Europe’s True Divide

[applegrove]

Europe’s True Divide

By Anne Applebaum at Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/02/greece_s_crisis_exposes_europe_s_most_important_divide_syriza_s_coalition.html

"SNIP....................



The most important division in Europe is not right versus left. Nor is the main issue even “austerity” versus “anti-austerity.” Some of the countries hit hardest by the 2009 financial crisis have pursued “austerity” with great success. Ireland has restructured and is once again growing. Latvia found ways to cut government spending without cutting pensions and is growing at one of the fastest rates in Europe.

The real division in Europe is between what I would call established, integrationist politics and isolationist, nationalist politics. It was visible last year in Britain, during the Scottish independence referendum. The Scottish Nationalists were unlike Syriza in many, many ways, but they were using similar language of “national renewal,” and they were calling for a similar reassertion of national control: control over the economy, over political decisions, over borders. Syriza gets along well with the Greek far right because, in essence, both want to reassert national control. Perhaps the right would prefer a higher emphasis on immigration, but it shares Syriza’s furious hatred of the troika that control the bailout fund that has been extended to Greece—the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund.


Both parties want decisions about Greece to be made inside Greece. Foreigners, especially bankers, should go away and keep their opinions to themselves. As it happens, Russia is now led by a man who voices exactly the same views: Vladimir Putin has also isolated his country, politically and economically, from the rest of Europe. Hence the warmth between him and the Greeks.


Emotionally, this view is perhaps understandable. But in practice it is utterly utopian. Yes, it’s true: Greeks democratically elected a government that wants to end “austerity.” But Germany, France, and others also have democratically elected governments, and their citizens do not want to prop up a country that still refuses to carry out structural reforms and cannot collect its own taxes. Nor do they want to pay for a massive run on Greek banks or a huge new wave of capital flight. Greece is not only a part of the European Union and not only part of the common currency eurozone, it is also part of a global trading system whose rules cannot be changed by a single country.




.....................SNIP"