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| Europe |
| AlG: Europe is reaching crisis point |
| 2004-09-05 |
| via Al Guardian (h/t Lucianne) Forget America: the government should be worrying about the situations in France and Germany Will Hutton - Sunday September 5, 2004 With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked. But it may so change the political geography of Europe that British arguments for and against the EU will be made redundant. A pervasive sense of decline in both countries, only partially justified but none the less virulent, is destabilising not just the structures of the EU - but the political systems of France and Germany. Last week in France, charismatic finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy resigned from the government in order to challenge for the leadership of President Chirac's UMP party, despairing of what is seen in France as a do-nothing regime that is fiddling while the country burns. The economy is mired in low growth and high unemployment; government spending at 54 per cent of GDP can go no higher. There is universal agreement that France needs decisive action to reverse economic decline; there are rancorous arguments about not just how the economy should be run and society organised but whether the constitution of the Fifth Republic works any more. The socialist opposition wants to limit the President's current powers to allow more pluralism. With two-and-half years to run until the next presidential elections, France is descending into acrimony and division. In Germany, Gerhard Schröder is presiding over the wreckage of the SPD, once the standard bearer of European social democracy. September sees four key state elections, including the vital election in North Rhine Westphalia, the SPD's historic heartland. Sixteen per cent behind in the polls there, its loss would be a disaster, not just for what it signals about Schröder's standing but because it will mean control that of the German upper house will pass to the conservative CDU and make him a titular Chancellor, governing only within the parameters of what his opponents will permit. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #10 Screw the EU dwarves. Wrong century. Time for this nation to look east and get serious about a deep strategic relationship with the powers that actually can harm or help us in the middle east: Russia, India, Turkey and of course Israel. The "West" no longer has any meaning. Let NATO die and replace it with anti-jihadist Eurasian and Asian power blocs with the US at the hub. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-05 11:24:37 PM |
| #9 Well, this *is* Will Hutton speaking. Very pro-EU and mildly anti-capitalism (although he does do rather nicely out of capitalism himself). Good. The sooner the EU (as a supra-national state) is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better. The original idea of free markets was a good one, lets go back to that. Please, no comments about "ever closer union" - most people were not interested in that aspect of the EU, and simply wanted more prosperity. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-09-05 9:29:30 PM |
| #8 Tamerlane_ (you know who you are) you're wrong about referenda. The Soviet of California uses the referendum (though they call it the initiative) in lieu of any effective government and the concerns voiced in the article are real. It has resulted in massive numbers of poorly written, self-serving legislative dreck whose chance of passage is effected only by the size of the advertising bankroll of the special-interest groups that came up with them in the first place. |
| Posted by: Anonymous6324 2004-09-05 5:32:38 PM |
| #7 RJSchwarz: God, I hope so. I loved my time in Germany (30 years ago), and have hated to see the way they've gone in recent years. I hope they can pull themselves back from the brink. Turning the EU from an economic alliance to a European ueber-government was a screw-up of monumental proportions. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-05 11:15:06 AM |
| #6 TGA can tell me if I'm wrong, but I've spoken to a lot of my German inlaws and here's the way I see it. Schroeder doesn't have a chance, the changes required are too deep for him to get the support. He'll lose the next election big-time. Christian Democrats will take control in the next election. They will have to do what is required to fix the economy. They will be hated for it because people like their juicy benefits. Christian Democrats will lose the next couple of elections afterwards but will probably be smiled upon when the history books are written a decade or so later. The time after the short Christian Democrats reign will be when Germany jumps back into the EU full force. |
| Posted by: RJSchwarz 2004-09-05 10:16:52 AM |
| #5 Losers! |
| Posted by: A Jackson 2004-09-05 10:03:39 AM |
| #4 Coming from Al' Guardian - I'd say this is beautiful. Despite the almost incomprehensible pyshobabble, Al Guardian is being forced to admit that France and Germany face total decline under Chirac and Schroder. Their attempts to spin solutions in such a way, as to allow them to cling to the validity of their discredited dino beliefs, are indeed laughable in their incomprehensible gibberish - but the real story here is that they are forced to admit that they are facing extinction. heh! |
| Posted by: B 2004-09-05 9:10:17 AM |
| #3 Hey France! Remember, all future liberations have been cancelled. Have fun sitting in your own shit! |
| Posted by: LC Matthew 2004-09-05 8:49:53 AM |
| #2 Al Guardian: For the paradox of referendums is that they are fundamentally anti-democratic, confusing democracy with populism and placing power in the hands of those who can manipulate public opinion for their own ends. What a load of horsepoop. This guy obviously drank deep from the well of Soviet propaganda. He's shaking in his boots at the thought of the German population rejecting the EU constitution and perhaps even re-instituting the death penalty. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-09-05 4:18:56 AM |
| #1 C'est la vie. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-09-05 2:38:41 AM |