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A rogues’ gallery of the EU’s top 13 eurosceptic parties

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skepticismAs voters in 28 European countries prepare to head to the polls, beginning on May 22 and running through May 25, no one knows whether Europe’s center-left or center-right will win more seats, and no one knows who will ultimately become the next president of the European Commission.European_Union

But the one thing upon which almost everyone agrees is that Europe’s various eurosceptic parties are set for a huge victory — not enough seats to determine the outcomes of EU legislation and policymaker, perhaps, but enough to form a strong, if disunited, bloc of relatively anti-federalist voices. Voters, chiefly in the United Kingdom, France and Italy, are set to cast strong protest votes that could elect more than 100 eurosceptic MEPs.

In some countries, such as Spain, euroscepticism is still a limited force — the center-left opposition Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) is tied for the lead with the governing center-right Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) of prime minister Mariano Rajoy. But Spain is quickly becoming an outlier as eurosceptic parties are springing up in places where unionist sentiment once ran strong.

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RELATED: In Depth: European parliamentary elections
RELATED: The European parliamentary elections are really four contests

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Of course, not all eurosceptics are created equally. Some anti-Europe parties have been around for decades, while others weren’t even in existence at the time of the last elections in 2009. Some are virulently xenophobic, far-right or even neo-Nazi in their outlooks, while others are cognizably on the more mainstream conservative / leftist ideological spectrum. Some seek nothing short of their country’s withdrawal from the European Union altogether, while others seek greater controls on immigration. Some are even pro-Europe in the abstract, but oppose eurozone membership. That’s one of the reasons why eurosceptics have had so much trouble uniting across national lines — the mildest eurosceptic parties abhor the xenophobes, for example.

If everyone acknowledges that eurosceptic parties will do well when the votes are all counted on Sunday, no one knows whether that represents a peak of anti-Europe support, given the still tepid economy and high unemployment across the eurozone, or whether it’s part of a trend that will continue to grow in 2019 and 2024.

With 100 seats or so in the European Parliament, eurosceptics can’t cause very many problems. They can make noise, and they stage protests, but they won’t hold up the EU parliamentary agenda. With 200 or even 250 seats, though, they could cause real damage. There’s no rule that says that eurosceptics can’t one day win the largest block of EP seats, especially so long as most European voters ignore Europe-wide elections or treat them as an opportunity to protest unpopular national government.

For now, though, they’re all bound to cause plenty of trouble for their more mainstream rivals at the national level, and in at least five countries, they could wind up with the largest share of the vote. So it’s still worth paying attention to them.

Without further ado, here are the top 13 eurosceptic parties to keep an eye on as the results are announced on Sunday:

Continue reading A rogues’ gallery of the EU’s top 13 eurosceptic parties →

European Union

The European parliamentary elections are really four contests

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Festival of Europe Open day 2012 in Strasbourg

It’s hard to know exactly how to place the European parliamentary elections in the constellation of world politics. European_Union

From one perspective, they’re relatively unimportant — a largely apathetic electorate is choosing a body of 751 MEPs in a parliament that has less power within the European Union than most parliamentary bodies have within national governments. The Council of the European Union gives member-states veto power over EU legislation and the European Commission, the regulatory executive of the European Union, has the power to introduce legislation. Voters, since the first direct elections in 1979, have turned out in ever lower proportions with each election cycle. To the extent you talk to European voters who actually care about the elections, they mostly view them as an opportunity for a protest vote.

From another perspective, they’re incredibly important. They represent the one point of genuine democratic participation within the European Union and, given the tumult of the past five years with respect to the eurozone, the European economy and the power of relatively wealthier states to dictate the monetary policy and, increasingly, the fiscal policy of weaker states, the current elections  represent a major conversation about the future of EU policy. That’s especially true in the context of the weighty matters that the next European Parliament will face, including a new data privacy directive and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a potentially game-changing free-trade agreement with the United States.

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RELATED: In Depth: European parliamentary elections

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So which is the right interpretation?

It can be both — and many things besides — depending on your view. That’s because the European parliamentary elections are really four separate political contests, wrapped up and presented as one set of elections. The relative importance or unimportance that a particular actor places on the ‘European elections’ depends upon which of the four ‘contests’ most resonates.

So what are the four contests simultaneously raging across Europe? Continue reading The European parliamentary elections are really four contests →

European Union

In Depth: European Parliament

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(43) EU parliamentary chamber

On the last full weekend of May, European voters in 28 member-states with a population of over 500 million will determine all 751 members of the European Parliament.European_Union

The political context of the 2014 parliamentary elections

Since the last elections in June 2009, the European Union has been through a lot of ups and downs, though mostly just downs. After the 2008-09 financial crisis, the eurozone went through its own financial crisis, as bond yields spiked in troubled Mediterranean countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal with outsized public debt, sclerotic government sectors and economies operating near zero-growth. Eastern European countries, facing sharp downturns themselves, and a corresponding drop in revenues, implemented tough budget cuts and tax increases to mollify bond markets. Ireland, which nationalized its banking sector, faced similar austerity measures. European Central Bank president Mario Draghi’s promise in the summer of 2012 to do ‘whatever it takes’ to maintain the eurozone marked the turning point, ending over two years of speculation that Greece and other countries might have to exit the eurozone. Many countries, however, are still mired in high unemployment and sluggish growth prospects.

One new member-state joined the European Union, Croatia, in July 2013, bringing the total number to 28, though Iceland, Serbia and Montenegro all became official candidates for future EU membership:

eu-members-2013

Politically speaking, since the 2009 elections, only two of the leaders in the six largest EU countries are still in power (Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, a centrist, and German chancellor Angela Merkel, a Christian democrat) reflecting a climate that’s been tough on incumbent governments. Spain and the United Kingdom took turns to the political right, and France and Italy took turns to the political left, but none of those governments seems especially popular today — and each of them will face a tough battle in the voting later this month.

Of course, that’s only if voters even bother to turn out. Since the European Parliament’s first elections in 1979, turnout has declined in each subsequent election — to just 43.23% in the latest 2009 elections:

EU turnoutAt the European level, the Treaty of Lisbon, a successor to the ill-fated attempt to legislate a European constitution in the mid-2000s, took effect in December 2009, scrambling the relationships among the seven institutions.

 The elections, which will unfold over four days between May 22 and May 25, are actually about much, much more than just electing the legislators of the European Union’s parliamentary body, which comprises just one of three lawmaking bodies within the European Union. Continue reading In Depth: European Parliament →

Greece

Cracking down on Golden Dawn’s leadership is a risky strategy for the Greek government

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michaloliakos

Over the course of the past week, the Greek government stepped up its efforts to treat Greece’s hard-right, neo-fascist party, Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) with the kind of speed and clarity that one rarely sees in Athens.Greece Flag Icon

Those efforts follow the stabbing of anti-fascist hip-hop artist Pavlos Fyssas over a week ago, which marked a turning point for the coalition government that center-right prime minister Antonis Samaras leads.  Greek authorities over the weekend arrested Golden Dawn’s leader Nikos Michaloliakos (pictured above) and other party members, including party spokesman Ilias Kassidiairis, on charges of belonging to a criminal organization.  It was an unprecedented action in Greece’s post-dictatorship democracy — the first time since 1974 that MPs, let alone a party head, were arrested.

But things took an awkward turn on Wednesday when three of the Golden Dawn MPs (but not Michaloliakos) arrested were released pending trial, adding to doubts that Samaras’s government is making the right choice in suddenly treating Golden Dawn as more of a criminal organization than a political organization, however vile its organizing beliefs.  Kassidiaris (more on him here) did himself no favors by kicking and pushing members of the media upon his release Wednesday.

Support was already crashing for Golden Dawn in the wake of the murder — the party dropped from winning around 13% support in polls to just around 6% or 7% last week in the aftermath of the Fyssas murder.  In real terms, that means that Golden Dawn would no longer be the third-largest party if elections were held in Greece tomorrow.  After winning 6.92% in the previous June 2012 elections, Golden Dawn currently holds 18 seats in the 300-seat Hellenic Parliament (Βουλή των Ελλήνων), and the party had been threatening to resign en masse, leading to distracting by-elections.  Golden Dawn, which began as a ‘nationalist socialist’ magazine in 1980, comprised mostly of misfit supporters of the right-wing military junta that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974, was a very minor presence in Greek political life before — until Greece’s economy plunged into contraction, unemployment, misery and social discord over the past four years.  (Read more background on the group’s history here.)

If you want to understand why Golden Dawn’s popularity has ballooned, check out the trajectory of the Greek economy from growth to severe depression over the past seven years:

greecegdpGolden Dawn was already growing into something more than a political party — a mutual aid society to provide food and other necessities (but only, of course, to ‘pure’ Greeks) and a near-paramilitary outfit that drew, according to some Greek analysts, the support of 50% of the Greek police forces.

But Golden Dawn’s polling collapse was, even before the crackdown, good news for Samaras — right-wing voters who had flirted with Golden Dawn seemed to be returning to Samaras’s more conventional conservative New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), which has boosted it once again over the anti-austerity, leftist SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς).  Before the latest drama in Greece, SYRIZA had eclipsed New Democracy in many polls, even as Greece faces the humiliating prospect of requesting a third bailout from the ‘troika’ of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.

So why would Samaras make this push now?  His sudden aggressive tack against Golden Dawn comes with the risk that Samaras will transform Michaloliakos and his party into martyrs, thereby boosting their support when they might have otherwise faded away as Greeks backed away from a group with such openly neo-Nazi leanings. Continue reading Cracking down on Golden Dawn’s leadership is a risky strategy for the Greek government →

Germany, Greece

What kind of a deal can Greece expect after the German elections?

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merkelsamaras

Europe may be a non-issue in the German election campaign, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Europe will occupy a chief role in the agenda of Germany’s next chancellor, perhaps more so than exclusively German domestic issues.Greece Flag IconGermany Flag Icon

Though center-right chancellor Angela Merkel and center-left challenger Peer Steinbrück are both stridently pro-Europe, it’s an open question how to next German government should deal with the poster-child of the European financial crisis — Greece.  To understand Germany’s options requires an understanding of the underlying Greek politics — and how a Greek political crisis could plunge the entire eurozone back into panic mode.

Even as Germany and the eurozone as a whole pulls out of the worst of the most recent recession, Greece continues to struggle with economic contraction.  The economy is set to shrink by between 4.5% to 5% this year, the unemployment rate is a staggering 27.6%, and this follows five consecutive years of recession capped off by a 7.1% contraction in 2011 and 6.4% contraction last year.  Greece remains trapped in a grueling internal devaluation where the private sector is being forced to accept leaner wages to make exports more competitive and the public sector is being forcibly downsized by the terms of the bailout programs agreed to by the ‘troika’ of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.  Greece today is not a fun place to live, and Greek voters are angry at Germany in particular for forcing so many Greeks into poverty and joblessness while doing little in terms of fiscal or monetary policy to boost the country’s medium-term growth prospects.

But German voters have their own narrative — while they’re still generally supportive of ever close union within Europe, they’re nonetheless wary of the European Union becoming a transfer union where wealth from German productivity flows to Greek profligacy.  That underlies the collective angst within the entire Germany political community late last month when Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, indicated that Greece would require a third bailout — perhaps up to €11 billion, which is still a fraction of what the troika has already lent to Greece.  (For the record, Portugal’s government is also likely to require a second bailout of its own early next summer.)

Back in Greece, that means a politically radioactive set of negotiations at a time when Greece’s government is reeling.  A coalition between the two once-dominant parties since the return of Greek democracy in 1974, the center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία) and the center-left PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement – Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα) holds just a cumulative 155 seats, giving it the barest of majorities in Greece’s 300-member Hellenic Parliament.  After the disastrous shutdown of Greece’s public television station ERT in June, the anti-austerity Democratic Left (Δημοκρατική Αριστερά) left the governing coalition — its leader Fotis Kouvelis previously agreed to join the coalition after Greek’s June 2012 elections in order to provide more stability for the country.

Snap elections seem likely in any event sometime next year.  If elections were held today, SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς) seems likeliest to win them, according to a recent poll, making the young, massively anti-austerity opposition leader Alexis Tsipras Greece’s radical new prime minister.  The Sept. 11 Public Issue poll showed SYRIZA moving into first place with 29%, New Democracy with 28%, and the far-right, neo-fascist Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) would win 13%.  PASOK, meanwhile, would fall to just 7%, the Greek Communist Party (KKE) would win 6.5%, the right-wing, anti-bailout Independent Greeks would win 5.5%, and the Democratic Left would win just 2.5%, less than the 3% threshold for entering parliament.

SYRIZA has essentially consolidated much of the support of the anti-austerity left, so it’s puzzling how PASOK still attracts even 7% support, given that it’s subjugated itself almost completely  to prime minister Antonis Samaras’s agenda.  But Golden Dawn’s support is rising, and it’s likely to pull support from increasingly frustrated right-wing voters that once supported New Democracy, suggesting that if economic conditions keep deteriorating, Golden Dawn could draw even more support to a largely xenophobic, nationalist agenda.

If those numbers held up in a new Greek election, Merkel and her colleagues in Paris, Brussels and other European capitals, would probably regard it as a disaster for Europe. Continue reading What kind of a deal can Greece expect after the German elections? →

Greece

Kouvelis, Democratic Left withdrawal from Greek government leaves precarious majority

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kovelis

Just a little over a year after the second of two divisive elections in Greece, the smallest partner in the three-party governing coalition withdrew its support today — leaving Greece ever closer to new elections, though the government will continue on with a slim majority for now.Greece Flag Icon

Fotis Kouvelis, in announcing that his party, the Democratic Left (Δημοκρατική Αριστερά), would leave the coalition over the growing row related to the sudden closure of ERT, the national broadcaster, emphasized that Greece did not need new elections, and he indicated that the party would perhaps provide external support to what’s left of prime minister Antonis Samaras’s coalition to keep Greece on track with respect to the terms of its bailout program with the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

What does that mean for Greece?

Though it’s true that the departure of the Democratic Left doesn’t necessarily mean new elections, it leaves the government in a precarious position.

Samaras’s New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), Greece’s longstanding center-right party, holds 125 seats in the 300-member Hellenic Parliament (Βουλή των Ελλήνων).  Its other coalition partner, PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement – Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα), Greece’s traditional center-left party, holds 28 seats.  Together, that gives the government an ostensible three-seat majority, though the 14 seats that Kouvelis delivered provided a wider margin for comfort over a year that’s seen Samaras’s government push forward with the fiscal adjustments mandated by the bailout program.

But more importantly, Kouvelis (pictured above, left, with Samaras in center background) delivered the votes of one of the two parties of the anti-bailout left, giving Samaras’s government a broader base and a credible claim to being somewhat of a unity government.

The Democratic Left formed only in 2010 when moderates split from the leftist SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς).  So while SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras is content to lead the opposition, Kouvelis and his party brought an outsized amount of legitimacy to Samaras’s government.  After all, both New Democracy and PASOK had backed Greece’s bailouts, and many voters have held the two parties, which switched back and forth in power in recent decades, especially responsible for Greece’s economic woes.

Their continued unpopularity is one reason why no one wants to risk elections anytime soon.  PASOK, in particular, has lost nearly all of its support among voters to the benefit of Tsipras and SYRIZA, which have given more muscular voice to the anti-bailout left.  If elections were held tomorrow, it’s not even certain that PASOK would pass the 3% threshold to win seats in the Hellenic Parliament.

One recent poll shows New Democracy holding onto a very narrow lead, with 21% to just 20.5% for SYRIZA.  In third place is the neo-fascist Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) with a staggering 10.2%.  Greece’s far-left Communist Party (KKE) registered 5.7%, the center-right (but anti-bailout) Independent Greeks registered 5.2%.  PASOK won just 5.1%, and the Democratic Left won just 4.8%.

With such weak support, neither Samaras nor PASOK leader and former finance minister Evangelos Venizelos have an incentive to trigger new elections.  So while the chances that Greece will go to the polls for the third time in 12 months are slim, there’s no escaping the fact that the Democratic Left’s decision to leave the government is a setback for Samaras.  Continue reading Kouvelis, Democratic Left withdrawal from Greek government leaves precarious majority →

Czech Republic, European Union

Václav Klaus, fresh from Czech presidency, discusses eurozone in Washington

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klauscato

Just three days after leaving the Czech presidency, Václav Klaus spoke at the Cato Institute in Washington earlier today — Klaus is joining Cato as a senior distinguished fellow this spring.czechEuropean_Union

Klaus, who stepped down after a decade in office, didn’t break much new ground — his remarks were essentially everything you’d expect from the famously euroskpetic former president, who was the last European Union head of state to sign the Treaty of Lisbon (and quite reluctantly, at that).

The great eurozone fight

In brief, Klaus has long argued that the eurozone is not an optimal currency zone, it’s a project that was implemented without sufficient democratic input from everyday Europeans, and the economic costs of monetary integration and centralization far outweigh the benefits, and those costs have become increasingly evident from the economic pain suffered today in Greece, Spain, Italy and throughout Europe.

Klaus’s diagnosis has become fairly uncontroversial — both on the left and the right, and for both intergovernmentalists and neo-functionalists alike.  A lot of European federalists would agree that the European Union needs more robust democratic institutions at the supranational level.  Many economists agree that the one-size-fits-all monetary policy has been incredibly harmful to many countries in southern Europe since 2008, and the painful internal devaluation forced upon many countries in the European periphery, from Latvia to Greece, has been a needless exercise in poor economic policymaking.

But whereas many economists would argue that the solution lies in greater fiscal harmony (especially through fiscal transfers from wealthier regions to poorer regions), looser monetary policy, a eurozone-wide borrowing capacity, debt forgiveness and a doubling-down on the more long-standing commitment to the free movement of goods, services and people throughout the European Union, Klaus’s solution is to unwind the eurozone.

Klaus would rather see a way for Greece — and other troubled economies — to simply exit from a eurozone that’s delivered now nearly half a decade of GDP contraction, painful downward pressure on income, and widespread unemployment and social rupture.

That’s not a crazy idea economically — if Greece could leave the eurozone tomorrow (or if Greece simply went bankrupt, thereby essentially forcing Greece out of the eurozone), it could conceivably pursue a much more aggressive monetary policy, devalue its currency, and take other steps to make its exports more competitive in global markets once it’s no longer yoked to a monetary policy that’s better suited for, say, the German economy.

But that’s not the entire story.  Greece might also suffer extraordinarily in the short-run while it makes that transition — starting with how it would reintroduce the drachma and how it would even finance basic governance outside the current eurozone regime, forcing perhaps even more austere budget-cutting in a country where the social safety net is already tattered.

And those are just the problems inside Greece — though the Greek economy is just a fraction of the European economy, it could set off a chain reaction of fear, bank runs and deep recession throughout the eurozone as investors pull out of not only the peripheral economies, but also out of the entire eurozone.  How would a massive Greek devaluation affect Cyprus? Would Spain and Italy withstand the inevitable bank runs and currency flight? The chain reaction of unraveling one of the world’s foremost reserve currencies could well be catastrophic.

Looking to national parallels: the Czechoslovak breakup and German reunification

Klaus related the current monetary union to the breakup 20 years ago of Czechoslovakia into two separate nations — a process that Klaus said was painful though necessary (though the Slovak economy is doing much better these days than the Czech economy).  But Greeks might be troubled by the more painful example of the breakup of the Yugoslav federation and the Soviet Union, both of which were also monetary unions as well as political unions.  The breakup of the ‘ruble zone’ led to massive hyperinflation throughout the Soviet Union and an economic shock that cut standard of living in half.  There’s simply no way to know what forces could be unleashed by the process — no matter what anyone says, there’s not a precedent for unraveling even a tiny part of the world’s largest currency union in an orderly fashion.

I would have liked to hear, in particular, Klaus’s thoughts on another contemporary experiment in currency union: German reunification.

Continue reading Václav Klaus, fresh from Czech presidency, discusses eurozone in Washington →

Greece

Tsipras predicts Greek debt haircut after German elections

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tsipras2

The great thing about Washington, D.C. is the flow of visitors we see from throughout the world and the relative access to top officials through top-notch organizations such as the Brookings Institution, which hosted Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras for a 90-minute session Tuesday.Greece Flag Icon

The beleaguered Greek economy has receded from headlines somewhat since the razor-close election in June 2012 (itself a rerun of an earlier inconclusive vote in May 2012) and since the conclusion of the latest agreement, reached in October 2012, between Greece’s government and the ‘troika’ of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank for the disbursement of cash to the nearly bankrupt Greek government in exchange for €13.5 billion in budget cuts.

Tsipras leads SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς), which finished a very narrow second place to the center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), whose leader Antonis Samaras, now prime minister, leads a broad pro-bailout coalition.  Although SYRIZA lost the election, it’s the largest anti-austerity force in Greece, and it either leads or ties New Democracy in most polls.

Given that Greece’s unemployment rate keeps increasing (it’s currently around 27%) and it’s entering its sixth consecutive year of economic contraction, even as the government’s been forced into adopting increasingly harsh austerity measures, it’s hard not to see Tsipras as a future prime minister.

Tsipras, who’s made several international trips since last June, has been on somewhat of a campaign to convince the world that he’s not a crazy socialist to be feared, but rather well-placed within the Keynesian macroeconomic tradition of the social democratic left, whose European leaders believe that austerity alone cannot deliver the kind of boost to the economy that will result in greater GDP growth and more employment.   Continue reading Tsipras predicts Greek debt haircut after German elections →

Greece

Greek government, troika reach agreement on Greek bailout

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It seems all but done — Greece’s government and the ‘troika’ of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission have reached an agreement on the latest disbursement of funds that Greece needs to finance government operations, in exchange for a series of budget cuts and labor market reforms. 

In an additional twist, there are quasi-official reports from both Germany and Greece that the bailout program will be extended from the end of 2014 to the end of 2016, which will give Greece until at least 2016 to whittle down its budget deficit to the 3% required under EU rules, though it seems unlikely that Greece’s budget will be anywhere near to closing in on that target by even 2016.

The details are essentially as described over the past four months — €13.5 billion in budget cuts over the next two years, €9 billion of which will take effect in 2013.  The bottom line for Greek finances is that a Greek exit from the eurozone, which seemed virtually inevitable through much of 2012, has now been delayed, and delayed for a significant amount of time (Citi, for example, lowered its odds of a ‘Grexit’ to 60%, and predict it could still happen, but only in the first half of 2014).

That’s a significant victory for Greece’s prime minister, in office for barely four months, Antonis Samaris (pictured above, right, with Euro Group president and Luxembourg prime minister Jean–Claude Juncker), and it will now give him some breathing space to turn to Greece’s economic depression.

For me, there are three notable political aspects to the deal worth noting:  Continue reading Greek government, troika reach agreement on Greek bailout →

Germany, Greece

Samaras ‘negotiations’ with Berlin not going so swell

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It didn’t go so well for Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras on his visits with European Union leaders in Berlin.  His plea for more time to come up with cuts to the Greek budget is being met with stony nonchalance from both German chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured above right, with Samaras) and French president François Hollande, to say nothing of German civil society.

Samaras has requested an additional two years to come up with an additional €11.5 billion in cuts to the Greek budget.  While Merkel — and especially Hollande — were sympathetic to Samaras’s plea and reiterated their support for Greece to remain in the eurozone, Samaras will return to Athens having won no concessions from Berlin or Paris.

Business daily Handelsblatt writes:

“Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras does not tire of making new demands. Now he wants more time, for the health of his economy. Not more money, only more time — at least according to his requests to Berlin and Brussels. And, in Berlin and Brussels, there will be much discussion about whether Greece should be granted more time.”

“Our instinctive reaction regarding Samaras’ request is, well, that could be something. Given the near 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures that Germany experienced last weekend, we can empathize with Greek lethargy.”

“But is the Greek prime minister right? Is time instead of money really better? I say no.”

“We have known for a long time that time is money. Perhaps Angela Merkel will also say that to the Greeks. Despite the hot and sweaty 40-degree temperatures, there will be no more days off.”

Athens News reports that Merkel’s comments at a joint press conference with Samaras Friday were particularly tense:

“We expect Greece to deliver all that has been promised,” Merkel declared. In remarks that were unusually sharp for a joint news conference, she stressed that Berlin has heard words in the past but now expects deeds.

The tough talk contrasted sharply with the head of state honours and diplomatic smiles with which Samaras was received on his first official visit, complete with red carpet and band.

Merkel said that Samaras’ visit is a sign of the “very close ties” between the two countries, only to add later that each side had lost credibility in the eyes of the other and that trust must be regained.

And these are demands from someone who ‘Europe’ was desperate to win June’s Greek parliamentary elections.

Can you imagine how horrific the reaction would have been if the request had come from Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς)?

Merkel spent Sunday trying to calm the waters against anti-Greek feeling in Germany, after German Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann attacked the European Central Bank’s buying of state debt, and Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the governing Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union), the Bavarian conservative party and sister party of Merkel’s own Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union), speculated that Greece would leave the single currency by next year.

Bavaria, European Union, Germany

Is Bavarian finance minister Markus Söder really the most dangerous politician in Europe?

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Der Spiegel ranks the top 10 most dangerous politicians in Europe, and you might be surprised at who comes out on top.

The piece targets Markus Söder, the finance minister of Bavaria since November 2011:

The politician from the [Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern (CSU, the Christian Social Union)], the conservative sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, is known for his tub-thumping rhetoric and has stepped up a gear in the euro crisis with vitriolic comments about Greece. “An example must be made of Athens, that this euro zone can show teeth,” he told the Bild am Sonntag tabloid newspaper this week. “Everyone has to leave Mom at some point and that time has come for the Greeks.”

It also points the finger at Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the CSU to which Söder also belongs — Dobrindt has also called on Greece to exit the eurozone by paying its debts in drachmas instead of euros.

Söder, an up-and-coming politician in the CSU, has previously served as minister for environment and health from 2008 to 2011 and from 2007 to 2008, as minister for federal and European affairs.  He’s a solid populist, to be sure — for example, he’s in favor of Bavaria’s ban on the wearing of Muslim head scarves (but not nun’s habits).

But it’s easy enough to explain away the relatively strident tone from Söder and the CSU as political posturing in advance of Bavarian state elections that must take place sometime in 2013.  The CSU will be struggling to maintain the grip that its held on Bavarian state politics since the 1950s.  At the federal level, although the CSU-backed Angel Merkel has walked a tight line when it comes to balancing national and federalist European interests, but her leftist opponents are even more federalist when it comes to Europe and the eurozone.

The Spiegel list is dominated by some of the nationalist right’s usual suspects: Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and a member of the European Parliament; Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front national in France; Timo Soini, leader of the Perussuomalaiset (PS, True Finns) party, also a member of the European Parliament; Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom); and Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ, Austrian Freedom Party).

They seem like odd choices, though, because none of them (except perhaps Strache) seem to be on the upswing.  Wilders is polling quite dreadfully in advance of the Dutch elections on Sept. 4.  Farage and Soini are sideshows at best.  Despite her strong showing in the French presidential election in April and the shadow she casts over the French center-right, Le Pen failed to win a seat in France’s national assembly in the June elections — and her party won just two seats in total.

To me, the following politicians are far more “dangerous” — by “dangerous,” I mean the ability to win real power or to be more effective in making mischief: Continue reading Is Bavarian finance minister Markus Söder really the most dangerous politician in Europe? →

Greece

Samaras pieces together coalition after ND places first in Greek election

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The rest of the eurozone — indeed, the rest of the world — may have breathed a sigh of relief Sunday when it turned out that the pro-bailout parties appeared likely to secure a majority of the seats in the second of two highly divisive parliamentary elections in Greece.

As shown above, New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία) has won the largest share of votes, taking with it the 50-seat “bonus” in the Hellenic parliament.  It is now very likely to form a coalition with the pro-bailout PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement – Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα), and possibly even with the Democratic Left (Δημοκρατική Αριστερά), according to reports of the latest coalition talks.  New Democracy’s leader Antonis will likely be Greece’s new prime minister, with the only question being whether PASOK and Democratic Left figures will take positions in the government or merely provide support to the coalition.

Samaras is allegedly favoring the appointment of Vassilis Rapanos, the president of National Bank, as finance minister.

Athens News has a full blog of Tuesday’s coalition talk developments.

In the meanwhile, here’s a look at where each of the main political actors stand in the fallout of Sunday’s vote, looking onward to what should still be a hot, wearisome summer for Greece and its position in the eurozone: Continue reading Samaras pieces together coalition after ND places first in Greek election →

Egypt, France, Greece

Big weekend for France, Greece and Egypt

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It’s another big weekend for elections!

Voters in Egypt go to the polls today and tomorrow to choose a president in the final runoff between the Muslim brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force commander and the final prime minister of former president Hosni Mubarak, in what is seen as a Hobson’s choice between Islamism and the military. Since the Supreme Constitutional Court disbanded the parliament, and Egypt hasn’t even written a new constitution, though, we have no idea whether the new president has real power or will be a figurehead!

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Egyptian election here.

Voters in France go to the polls for the second time in two weeks for the second round of parliamentary elections, which are expected to confirm a governing majority for newly elected Parti socialiste president François Hollande.  One open question is whether Hollande’s party (and their allies) will win the 289 seats necessary to govern without forming a coalition with the greens and/or communists.  Controversial individual contests also see Hollande’s former partner Ségolène Royal, far-right Front national leader Marine Le Pen and centrist François Bayrou fighting hard for seats in France’s national assembly.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the French elections here.

Finally, voters return to the polls in Greece after no party emerged in May elections with enough support to form a governing coalition.  Far-left SYRIZA, led by the brash, youthful Alexis Tsipras, is expected to vie with center-right New Democracy for the lead in what will still likely be a fragmented result.  Most of the Hellenic parliament’s seats are awarded on the basis of proportional representation for all parties that receive over 3% of the vote, while the top party receives a ‘bonus’ of 50 seats.  The leading party seems likely to form a governing coalition.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Greek elections here.

Greece

Post-‘Spailout’ climate pulls Samaras even closer to SYRIZA’s position

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As the second Greek legislative campaign in as many months winds down for Sunday’s vote, it is becoming difficult to spot the difference between the leaders of the two parties most likely to win.

Oh what a difference a month can make.

Antonis Samaras, leader of the center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), has been moving toward a “renegotiation” position for some time, but his latest comments about a potential renegotiation of Greece’s bailout terms today vary astonishingly little from what Alexis Tsipras, leader of the leftist SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς), has been arguing all along:

Overhauling Greece’s debt deal, known as the memorandum, was also at the top of his party’s agenda, he said. “We will change the memorandum, the relentless recession cannot go on.”

He indicated that European leaders were open to renegotiating Greece’s debt deal. “Europe is changing, Greece has a chance for a fair negotiation within this climate of change,” he said.

Samaras said ND had set two conditions for joining other parties in a coalition government: securing Greece’s position in the eurozone and modifying the memorandum.

It’s a staggering evolution by Samaras, even since May.  Regardless of whether SYRIZA wins on June 17, it has cleared moved the terms of Greece’s national debate.

Meanwhile, read Tsipras’s op-ed in The Financial Times from yesterday — he sounds much more like Samaras than the marching-in-the-streets radical of the first election campaign (indeed, the idea of Tsipras writing an op-ed in The Financial Times back in April would itself have been risible).  It’s clear that, with even-or-so odds of becoming Greece’s next prime minister, Tsipras is looking to project an image of sober competence:

The systemic fiscal problems of Greece are, in large part, a problem of low public revenues.  Myriad tax concessions and exemptions granted to special interests by previous administrations, along with a low effective tax rate on personal income as well as capital, explain much of the problem. So too does the highly ineffective method of tax collection. Continue reading Post-‘Spailout’ climate pulls Samaras even closer to SYRIZA’s position →

Greece

Tsipras outlines SYRIZA program, as Samaras shifts tone toward bailout renegotiation

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Alexis Tsipras laid out his party’s program for the upcoming June 17 Greek election on Friday.

Tsipras said a SYRIZA government would immediately reject the memorandum on coming to power and ask for Greece’s debt to be restructured or for a moratorium on repayments. It would then repeal a reduction to the minimum wage and extend unemployment benefit to two years. It would also repeal recent labor market reforms limiting collective contracts.

Tsipras set out how his government would stabilize the economy. He said public spending would be set at between 43 and 46 percent of GDP, rather than under 36 percent as agreed in the memorandum. The SYRIZA leader said he would raise revenues by cutting down on tax evasion, waste and corruption and forming an assets register for all Greeks at home and abroad. The wealthy would pay more under a new tax system, he said.

The key takeaway point is that it is not substantively different from the program under which he led SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς) in the previous May elections.

It does, however, highlight a subtle but unmistakable shift in the tone of Tsipras’s main rival, Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), the center-right pro-bailout party that finished first in the May election.  Samaras in recent days has increasingly been taking a softer line on renegotiating Greece’s austerity program with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all of which granted two bailouts to Greece in exchange for its adoption of austerity measures and labor market reforms.

Although Samaras has raged throughout both campaigns that a SYRIZA win would be catastrophic and lead to Greece’s exit from the eurozone, it’s clear that in the second campaign, ND and the pro-bailout PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement — Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα) are moving toward SYRIZA’s position.   Continue reading Tsipras outlines SYRIZA program, as Samaras shifts tone toward bailout renegotiation →