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International News Title: The EU in Denial John Kerry, portentous and vague to the end, speculated that Donald Trump’s presidency would last "a year, two years, whatever." British prime minister Theresa May, hoping that the Trump administration will last long enough to grant a post-Brexit trade deal, pitched for business with a we-never-close desperation. Xi Jinping, the first Chinese leader to attend the forum, seemed to have prepared by reading The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann's novel set in a Davos sanatorium. "Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room," Xi said, issuing prescriptions to the world's leaders as if they were tubercular invalids. "Wind and rain might be kept outside, but so are light and air." The health of the European Union was also on the agenda. These days, the sick man of Europe is the eurozone itself. Its constitution is weak, its currency ailing, its prospects for recovery grim. Brexit Britain, fearful of economic gangrene, prefers to risk becoming Europe's phantom limb. In Berlin, Doktor Merkel prescribes cold baths for the debtor nations of Europe's southern tier, while running a hot current account surplus of 9 percent, far above the EU's legal limit. In France, National Front leader Marine Le Pen campaigns for the presidency peddling a crank cure of "Frexit," while implying that some of France's immigrants might like to Frexit too. In Eastern Europe, the national governments self-medicate with stronger immigration policy. Meanwhile in Brussels, the EU's leaders insist that there is no alternative to the union, and no alternative future for it other than "convergence" into a single state. Like self-levitating fakirs, the Eurocrats insist on mind over matter. They can afford not to mind: Their patients' feelings do not matter. The leaders of the EU are not elected by Europe's voters, but in secret deals between the union's national governments. National politicians are, however, still subject to the inconveniences of democracy. Perhaps this is why two of them spoke candidly in the consulting room at Davos about Europe's ailments, and what can be done to alleviate them. "The whole idea of an ever-closer Europe has gone, it's buried," Mark Rutte declared. Rutte is the prime minister of Holland, one of the six signatories of the 1951 Treaty of Paris, the original cornerstone of Europe's union. His center-right People's party is on course to lose the March elections to Geert Wilders's Euroskeptic and anti-immigrant Party for Freedom. "The problem with Europe is Europe," admitted Pier Carlo Padoan. He is the finance minister in Italy's lame-duck center-left government. Italy was another of the founding signatories of the Treaty of Paris. In December, Padoan's prime minister Matteo Renzi lost a referendum on constitutional reform that was seen as a vote of confidence in Renzi's pro-EU economic policies. Italy's new prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, is trying to recapitalize several large banks, including the Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the country's third largest. In late December, Gentiloni's government set aside 20 billion euros of state money for bank recapitalization, and asked for another 6.6 billion euros from the European Central Bank. The ECB demurred. Article 32(4) of the EU's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive allows state aid only as a last resort. "In many, if not all, European countries," Padoan admitted, "there is a tendency to say our problems are generated in Brussels or Frankfurt." Schulz accused Euroskeptic members of the European parliament of "trying to destroy the EU from within," even drawing salaries from an institution they were trying to undermine. He alluded to MEP Marine Le Pen as an example. Perhaps her constituents should vote again, until they get it right and agree with Schulz. Then again, perhaps the voters of Europe should be allowed to elect the president of the EU's highest institution. If the EU's leaders continue to resist the democratic revolt of the voters, they will go the way of the Neanderthals who once roamed the valleys of Switzerland. Europe's middle class, Padoan said, is "disillusioned about the future, disappointed about the job prospects for their kids, and disappointed about the security that they can get out of a welfare system that may become unsustainable." They are expressing their dissatisfaction by "saying no to anything that policymakers suggest." National elections are the forum for this refusal. It is these elections, not the coercion and subterfuge from Brussels, that will determine the future of the EU and its currency. Padoan called last year's tremors—Brexit and the Italian referendum—a "sign of crisis." The imminent elections in Holland, France, and Italy will intensify this crisis. Geert Wilders is surging towards winning the largest share of the vote in Holland. Marine Le Pen is leading the polls for the first round of voting for the French presidency. In Italy, the insurgent left-wingers of Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement are breathing down the Democratic party's neck, and may become the Rome parliament's second-largest party. The insurgents are forcing the historic parties to campaign as nationalists. In Italy, Padoan's center-left party is moving left, to head off the Five Star Movement. In Holland, Rutte's center-right party is tacking further right, to stanch the loss of voters to Wilders. In France, another of Europe's original six signatories, François Fillon performs the same rightward maneuver. This week, Fillon promised "real controls" at France's borders and said that the country should "ignore" the Schengen Agreement, which guarantees free movement within the EU. Fillon is likely to defeat Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election. Europe's voters, like the peasants of old, are revolting. Their revolt is, however, more against the EU's policies than against the idea of the EU. Polls suggest that the voters understand the problem better than Herr Schulz does. In France, Italy, and Holland, majorities of voters want to remain in the EU, but similar majorities also want the EU to reform. The voters want less rigidity on convergence towards a single state and more flexibility on borders, immigration, and debt repayments. The incoming leaders of the EU's core states will carry mandates to limit, alter, or even annul their current treaty obligations to Brussels. This dynamic offers the EU a choice. It can save itself by becoming more democratic, more accountable, and more responsive. Or it can continue with its current policies. These have wrought economic stagnation and the rise of ultranationalist parties across the Continent, and caused a lost generation through debt and emigration in the EU's southern tier. If the EU pursues these failed policies in defiance of voters and their national leaders, the result will be the secession of a eurozone state. If that happens, the EU will go, like the road from Davos, downhill all the way. Poster Comment: I note with some interest a shift in editorial policy since Kristol abandoned the helm at WS after leading it for 20 years, followed by Steven Hayward becoming general editor. Hayward would be considered anti-Trump by most measures but the Standard's co-founder, Fred Barnes, was steadily pro-Trump and remains so. I think the NeverTrumpers at Weekly Standard and National Review will ultimately play a role in some key battles of the Trump presidency, issues like tax policy and court (and Court) appointments. I see them closing ranks with Trump in small but important ways. This should be no surprise to anyone but will formally mark the total takeover of the GOP by the Trump presidency. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
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