?

Adam Baltner

EU elections pose a danger particularly to the Left, given that the undemocratic nature of the institution makes it very difficult to bring about concrete changes on the EU level that improve people’s lives. As the Right wants to maintain the status quo against progressive change, it is not exposed to this danger. The risk that the Right won’t be able to keep campaign promises and will disappoint its voters is much lower. How should the Left deal with this danger immanent to EU politics?

Walter Baier

This is the danger of parliamentarianism in general. You stand for election and promise that a vote for your party will make everything change for the better. But the fact is that politics takes place on the basis of economic structures produced by capitalist relations. And that narrows the scope of action in both nation-states and the EU.

The crisis of neoliberalism means frustration, abasement, and massive social deprivation for wide swathes of the population.

To be honest, I don’t see the danger of the European left fostering unrealistic expectations toward the EU. First, the Greek government’s defeat in the 2015 conflict with the troika destroyed many illusions regarding the EU. Second, European Parliament elections are also national elections where parties run national campaigns. And third, I think that an electoral campaign, whether national or European, can only succeed if connected to social struggles. The rise of Podemos, for example, was immediately linked to an enormous social movement.

Adam Baltner

One of the few recent success stories for the Left in Europe is Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise, who has taken Eurosceptic positions in the past. In Italy, on the other hand, where the Democratic Party (PD) — the successor of a once-mighty Communist Party — is completely uncritical of the EU, a politician who comes from the country’s fascist tradition was just elected prime minister. Would it not be smart for the Left to oppose the EU for reasons of electoral tactics, especially if we want to undermine the radical right?

Walter Baier

La France Insoumise is a part of the EL and the Left in the European Parliament, whereas the PD is a member of the [center left] Party of European Socialists. That’s the difference.

Moreover, it seems to me that “for or against the EU” is the wrong question. That’s the dilemma that the dominant politics wants to make us face: accept the neoliberal, authoritarian management of the crisis, or the nationalists will come. We shouldn’t accept this. Rather, in view of current power relations and within the existing framework of EU institutions, we have to admit that we are operating on the defensive and in opposition to the mainstream. This is the reality, even though parties of the radical left are participating in governments in a few countries, and it doesn’t mean that in certain areas, reforms in the interests of wage earners can’t be achieved within the system. The Left in the European Parliament has provided some good examples of this.

I see the EL precisely as an oppositional force, on both human rights issues — the refugee politics of the EU are a moral disgrace — as well as, and above all, on socioeconomic issues. We demand the nationalization or socialization of major energy providers. We demand the abolition of the Stability and Growth Pact in order to be able to finance the ecological transformation. We oppose the armament programs that the EU is currently adopting. On the EU level, all these demands find their political expression in the EL.

Adam Baltner

In addition to being known as a former chairman of the Communist Party of Austria, you’re also known as a critic of NATO. I suspect we’re both of the opinion that NATO is an instrument of US imperialism. Every so often, the question of whether the EU should create its own army comes up in the media. What’s your stance on this issue? Should the Left support an EU army as a measure against US imperial hegemony?

Walter Baier

I think we have to pose this question concretely. Under current conditions, transforming the EU into a military union would simply create a second pillar of NATO. That would be in the interest of neither European security nor the European population.

Posing the question of NATO from the perspective of European security lets us say in general that collective security cannot develop on the basis of a military pact. Historical scholarship on peace shows that in the large majority of cases, military pacts lead not to security but war. A military pact means: I arm against someone else, this someone else arms against me, and at some point armament gives way to military confrontation. In the interests of the European population, we have to do exactly the opposite, namely, disarm.

In the interests of the European population, we have to disarm.

In my opinion, at the core of the precarious security situation are the nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. This can even be illustrated empirically, as the world looks different from the perspective of the United States than it does from the perspective of Europe. I was in New York two months ago and was struck by the fact that, unlike in Europe, the war in Ukraine plays a secondary role in the US media. It’s a war like in Afghanistan or Syria — it’s one of many US engagements. Yet from the perspective of Europe, where there are 108 nuclear power plants and three hundred major cities, we have a different security scenario and different security interests.

That’s why it’s necessary to decouple European security from the United States. And that means a politics aimed at nuclear disarmament, or using international law to implement nuclear-weapon-free zones such as already exist in Latin America and Africa. All this is impossible with NATO. But only on the basis of such a peace strategy could we begin to talk about whether an EU defense force should be created, and what its purview should be.

Adam Baltner

As president of the EL, you’ve mentioned your function as consensus builder. How should the party come to consensus positions on issues where there is disagreement between its different national parties? After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, some left-wing parties weakened or dropped their opposition to joining NATO.

Walter Baier

I will try to serve a dual function. On the one hand, I will moderate and build consensus. But I’ve also studied European integration and security policy for fifteen years, and I have my own opinions on the subject that I’ll put up for discussion. When it comes to finding consensus, I start with two considerations. The first is that differences of opinion on the Left are not primarily caused by ideological differences, but by different objective conditions that lead to different political judgments. For this reason, instead of lecturing each other, we should learn to understand each other’s interests through dialogue.

The second methodological principle stems from my previous political work: of course, politics is always about compromise. Yet sometimes, in order to achieve consensus, something else is needed: namely, a deepening of the analysis. Above all, we have to be forward thinking.

The war in Ukraine is a virtually textbook example of this. Sweden and Finland are in the process of joining NATO. In Finland, the Left Alliance, an observer party of the EL, is one of the governing parties. Now, of course we can go on about how regrettable this decision is. But life goes on, and so do politics. New questions arise, such as: Will nuclear weapons or nuclear-capable delivery systems be stationed in Sweden and Finland? Will these countries allow foreign troops to be stationed within them? Will they participate in NATO interventions?

All NATO member states today face these questions. And they are point of contention. Whether Kurds in Sweden will be deported to Turkey, is a point of contention. Joining NATO doesn’t answer any of these questions; rather, it gives rise to them.

In debates about the war in Ukraine and its consequences, I think it’s less relevant to talk about broken promises to Gorbachev, Russia’s intervention in Chechnya, or NATO’s eastward expansion. I have my interpretation here, but such interpretations are always controversial.

In my opinion, we have to discuss what present and future European security requires. Of course, the war in Ukraine has to be ended and the Russian troops withdrawn. A peace treaty has to account for both Ukrainian national self-determination and Russia’s interest in a secure border. From a pan-European perspective, there’s currently the issue of the agreement between Russia and the United States to not station new medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. From this perspective, Europe should be completely freed from nuclear weapons and the level of armaments reduced. However we view the prehistory of the war in Ukraine, we need to come up with common solutions to these questions.

The monetary order is already being challenged by de-dollarisation efforts and central bank digital currencies

a-migrant-carries-a-child-as-he-runs-to-

It’s time to rethink EU migration policy. New walls are being built in Europe, but they will not solve the present crisis – and the money could be far better spent.

Instead, Serbia is constructing a fence on its border with North Macedonia and plans another to prevent crossings from Bulgaria. Greece is planning to extend its high-tech 40-kilometre-long, 5-metre-high steel, concrete and barbed wire fence on the border with Turkey by a further 140 kilometres.

Over the past two years Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have fortified their borders with Belarus by erecting fences of steel and barbed wire at a cost of more than half a billion euros. Several years earlier, Hungary spent €1.64bn erecting steel and razor-wire barriers on its borders with Serbia and Croatia.

Around 1800 kilometres of border walls and fences have been built on the perimeter of the EU in the past decade. The hefty prices include cameras, heat sensors, drones, armed vehicles and guards to patrol and keep the outsiders out, as well as the costs of reduced trade between neighbours and damaged wildlife.

The new militarised borders are intended to slow down the inflow of irregular migrants entering the EU from the east along the western Balkan route. Over 228,000 undocumented asylum seekers from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia entered the EU last year, half of them along the Balkan route. That was a substantial increase on 2021, sparking fears of another refugee crisis similar to the one that sent a million undocumented refugees to the EU in 2015-16.

Yet these expensive walls are unlikely to stop the refugees. If the wall can’t be scaled with ladders, it can be walked around: the wall on the Polish-Belarusian border may be 186 kilometres long, but that leaves 232 kilometres of the border unfenced.

Nevertheless, these longer walls do force would-be migrants to take more dangerous routes. They also permit higher profits for smugglers and traffickers of people. For example, even though fewer refugees were apprehended in Hungary after the fence was built, the number of human smugglers arrested increased, and thousands of migrants continued to cross the southern Hungarian borders heading for western Europe.

The long journeys of asylum seekers include dangerous crossings of seas or rivers, sleeping rough in cold and heat, and abuse by people smugglers. According to the Missing Migrants Project, more than 25,000 people have gone missing in the Mediterranean alone since 2014.

Why take such risks? Refugees from Afghanistan may be escaping Taliban rule. Those from Turkey, Iraq and Syria may be fleeing wars. Economic migrants from Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Algeria and Morocco are determined to reach the EU to escape poverty, earn living wages and build a better life. Yet the EU meets them all with walls, barbed wire and filthy refugee camps.

There is a precedent for solving migration issues with humane policies, not walls. The war in Ukraine drove four times as many refugees into the EU in 2022 than the conflict in Syria did in 2015-16. In contrast, the status of Ukrainian refugees is regulated.

Over 4.8 million of them, mostly women and children, have registered for the EU’s temporary protection scheme or other national programmes, including over 1m in Poland and Germany, and over 100,000 in the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, the UK, Bulgaria and France.

The EU’s Temporary Protection Directive allows Ukrainians to move freely between member states, gives them instant rights to live and work, and offers access to benefits like housing and medical care for up to three years.

While migrants are a net cost in the short run, in the long run they are taxpayers. Some will assimilate and settle in the EU, thus helping relieve its worker shortage and demographic crisis.

Why not adopt the same policies for Arab and African migrants? Governments can provide asylum-seekers with temporary accommodation, legal pathways to obtain jobs, language classes and modest financial support. Private companies can invest in human capital by training and hiring these workers. Once employed or in school, the young men – most of these migrants are young men – will pay taxes and productively contribute to the host society.

The fears that natives lose jobs to migrants are largely overstated, because migrants tend to take less desirable jobs. Moreover, they create new jobs within and outside diaspora communities – in other words, groups of migrants in host countries who have come from the same original culture.

If people in host countries are worried about an excess of young male migrants, the EU can design a ‘merit’ migration system like the one in Canada to welcome families with young children. Local diasporas and personal sponsors can be asked to support new migrants and bear some responsibility for their housing, language training and employment. With more support and mentoring available, migrants will be better able to assimilate into the EU culture.

There are some hopeful signs. The new Slovenian government is removing a 143-kilometre razor-wired border fence with Croatia, built during the 2015-16 refugee crisis, due to its ineffectiveness. Let’s hope that other countries will follow suit, and use the lessons of regulated migration of Ukrainian refugees to address the problem of other migrants in Europe and beyond.

The night before boarding a flight home, at the end of a trip that had taken me from D.C. to Taiwan, Japan, Macedonia, Turkey, and back again, I came across a tweet that succinctly crystallized many of the fleeting impressions I had accumulated on the Pacific leg of my journey. The tweet was from Tanner Greer, a brilliant and iconoclastic China scholar, citing a quote about Taiwan sometimes attributed to Kurt Campbell, years before he became President Joe Biden’s chief Asia adviser on the National Security Council: “I thought I was going to find a second Israel; I found a second Costa Rica.”

“Whether Campbell ever said such a thing is beyond the point,” Greer wrote, explaining that he’d heard it from a Taiwanese think-tank associate. “What mattered was that this retired Taiwanese nat/sec official believed he could have said it, and believed the description accurate.”

The point of the anecdote is that the Taiwanese don’t seem to take the threats to their security nearly as seriously as most observers in Washington do. The Taiwanese worry, of course. It’s impossible not to, especially because China has altered the status quo in the Taiwan Strait after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit earlier this year by repeatedly sending fighter jets and frigates far into Taiwan’s territorial waters. But the mood on the island is much more relaxed than the mood in Israel, a country that similarly faces implacable hostility from some of its neighbors. Indeed, the contrast could not be more pronounced.

[From the December 2022 issue: Taiwan prepares to be invaded]

So what is going on with Taiwan? The two-day conference on nationalism I attended at Sun Yat-sen University, in the southern city of Kaohsiung, provided some clues. In my discussions with Taiwanese scholars, I quickly apprehended that Taiwanese identity is still in flux. This is not to suggest that Taiwan’s identity has not diverged significantly from China’s. Taiwan was long a Chinese backwater, with a distinct frontier culture, before it was ceded by the Qing dynasty to Japan in 1895. Half a century of Japanese colonialism left its mark, as did the subsequent brutal (and only semi-successful) re-Sinification policies of China’s nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. The advent of democracy in Taiwan in 1996, and its entrenchment since, has only deepened the differences with the mainland.

But the differences are not so cut-and-dried. Spend some time talking with Taiwanese business leaders or policy specialists in the more prosperous north, and Taiwanese identity takes on other valences. Almost no one fully identifies with mainland China, but people believe they understand mainlanders well—certainly better than the panicked West does. There is no way that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, would order an invasion, my fellow visitors and I were repeatedly assured. Such a move would not only be fratricidal; it would be counterproductive—destroying a vital hub in global supply chains that would otherwise fall into China’s lap should peaceful unification happen. One defense expert I spoke with even ruefully floated the idea that Taiwan is a buffer state likely to be drawn into a tragic spiral of escalating tensions between China and the United States as they compete for regional hegemony. He was not quite blaming us Americans for the war that many in Washington think is inevitable—but only just not.

Young people have markedly ambivalent attitudes, too. One researcher at the conference discussed preliminary survey data suggesting that the TikTok generation is developing some cultural affinity for China, especially through a renewed commitment to Mandarin (although it is the island’s official tongue, it competes with several minority languages). Taiwan remains a net exporter of pop culture to the mainland, I was told, but influence is not a one-way street. Dexter Filkins’s recent essay on Taiwan in The New Yorker includes a profile of two Taiwanese university students who started a popular satire show on YouTube poking fun at China. As one of them told him: “We don’t feel connected to China, but there is no way that we can say that we are not related to China, because many people’s ancestors are immigrants from there.”

As someone who carefully watches the Russia-Ukraine struggle, I’m struck by the parallels. Taiwan is, in many ways, where Ukraine was before the 2014 conflict started solidifying its national identity well beyond the legacy of the country’s long and complicated history. Like Taiwan, Ukraine has distinguished itself from its antagonistic neighbor by being a liberal democracy. And just as Taiwan’s business class was conflicted about its ties to China, so too did Ukraine’s post-Soviet oligarchs feel equivocal about their links to Russia. And indeed, like the Taiwanese, many Ukrainians were in deep denial about the threat from next door until it was almost too late; despite all the evidence, even President Volodymyr Zelensky was typical of his compatriots who could not bring themselves to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would go all in and invade, as he did earlier this year.

Maybe, as in Ukraine, an all-out war with China would make the Taiwanese coalesce in ways that would surprise a visitor to the island today. But the problem for Taiwan is that, unlike Ukraine, it doesn’t have the possibility of trading territory for time, retreating and waiting until the enemy is overextended before delivering deadly counterpunches. Taiwan is more densely populated than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. The seemingly separate cities virtually constitute a single interlocking megalopolis that hugs the entire shoreline facing China. Behind the cities loom steep mountains. There is no equivalent of Poland for Taiwan—nowhere for refugees to flee, and nowhere to stage weapons deliveries.

[Read: The lessons Taiwan is learning from Ukraine]

So the Achilles’ heel of pluralistic democracies like Ukraine and Taiwan may be their inability to see what is staring them in the face, especially when that thing is too horrible to behold. Many Ukrainians (and several Russian liberals I know) found the idea of a fratricidal war like the one Putin unleashed simply inconceivable. Or maybe liberal democracies, which unshackle people to improve their individual lot above all else, just find it hard to price in the part that primal, atavistic impulses play in international relations.

At any rate, this is a reality that the United States faces in Taiwan. Americans, too, must not flinch and think that things are other than they are. Despite what many diplomats, politicians, and pundits say, the U.S. would not fight for Taiwan because it is a democracy. Taiwan would probably be worth defending even if Chiang Kai-shek were still ruling it with a bloody fist. Whether the island sometimes seems ungrateful for American largesse, or is even suspicious that the U.S. will drag it into a conflict it does not want, makes no difference.

To continue with the parallel, the U.S. is helping Ukraine not because it is a democracy, but because it makes sense for us to do so. Ukraine is weakening one of the main revisionist powers in Europe at comparatively low cost to us, and is thus helping lay the groundwork for a lasting security order in Europe. Taiwan is of greater strategic significance to the U.S. than Ukraine will ever be. And unlike aiding Ukraine, defending Taiwan could be much more painful.

What is America’s cost-benefit calculus? I’m up for that debate. But spare me the democratic sentimentalism.

This article was originally published by The Wisdom of Crowds.

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank or ECB

ECB President Christine Lagarde.

Pool/Getty Images

Policy makers at the European Central Bank “expect to raise rates further,” said President Christine Lagarde on Friday.
The ECB has already been raising rates at a record pace with inflation “too high” in the euro area.
Policymakers reportedly may decide to slow the pace of rate hikes at the December meeting.

With inflation running at a record high in the eurozone, the European Central Bank will have to continue raising interest rates to get price pressures back under control, ECB President Christine Lagarde said Friday.

“We have acted decisively, raising rates by 200 basis points, and we expect to raise rates further to the levels needed to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term target in a timely manner,” Lagarde said in a speech at the European Banking Congress.

“Inflation in the euro area is far too high,” she continued. “And with inflation likely to remain high for an extended period, we need to monitor the evolution of inflation expectations very carefully.”

The ECB this year has pulled up its benchmark lending rate by the fastest-ever pace. Meanwhile, inflation scaled up to a record high of 10.6% in October year over year, led by ballooning prices for energy. Russia’s war against Ukraine plunged Europe into an energy crisis this year, forcing regional leaders to scramble to secure natural gas supplies.

While eurozone economic data have surprised on the upside recently, “the risk of recession has increased,” Lagarde said.

“[Historical] experience suggests that a recession is unlikely to bring down inflation significantly, at least in the short run,” she said. “In this setting, displaying commitment to our mandate is vital to ensure that inflation expectations remain anchored and second-round effects do not take hold.”

As Lagarde telegraphs further rate hikes, policy makers may decide to slow the pace of increases at their December 15 meeting, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Initial discussions suggest a move of 50 basis points may be more likely — down from last month’s increase of 75 basis points — as long as there’s not an upside surprise in the November inflation reading, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

“[Rate] increases help us to withdraw support for demand more quickly. And they send a clear signal to the public of our determination to bring down inflation, which will help anchor expectations,” said Lagarde.

The euro slipped against the dollar on Friday, by 0.1% to $1.0352.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Credit Suisse shares have dropped to record lows this week and derivatives bets against it have surged, but the Swiss lender is not even the most shorted European bank in Europe.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of Italian far-right party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), delivers a speech on September 23, 2022 at the Arenile di Bagnoli beachfront location in Naples, southern Italy, during a rally closing her party’s campaign for the September 25 general election. | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images

An expert explains recent (and maybe soon-to-be) far-right victories in Europe.

Giorgia Meloni and her far-right Fratelli d’Italia are expected to lead a far right victory in Italian elections this weekend. That win, if it happens, would come shortly after the far-right Sweden Democrats won the second-largest share of the vote, helping to oust the center-left from power and giving the far right a potential role in the next government.

These shifts are happening as Europe enters another precarious moment: a war on the continent that is increasingly unpredictable, and an inflation and energy crisis that will deepen as winter approaches.

The politics of Sweden, in northern Europe, and Italy, in the south, are very different, and the historical origins and reasons for the far right’s recent successes in each of those countries are unique. But, the far right shares certain trends across Europe — and, really, the globe. What is happening in Sweden, and Italy, is not all that different from what is happening in Brazil, or India, or the United States of America.

Pietro Castelli Gattinara, associate professor of political communication at Université Libre de Bruxelles and Marie Curie Fellow at Sciences Po, said that the far right is a global movement and a global ideology, even though one of the core tenets of these parties is a kind of nativism. That translates into a rejection of migration, but also of the social and cultural changes taking place within societies. The “woke” culture wars may look different in the US or Italy, but they are a feature of the modern far-right.

“New ideas coming from abroad are considered a danger to the nation-state,” Castelli Gattinara said. “We see that quite strongly when it comes to civil rights and, in particular, gender equality.”

Vox spoke with Castelli Gattinara about this iteration of the far right, how it has gained legitimacy in Europe and elsewhere, and what the specific developments in Italy and Sweden might mean for those countries — along with Europe, and the world.

The conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jen Kirby

I want to start with a big question, which is: What is going on with the far right in Europe right now?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

The main point about the far right at the European level is that it’s not the story of a resurgence. The story of the far right in Europe is very much a story of continuity. What we have seen and what we are seeing in different countries are new variants of an old story of something we have been seeing for quite a few decades.

Political scientists tend to analyze the trajectory of the far right in waves. We are now in probably the fourth wave of far right politics in Europe, considering the first wave as the interwar period.

The subsequent waves were periods in which a number of far right parties and movements were emerging both in the south and in the north of Europe, but they remained quite marginal. They were fringe parties with very clear ideas and very clear-cut ideologies, but they remained at the margin of their political systems. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, those parties have generally gained access to representative institutions. And in the fourth wave, which is what we are seeing today, they have actually become completely mainstream. The distinction between what is the mainstream right and what is the far right is less and less clear. In that respect, I believe it’s also more difficult to set apart the European model from what we’re seeing in the US and in other parts of the world, where similarly, the distinction is becoming less and less clear.

Jen Kirby

This is a global phenomenon within democracies, not exclusively in Europe.

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Absolutely. There are certainly some specificities about Europe, but it is not that different from what we have been seeing in the US with the radicalization of the Republican Party, what we are seeing in India with President [Narendra] Modi, what we have seen with Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, just to make some examples. It is a much broader phenomenon of radicalization of mainstream right ideas, and mainstreaming of far-right ideas, especially with respect to some topics such as ethnic diversity, immigration, and gender issues. The positions of the far right have now been actually endorsed by mainstream right parties.

Jen Kirby

How did that mainstreaming happen?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

There’s no easy way to synthesize it. It’s a complex sociopolitical mechanism. But I would say, for the sake of simplicity, there are at least two main channels: one through the media and one through party and political competition.

With respect to party and political competition, there are at least two variants. One is mainstream right parties simply taking up the issues and the narratives of the far right. The best example is migration. The narrative of the far right on migration has been taken up by centrist and mainstream parties — and important to note, not necessarily right-wing ones. A number of Social Democratic parties, for example, in Denmark, or centrist parties — that’s the example of Italy — has taken up far-right narratives on migration, or have implemented far-right policies when it comes to migration. That’s the example of what happened in most of the European countries throughout the migration crisis.

Another party mechanism is coalition building or alliance building. That’s what we’re seeing in Sweden, where a moderate party that won the election will get the support of a radical right party to form of government. Or even more explicitly in the Italian case, whereby since at least 20 years, the mainstream right and the radical right, are in a coalition that is absolutely long-lasting and, up to today, quite solid.

The second is the media mechanism where especially commercial media are surfing on the issues and on the anxieties that far-right parties have brought into the political agenda. There again, the example of the US is very indicative — the politics of Fox News, in the past decades. We’ve seen a very similar scenario to the UK with the tabloid media, the whole mounting of the campaign on Brexit, for instance, has been brought about by a mix of far-right political actors and commercial media. And there are these moral panics, if you like the term, around security, around migration, around political Islam — and the media often participate to construct those problems.

Jen Kirby

You mentioned migration, and the wave of refugees in Europe in 2015 that the far right tried to capitalize on. I am wondering if migration is still very much a motivating electoral factor for these parties — or if they have morphed to embrace something different?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

I still think migration plays a crucial role. Perhaps migration is a bit limited as an issue. But what is really the core ideological tenet of those actors is nativism; is the idea that country states should be inhabited exclusively by so-called native people; is the idea that there are homogeneous communities and that any type of contamination from abroad would impoverish the sort of natural purity of the nation-state. And importantly, this applies to race or ethnic diversity. It equally applies to religion. It also applies to ideas.

In a certain sense, new ideas coming from abroad are considered a danger to the nation-state. We see that quite strongly when it comes to civil rights and, in particular, gender equality. A number of far right parties in Europe today are focused on so-called “woke” culture, on combating new anti-colonial movements, and so on and so forth.

For instance, in the case of Vox [the political party in Spain] — called the same way as your magazine, but I suppose, takes quite different political stances — and Fratelli d’Italia in Italy. If you could see the intervention by Giorgia Meloni at the national convention of Vox, she stressed the importance for her that she is Italian, she is Christian, she is a woman, but she stands in opposition to the idea of gender equality, of same-sex couples, and so on.

Jen Kirby

It sounds like the backlash to “woke” ideology is becoming a cross-border phenomenon then.

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Absolutely. Again, the far right is a global movement and a global ideology. We have seen through the years a lot of interconnection and transnationalism in the way in which these ideas have diffused. If you look at India, some of the anti-Islamic narratives that have been developed by Modi built upon a long-lasting panic about Islam, that has been developed in the US and in Europe.

The Italian far right has been inspired by Trump, and by the far right in other countries, and translated those narratives and those campaigns within the Italian system, which of course, has a very different colonial past and a very different history of race relations. There is quite a lot of diffusion.

We can also see a process of mainstreaming. One of the main frames of the culture war is the idea that there would be a class of intellectuals, especially academic professors, that would have a progressive agenda, and that would indoctrinate new generations based on so-called gender theories or woke theories. That’s a narrative developed in the Anglo-Saxon world, but it arrived also in other European countries. But this has also been part of the agenda of the latest Macron government [in France] which cannot be considered as a far right government. It has spent quite a lot of its time and its agenda into combating so-called “Islamic leftism” that would be described as some sort of sociology that would be excessively sympathetic toward Islamic communities in France. So that is an adaptation of the same narrative by non-far right political parties.

Jen Kirby

Connected to some of the culture war stuff has been the rejection of the EU and the “bureaucrats in Brussels”-type thing. I’m wondering how far-right parties in Italy and within other European countries are approaching the EU right now?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

There are a number of far right parties in Europe that have been and are openly Euro-skeptic, meaning they reject the EU as a political project while idealizing a not very well-specified Europe of the peoples or Europe of the nations. In the south of Europe, and particularly in Italy, the opposition to the EU has always been mainly a campaign issue and not a concrete policy.

Today, there’s an acceleration of this process, because Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Fratelli d’Italia, is quite confident that she will win the next elections, and therefore, she is mainly addressing international audiences to get legitimated among those arenas, including the European Commission. Her main goal is not to scare off the EU with excessively radical proposals and many things she has been saying against the EU — she was calling the EU an organization of bankers and a threat to the national sovereignty of Italy — we do not hear any of these [now].

Jen Kirby

I want to talk about Italy for a second. The prediction right now is that the far right will take power. What’s going on there?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

There’s certainly some aspects that are unique to the Italian context. The main aspect is that the alliance between the center right and the far right is a consolidated one, since 1994, when media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi emerged, he formed right-wing coalitions in which he accepted the participation of post-fascist parties, Alianza Nacional back then, Lega Nord, and so on. That alliance has been going for more than 20 years, so when I’m speaking about the blurring between the far right and the mainstream right that is perhaps the perfect example. That is unique about Italy.

The reason why the far right party like Fratelli d’Italia can now take the lead of the coalition has two main explanations. One is that Berlusconi is now aged and his party has lost most of its support, but also that Giorgia Meloni, as leader of Fratelli d’Italia, she has correctly understood that electorally it would pay off to stay in the opposition throughout the past few years. She founded her party in 2012, as a spin-off or as a rebirth of the National Alliance Party [Alianza Nacional], but ever since she has consistently refused to be part of any coalition government, unlike all the other parties in the Italian political system. Since the 2018 elections, we have had very different coalition governments, sometimes with the populist Five Star Movement, with the Social Democratic Party, with Lega Nord, with Berlusconi’s party. The only party that never accepted any compromise is Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia. She’s the only leader the Italian electorate does not perceive to have already tested. She is the only one that has not yet deceived the Italian electorate. That’s her biggest ace to play at the next election.

Jen Kirby

She’s the change candidate, essentially.

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

She has correctly understood that what the Italians challenge now is the idea of the establishment.

Meloni manages to present herself as opposed to the political establishment, but at the same time, as a credible politician because she has been in politics for a very long time.

Jen Kirby

What would it mean if she does become the leader of Italy — for Italy, and for Europe?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Symbolically, it would be a very serious change. [Meloni] will be the first female prime minister in the history [of Italy]. Secondly, it will be the first prime minister with a past in a post-fascist political party. The symbol of Fratelli d’Italia is the three-color flame, which used to be the symbol of the Italian Social Movement, the post-fascist party founded in the 1940s. The symbolic link with the fascist past is extremely strong and extremely important.

At the same time, the likely government will be just a reconfiguration of the same coalition that we have been seeing for the past 20 years. Fratelli d’Italia has retrieved up a considerable amount of the old personnel of Berlusconi’s parties, of the old ministers of Berlusconi’s governments. I have the impression that, in the end, it will be a reboot of the Berlusconi years — which is not necessarily good news — but with a much stronger attention to some of the issues that are at the core of our far-right ideologies, I think, in particular, in terms of gender equality, in terms of civil rights, abortion rights, in terms of migration, in terms of religion. But then when it comes to our economic policy, for example, it will be basically the old wine that we have already seen for 20 years with the Berlusconi governments.

Jen Kirby

So it may not be as radical a change, even if the symbolism is jarring. And that makes me wonder a bit about Sweden. The moderate right is in power, but will need the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern. What does it mean for governance when we have these types of alliances?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

The Scandinavian context is different from the south of Europe. But what we have seen is that, generally, this is a consequence of an ideological and discursive transition that has already taken place. My colleague, Anders Jupskås at the Center for Research on Extremism, has been pointing at how the moderate party in Sweden had already endorsed the issues and the narratives of the Sweden Democrats, when it came to political Islam, asylum, and migration. There has been, let’s say, a convergence on those issues prior to the elections.

Now, as they come to perhaps share responsibilities within a government, then we can see some of those policies actually materialize. What we have seen in other counties is this will in no way contain the growth of the Sweden Democrats. It will actually hollow out the support for the moderates. Between the original and the copy, voters will always go for the original, and not for the copy. We don’t have a crystal ball, but if anything, one would expect that Sweden Democrats will confirm their electoral scores in the years to come by becoming even more legitimate and central to the Swedish political system.

Jen Kirby

These elections are happening as Europe is in the middle of crisis — the war in Ukraine, inflation, and the looming energy crisis. How do you think some of these electoral successes for the far-right might influence this moment?

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

The EU has been in a crisis since its very foundation. There’s always a new crisis affecting European Union politics. There’s a migration crisis, there is a terrorism crisis, there is war at its borders, there is Brexit. The politics of Europe are always a politics of crisis.

Now, this time, we’re seeing something that may be partly different, on one hand, because of the energy crisis and inflation, which might trigger important transformations in public opinion. On the other hand, because of the war on Ukraine, it has become more difficult for foreign parties to take direct inspiration from the figure of Vladimir Putin.

We’ve seen in Italy, Lega Nord, where Matteo Salvini has been a very outspoken admirer of Putin — he publicly said that, in his opinion, he’s the best politician currently alive a few years ago. He rapidly change this position as the war in Ukraine started. There was this very famous video of him at the border between Ukraine and Poland with a Polish mayor humiliating him by showing him the T-shirt with the face of bullying that Salvini had worn some years before, while [Salvini] went to Poland to express solidarity to Ukrainian refugees. So there has been switching of positions with respect to Russia, in particular.

Fratelli d’Italia had more consistent US and pro-NATO positions, but there is an in-between that is the relationship with the countries on the eastern border of the EU, and not only Hungary and Poland. Fratelli d’Italia is a strong supporter of both governments in Poland and Hungary because Meloni admires the way those governments have dealt with issues concerning family and abortion and gender rights. But the executives in those countries have very different positions with respect to Russia. So this issue might create a differentiation within different far right parties across countries in Europe.

Archive for category: #Europe #EU

After a decade that produced a series of shocks, the European Union seems to have weathered its worst moment of crisis. Yet the EU still suffers a fundamental lack of democracy — and the Left should be in the forefront of demanding its reform.

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Jen Kirby

Pietro Castelli Gattinara

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