European Politics

Zare said:
Is it? I think that rise has been stalled with the loss of Le Pen and incapacity of the far right to take rule of any significant European economy.
Click to expand...

Don't think not being able to win necessarily means it stalled, in many places far-right went from completely irrelevant into a minor but relevant status.
 
In some places it lost relevance. They come in waves, as political pressure stats to rise so do these clowns. They offer dumb, wrong, but simple solutions for complex situations. If mainstream politics takes care of the pressure and brings back stability, you see these far-right politicians swiftly lose even the handful of seats they had in the parliament. But there will always be some audiences for them, and they have so called party strongholds somewhere, in those areas they're going to be represented on the city/county councils etc. That's my observation, at least. Also Brexit moderated a lot of people who thought you can apply a simple hammer solution to a complex 21st century geopolictical problem.

I just may be more optimist than you.
 
Perun said:
That's a highly idealistic view. I oppose the idea of focussing on one single person on the top. We have a parliament, ministers, a supreme court, not to mention countless institutions on the various federal levels. This is a democracy, not a monarchy, ffs. It's not just Merkel, Merkel, Merkel. People aren't voting for the chancellor, they are voting for the parliament, no matter how much the electoral campaign tries to make it look otherwise. It's not the US. Moreover, this is the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a far-right wing party will enter parliament, who have condoned acts of terrorism and put the crimes of the Nazis in relation, and it's precisely under the aegis of Merkel that this happened. This is not what I call 'keeping the country together'.
Click to expand...

In other words it works like the English Parliament? Or is it U.K Parliament? Forgive my ignorance. Last time it was explained to me it was similar to this. The party leader is voted on, but it is the party that wins and takes up seats. Right?
 
All these factors Perun:
Perun said:
That's a highly idealistic view. I oppose the idea of focussing on one single person on the top. We have a parliament, ministers, a supreme court, not to mention countless institutions on the various federal levels. This is a democracy, not a monarchy, ffs. It's not just Merkel, Merkel, Merkel. People aren't voting for the chancellor, they are voting for the parliament, no matter how much the electoral campaign tries to make it look otherwise. It's not the US. Moreover, this is the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a far-right wing party will enter parliament, who have condoned acts of terrorism and put the crimes of the Nazis in relation, and it's precisely under the aegis of Merkel that this happened. This is not what I call 'keeping the country together'.
Click to expand...
You blame Merkel for the rise of extremism? A more extreme (left) person/party would have a better influence you think?

She and her party will win big time because she is a stable factor among the waves of extremism. Yes, I keep focusing on her, because I am sure she is very important in all this.
Perun said:
I'm certainly not putting all the blame on Merkel, but I am blaming the responsible governments and parties for failing to communicate their policies and strategies adequately to people who feel marginalised by them. This is not something Merkel and her party did alone - almost all parties have high-ranking officials who made grave errors in communication. This became a problem when critics of these policies became loud and rude, most prominently in the shape of Pegida and AfD, and instead of trying to reconnect to them, the concerning politicians further antagonised these critics by calling them Nazis, scum and the like. This, as I said, is not what I understand under the idea of keeping a country or its society together.
Click to expand...
I am curious to know what would keep the country together in a better way (under these circumstances) in your opinion.
 
Last edited:
Forostar said:
You blame Merkel for the rise of extremism? A more extreme (left) person/party would have a better influence you think?
Click to expand...

You already quoted my answer to this. The rise of extremism isn't a law of nature. In the case of Germany, it is a result of failed communication and blocked discussion on the part of politicians from all major parties.

Forostar said:
I am curious to know what would keep the country together in a better way (under these circumstances) in your opinion.
Click to expand...

Let's see. For a start, our ministry of finances could get rid of its fetish for a balanced household and make funding available for important investments. Infrastructure would be one example: There are bridges all over the country that will soon have to be closed for traffic because they haven't been maintained for decades; heavily frequented railroads are currently closed for reconstruction because they have been left to rot. Almost the entire country is lacking broadband internet access, which makes it impossible for businesses to operate online except in a few select cities, and therefore the bulk of the country is not in touch with modern economy. Funding for schools is needed so that children don't have to be taught by overworked teachers in rotten buildings using outdated teaching material. Labour legislation needs to be improved so that people can actually have some stability in their lives and a proper income instead of getting a new short-term labour contract every six months, and can save up some money so they won't have to search trash cans for bottle deposit when they're old. Instead of imposing restrictions on property owners for raising their rent which they can easily bypass, maybe some new affordable housing should be built in major cities so that average people can afford living there. Instead of decreasing police presence in major cities, something should be done to hire the tens of thousands of policemen who are currently lacking in order to effectively fight crime. Families should get the same sort of support regardless of how they choose to raise their children, instead of the government picking out certain models they decide to support. People who happen to earn less than 50,000 EUR per year shouldn't be treated as second-class patients by doctors and hospitals because they are not entitled to private health insurance, because they are already paying like crazy for public insurance. Efforts should be taken to ensure that people working in both public and private sectors get the necessary regular pay rises.
In short, the problems the country and its society are facing should be tackled, so that whole groups of the population don't get marginalised. Crazy, I know.
 
Thanks for the effort. Let's see if there will finally be some investments in these matters. Maybe a left wing party would care the most for these issues. Or not per se?

Just a remark on one of the issues.
On the roads, my father told me when he cycled to Poland that he thought the roads were better in eastern Germany (there had been investments after the wall fell). I always felt that intriguing. That the west was behind (at least for a while) is some regards.
 
Forostar said:
Let's see if there will finally be some investments in these matters
Click to expand...

There will always be baby steps. But as long as we have a Swabonian minister of finances, not much will happen. For context, Swabonians are said to be wealthy and cheap, like the Scots. And this guy certainly is.

Forostar said:
Maybe a left wing party would care the most for these issues. Or not per se?
Click to expand...

No, not a chance. To give you some empirical evidence, all of the problems I listed are present in Berlin, many of them quite dramatically. For a year now, Berlin has had a far left government. Not only has nothing changed; there have not even been any measures introduced for change. I don't understand how a self-described socialist party can show no interest in solving housing problems, but there you have it. I have zero hope in the German left, I think their government would be bad for the country, and I hope it won't happen.

Forostar said:
On the roads, my father told me when he cycled to Poland that he thought the roads were better in eastern Germany (there had been investments after the wall fell). I always felt that intriguing. That the west was behind (at least for a while) is some regards.
Click to expand...

That's true for a lot of things. Many east German towns look a lot nicer than those in the west. But there are also much less jobs there.
 
So, just a brief comment on the election results: All the percentages the parties got are pretty much in the line of what I (and most everyone) expected, so no surprise there. Merkel's conservative party is severely weakened, but still the strongest, and Merkel will remain chancellor. The only thing that truly surprised me is that the social democrats, who were in a government coalition with the conservatives until now, announced that they would not continue the coalition and go to opposition. This is because they had hands down the worst result in their history and no longer feel backed by the population. The social democrats say themselves that it's because they will not accept that the extreme right AfD is going to be the largest fraction in the opposition. I didn't expect that sort of integrity from the party. This makes only one possible option for a future coalition, the conservative fraction, liberals and greens, which is dubbed the "Jamaica coalition" because of the colours associated with these parties (conservatives = black, liberals = yellow, greens = take a guess). This will be a very difficult alliance, although most commenters consider it possible. The most difficult partner in this alliance, it is believed, will be the right wing of the conservatives, who actually have their own party, but are traditionally in a union with Merkel's party.
The major topic apart from the future coalition is of course the AfD, which enters the parliament with 13% and are the third largest fraction. I believe that they will try everything to get attention and have all debate revolve around them, but I also think that they will prove to be completely incapable of doing any sort of constructive work or present their supporters with any results, and most likely disintegrate by the time of the next elections, probably by splitting into several factions or even parties, and disappointing a lot of their voters who aren't from the hardcore fanbase.
Personally, I believe there are worse things than a Jamaica coalition, as there is the possibility that the good ideas all associated parties have will be worked in, and the bad ideas will be cancelled out. Of course, the exact opposite is also possible.
 
Perun said:
Personally, I believe there are worse things than a Jamaica coalition, as there is the possibility that the good ideas all associated parties have will be worked in, and the bad ideas will be cancelled out. Of course, the exact opposite is also possible.
Click to expand...

Usually the policy of such a coalition will consist of the least common multiplier of the three parties' policies plus the policies that the major party finds too important. Then a few sweets thrown to the minor parties in the coalition.

Take as an example the previous Norwegian government, a so-called red-green coalition that was in office 2005-2013. It consisted of the Norwegian Labour Party, the Socialist Left and the Centre Party (agrarian). In practical policies, they were more or less Labour through and through. The other two parties got as their reward a promise that the EU question would not be raised (a small sacrifice for Labour anyway as a referendum would most likely end in "no" anyway) and as an extra for the SL - no oil and gas activity in the Lofoten region.

Ironically, the same issues were the main "sweets" thrown to the supporting parties for the current government ... so even though the three biggest parties are in favour of both EU membership and opening new areas for oil/gas, they give those away in order to get alliance partners.
 
That's true, but I'm not sure which positions which party is willing to compromise to get to the smallest denominator. There are pragmatists and fundamentalists both in the green and liberal parties. The pragmatist wings will find a lot of common ground, the fundamentalist ones won't. But I don't know which wing of either party will dominate the negotiations, because I am not sure what power they actually hold within either party.
 
That makes the situation different from my example, as the coalition partners had already agreed before the election that if they got a majority, they would enter negotiations to form a coalition. In a way you could say the pragmatic wing within each party had won prior to the election campaign.

I wonder how the Greens will handle a coalition with a conservative party. Their Norwegian counterpart (or even offspring) has sided with the left on most issues, and in the recent election most experts counted them in as potential support for a new (Labour-led) majority. The Green party in Germany is not only one of the biggest environmentalist parties in Europe, but also one of the first, so their example will obviously mean a lot to similar parties in other countries.
 
There are several examples of conservative-green coalitions throughout the country. Some succeeded, others failed. An important part of the party represents German bourgeoisie, so they could be considered the natural partners of the conservatives. However, there is also the leftist-alternative part, which is the one that is considered "fundamentalist", and I'm just not sure how big and how powerful it is on the federal level.
 
jazz from hell said:
What do you make of Martin Schulz's heavy attacks against Merkel -- *after* the fact? Isn't that a sign of a bad loser, rather than one of integrity?
Click to expand...

I get what you mean, and to a certain extent, I agree with you. Most analysts have stated that had Schulz said the things he's saying now before the election, he might have had a chance. The problem is that Schulz is the member of a party that was part of the government, so heavy attacks against Merkel would sooner or later have fallen back on the SPD, since they governed with her. However, Schulz was also trying to sell his party's policy as a success. Under these circumstances, it was impossible for him to win; when watching Schulz's behaviour after the elections, he looked like a heavy burden was lifted from him and he could finally speak his mind.
When I talked about integrity, I didn't mean Schulz as a person as much as I meant the party as a whole. For the past 12 years or so, they would have done anything to be in power, and consequently alienated their voters; they tried to pass of absolutely atrocious electoral results as success and by the end of last year, it felt like they had completely lost touch with reality. So I was seriously surprised when I saw that they actually decided to draw consequences at last. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "integrity", maybe "sense of reality" would have cut it more.
 
jazz from hell said:
I see. From what I understand though, the SPD seemed to be able to realize their ideas. Now, they have to compete with AfD, which is loud an provoking, and the opposition to them is already in the government. But yes, I also understand the need for change if SPD only gets smaller by being part of the coalition.
Click to expand...

One of the first statements of Schulz' about going to the opposition is that the SPD has the motivation of not letting AfD be the largest opposition party, and not letting them be the first to comment on government politics. I know some party members personally who have said so, and I believe them that this is what they think. I don't know if the party leadership had this as their primary motivation, but it's not really important anyway.
 
Perun said:
The only thing that truly surprised me is that the social democrats, who were in a government coalition with the conservatives until now, announced that they would not continue the coalition and go to opposition. This is because they had hands down the worst result in their history and no longer feel backed by the population. The social democrats say themselves that it's because they will not accept that the extreme right AfD is going to be the largest fraction in the opposition. I didn't expect that sort of integrity from the party.
Click to expand...
In my view, it is especially a wise, self protecting, self conserving decision. In the last (and current because there's still an ongoing formation) government, The Dutch Social Democrats (PvdA) co-ruled with the liberal VVD party (who are right wing, and more conservative in certain matters than the name implies), and they got incredibly slaughtered for that collaboration. Perhaps you remember my rather depressive post about it. The decimation of the party was immense. The SD have watched what happened and decided not to risk that. I am not implying that we have identical countries, but surely, some changes have been the same, political wise.
 
Last edited:
It's apparently a law of nature that the junior partner in a coalition gets all the slag, the major partner gets all the credit. Problem: We already knew this in 2013, when the SPD decided to join the coalition. Everyone told them it's a stupid idea to do so, and they did so nevertheless. I have no sympathy for them.
 
Yep, replace 2013 with 2012 and that's exactly what happened here. I have more sympathy though, because if they would not have joined, we'd probably had a more right wing government. Taking responsibility, daring to do something is one.
Doing it twice after getting punished is something else.
 
The difference obviously is that the SPD isn't "my" party, and I don't think it's exactly teeming with competent people or good ideas.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top