10/1/2017 Merkels Defeat Confirms Dismail Trend for Europe Global Issues

Global Issues
Merkels Defeat Con rms Dismail Trend for
Europe
by Roberto Savio (Rome) Friday, September 29, 2017
Inter Press Service

ROME, Sep 29 (IPS) - Generally, media have failed to analyse why the result of German elections is the
worst possible. Merkel is not a winner, but a leader now in a very fragile position, who will have to make
many compromises and pay now for her mistakes. Let us make at least the most important four points of
analysis.

Roberto SavioPoint One: the decline of traditional parties. Now for some years, the traditional parties who have run their
countries since the end of the Second World War are becoming irrelevant. The last French elections saw the practical collapse
of the Socialist and Gaullist parties, with the arrival of a totally unknown candidate, Macron, who has now 60% of the seats in
the Parliament. The same happened earlier in the Austrian presidential elections.

This process has now started in Germany. Merkel's party, the CDU, had the worst performance since its
creation. And its sister party, CSU (the Bavarian CDU) has lost a staggering million votes. The same has
happened to the SPD, who saw the lowest approval since modern times. The two parties, who had in the
last elections 67.2% of the votes, now got just 53.2%. And, as everywhere else, the missing votes went to
parties who were recipients of discontent, and the desire to punish the establishment was evident.
Linke, a radical left-wing party, got an additional 0.6%, by voters rejecting the increasing social
inequality, and did not believe that SPD would be different from the CDU on this issue. The Green got an
additional 0.5%, by those who were incensed by Merkel's promise to increase defence costs to 2% of
GDP, to please Trump. But the big winner was the AfD, an extreme right wing party, who was the conduit
for people's dissatisfaction on immigrants, on the European Union, and other nationalist and populist
themes. AfD got 12.6 % of the votes, becoming the third party and with 96 members of parliament. AfD
got 980.000 votes from the CDU, 470.000 from the SPD, 400.000 votes from the Linke. But, much more
importantly, 1,200.000 votes from people who did not vote in the last elections. In a poll, 60% of them
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said that they were "disappointed with the present political situation'. At the same time the poll
company Infratest Dimap, found out that 84% considered Germany's economic situation "good", when
this was 74% four years ago, and a mere 19% eight years ago. The elections were not clearly on
economy, but about immigration and the loss of German identity.

Therefore, Macron's victory over Le Pen is not the end of the populist wave. And few doubt that if
Macron loses his appeal (as it is already happening), and his ght for social reforms is stopped by mass
manifestations, Le Pen would win the next elections. And the antisystem parties all over Europe did not
win in the last elections, but they did not lose eithe. Now they are the needle of the balance in all
Nordic countries, and can declare, like Farage , the founder of the anti-Europe party UKIP, when he lost
in the last British election: it is irrelevant, our message has become part of all the political system. And
Brexit was the best example that he was rightall parties in the Nordic countries had to incorporate
points of the populist, especially on immigration.

It has been generally ignored that it is the middle class, the main actor in this change. Social inequality
in Europe has constantly grown, and many from the middle class are impoverished or afraid. Germany is
a good example. While unemployment went down with Merkel from 11% to 3.8%, those close to the
poverty line went from 11% to 17% of the total. Merkel went from a public de cit of 100 billion dollars,
to a surplus of 20 billion, but at the same time poverty doubled to 10%, and there are 2 million people
who have two jobs to help them reach the end of the month. And the pensioners who live below the
poverty line , have increased by 30%. A full 15.7% of Germans now live under the poverty line. Of these,
nearly 3 million are children.

Are the fears and frustrations of the middle class only who have pushed Brexit and Trump ? The
economist Homi Kharas, specialized on the middle class, considers that 43% of the world population
(some 3.200 million) now form the world middle class. It grows every year by 160 million. What is
common to them is that especially the lower middle class have high expectations from the government
and they put economic growth before anything else. They are helped by the Internet and social media,
to be aware of their rights, and of the risks. In rich countries, massive education helps awareness. In
developing countries, the pressure on governments is equally strong. The best example is China.
Between 2002 and 2011, there has been a strong increase in protests and loss of trust in the public
institution, despite a period of economic growth. The fact is that to keep growth and social justice
together, you need resources. And this a problem for the left. Its genetic message is redistribution and
participation. How to do this when we are in a world of diminishing resources?

Point Two. The antisystem becomes an entrenched system. Bill Emmot, the ex-director of the Economist,
has written: "we live in a period of political turmoil. Parties less than a year old have taken power in
France and in the megalopolis of Tokyo. A party less than ve years old is heading the polls in Italy. The
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White House is hosting a billionaire who never had any political experience. And we should add that
before the crisis of 2009, no populist or xenophobe party was represented in Parliamen.

We have therefore little experience on how antiparty system behaves when they are in power. But if we
look at the United States, Poland and Hungary, clearly they are trying to put under control the public
institutions, not because of the values of democracy that brought them to power, but a new campaign
on fears and greed: globalization, immigration, automatization's displacement of jobs, inequality, racism,
and "my country rst". And the antisystem parties, who all have sent congratulatory message to the AfD,
look to Putin as the political model to follow (except Poland for obvious reasons). But Urban of Hungary
speaks openly of "illiberal democracy" as the main reason to combat the EU (and Poland of values of
Catholicism against a secular Europe).

It is legitimate then to think that when the AfD, Le Pen, and company will come to power, (if the trend
toward antisystem is not stopped), we are going to see a serious decline of democracyalso because we
have Japan, India, China, Turkey, Philippines, just to name a few, who are nationalists, xenophobe and
tend to project their vision, as the Russian hackers did in the last elections.

We must look at the youth's decline in participation in politics as a new phenomenon extremely
worrying. The priorities in budget allocations go increasingly to the older generations, which vote. It is
important to note that the large majority of young people do not vote for the antisystem parties, but
abstain. If young people did vote, we would not have Brexit and Trump. In the German elections, only
10% of those between 18 and 24 voted for AfD: all other age groups did so, and we must go to the
oldest age group, those over 70 years to see a decline, to just 7% of the vote . But 69 per cent of the
oldest voted for CDU and SPD, against 41% of the youngest. So, the theory that young people are
moving to the right is a myth. They prefer to abstainbut the problem remains. Their abstention is
helping both the system to stay, and the antisystem to win. But take Italy for example, run by a centre
left party, the PD. They have just approved an incentive for youth unemployment (close to 30%), after
giving 30 billion dollars to bail out four regional banks. The antisystem M5S, which is now heading the
polls, has made the ght against the nancial system a priority. If you were young, educated and
unemployed, what would be your choice?

Point Three: German elections are a disaster for Europe. The appeal of an integrated Europe has been on
the wane for a while. It became fashionable to present the European institutions as a bunch of
unaccountable bureaucrats, out of touch with reality, intent on discussing the size of tomatoes. In fact, it
is the Council of Ministers, formed by representative of the States, who take the decisions: EU can only
implement them. But it becomes politically convenient to go back from Brussels and present decisions,
especially those unpopular, as a diktat imposed on your country. This, of course, is just one of the many
reasons for the decline of Europe as a political project. But is useful to remember this game, because it
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shows the irresponsibility of the political class. There was never a real unity behind the European
project. Every country looked only for dividends, and now, not even for that (as the example of Poland
and Hungary, very large recipients show). So, where is Europe heading?

There are in fact three visions of Europe. One is the vision of Juncker, the head of the EU. It calls for
strengthening the European institutions, and reinforcing the social goals, until now left behind the
economic and commercial priorities. It's not that Juncker is a progressive: he just realizes without doing
that, the anti-European parties will have an easier life. His view is of strengthening Europe as a super
national entity, with the states conceding more power, for better functioning. Then there is the vision of
Macron, who goes in the same direction, but from a country that has always jealously defended its
national sovereignty. Yet he realizes that in this competitive world, no European country can go far, and
a strong Europe is therefore necessary. Then there is Merkel's Europe, which is basically toward a
federation of countries, where decisions are taken by the states, (with Germany as the strongest), with
the EU implementing them. Since Macron came to power, he has been championing the revival of the
French-German entente, which is necessary for a viable Europe. Macron and the south of Europe have
been asking for socialization of European revenues, so as to sustain the weakest and have a common
growth, creating a European Monetary Fund to overcome crisis, a super minister of nance and economy,
a common European defence and several social measures to give back faith to the European losers in
Europe.

Well, this is exactly what Germany has vetoed every time. Germans do not want to share their revenues
with losers. In this debate, there is a strong religious and moral argument: the protestant ethic against
catholic culture of easy pardon. Greece was the eld to af rm the doctrine of ordo liberalism, the
German view of economics, where easy-going and lack of discipline must be punished. This was also a
warning to other countries, like Italy, Spain and Portugal. The result of sanctions on Greece, which was
just 4% of the European economy, is that after seven years there is at least 20% unemployment, a loss of
25% of the Greek economy, a reduction of the pensions of nearly 40%, and 20% of the population under
poverty line. It should not be forgotten that a large component of the bail out loans went rst to the
banks (mainly German), to pay the large credits they had with the broken Greek state, and not to the
citizens. And that now airports and ports are under German administration.

The face of this imposition of austerity, which is a very important component of the anti-European wind,
had the face of the implacable and crippled minister of Finance, Schauble. But there was no doubt that
he was pro Europe, even if of a Europe based on the German model. But now he has moved to be the
President of the Parliament, to leave his place to the chairman of the FPD, the liberal party, Christian
Lindner, who is an avowed anti-European. FDP is against the euro, wants Greece out of the Euro, wants a
strong policy on refugees: in other words, he is much on the right. Merkel, the extremely prudent

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Chancellor , will certainly not be able to meet the expectations of Macron and Juncker. Europe will again
be on standby. Italy will be probably run by a young PRime Minister (from the antisystem M5S) a totally
untested 31 year old, who has announced that he would like to leave the Euro, and limit Brussels power.
The tide against Europe has not been stopped at all, contrary to media enthusiasm.

Point Four: Merkel's responsibilities. There is no doubt that the massive immigration of one million of
Syrians, has given a strong weapon to Afd, and the liberals, to help them gain power. But time will prove
that it was a wise decision, greeted by the German economy. Statistics show that Immigrants are model
citizens, pay their taxes, and bring a net bene t to the country who receives them. Of course, we see
only the story of criminals and rapists, that xenophobe parties use with success, because in dif cult
times to nd a scapegoat is easy and convenient. But Merkel just rode the German idiosyncrasy, without
doing any statist's effort to mobilize citizens to a vision. She knows that the secret dream of Germans is
to be a Swiss: no participation in the world (other than business), no experiments, no risks. She has
become the embodiment of that idiosyncracy - she is glad to be called Mutti, the mother. Other than the
immigrants, she took only another risk, which was to abandon nuclear, after the disaster of Fukushima.
Therefore, she did nothing to raise the awareness of the citizens on their European responsibilities. She
shielded them from any sacri ce for being Europeans, refused any request by the EU, the IMF and the
Wold Bank to spend the huge surplus that Germany made with intra-European trade. Her position was:
we will keep the money we made with our hard work. And Schauble was just her instrument. Now, as a
result of her odd coalition government she will ask the European Central Bank post for a German hawk,
Jedemans, from the Bank of Germany: a good company to Christian Lindner. Dark days are coming for
Europe; Merkel is the best illustration of the difference between the Germany of Bonn, run by idealist
and committed politicians, with the Germany of Berlin, who is just a sel sh entity, without vision. And
after spending 100 billion a year, for 20 years, East Germany remains hopelessly behind, and it is where
AfD took his largest share of votes.

On the night after the elections, the candidate for SPD, Martin Shultz, said looking into her eyes: Mrs
Merkel, you are the great loser. You are the one responsible for the victory of AfD. Let us hope that
willingly or not, Mutti will be also the one responsible for the end of the European dream.

Inter Press Service (2017) All Rights Reserved

Original source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a
communist. Dom Hlder Cmara
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