By Roberto Savio
ROME, May 19 2015 (IPS)

The victory of the Conservative Party and the debacle of the Labour Party in the recent British general elections is yet another sign of the crisis facing left-wing forces today, leaving aside the question of how, under the British electoral system, the Labour Party actually increased the number of votes it won but saw a reduction in the number of seats it now holds in Parliament (24 seats less than the previous 256).

Roberto Savio

If the proportional rather than uninominal system had been used, the Conservative Party with its 11 million votes would have won 256 and not 331 seats in Parliament (far short of the absolute majority of 326 needed to govern), while at the other extreme the United Kingdom Independence Party with nearly four million votes would have landed 83 and not just the one seat it ended up with – results that would be hard to imagine anywhere else and a good example of insularity.

To an extent, the recent British general elections mirrored the U.S. presidential elections in 2000 when Democratic candidate Al Gore won around half a million more popular votes than Republican candidate George W. Bush but failed to win the majority of electoral college votes on which the U.S. system is based. The outcome was eight years of George W.  Bush administration, the war in Iraq, the crisis of multilateralism, and all the paraphernalia of “America’s exceptional destiny”.

Let us venture now into an analysis that will have the politologues among us cringing.“The left has tried to mimic the winners, instead of trying to be an alternative to the process of neoliberal globalisation and, since the beginning of the world financial crisis in 2008 … it has had no real answer to the crisis”

It is now generally recognised that the end of the Soviet Union has given free way to a kind of capitalism without control, marked by an unprecedented supremacy of finance which, in terms of volume of investments, overwhelmingly exceeds the real or productive economy.

In its wake, neoliberal thinking has found the left totally unprepared, because part of its function had been to provide a democratic alternative to Communism, which was suddenly no longer a threat.

The left therefore has tried to mimic the winners, instead of trying to be an alternative to the process of neoliberal globalisation and, since the beginning of the world financial crisis in 2008 (with its bail-out cost so far of over four trillion dollars), it has had no real answer to the crisis.

Ever since the industrial revolution, the identity of the left had been to press for social justice, equality of opportunities and redistribution, while the right placed the emphasis on individual efforts, less role for the state and success as motivation.

Continuing with this brutal simplification, we have to add that the left, from Marx to Keynes, always studied how to create economic growth and redistribution – Marx by abolishing private property, social democrats through just taxation.

But it never studied the creation of a progressive agenda in the event case of an economic crisis such as the one we are now facing, with structural unemployment, young people obliged  to accept any kind of contract, new technologies which are making the concept of classes disappear, and rendering trade unions – erstwhile powerful actors for social justice – irrelevant.

It is unprecedented that the top 25 hedge fund managers received a reward in 2014 of 11.62 billion dollars, yet neither U.S. President Barack Obama nor Ed Miliband, then still leader of the Labour Party at the recent British general elections (until he resigned after election defeat), saw it fit to denounce this obscene level of greed.

Meanwhile, Europe as a political project is clearly in disarray, and now faces a “Grexit” on its southern flank and a “Brexit” on its northern flank.

In the case of a “Grexit” (the possible abandonment of the European Union by Greece), Greece faces the prospects of having to make substantial concessions to Europe, thus reneging on the promises of Alexis Tsipras who was voted in as prime minister in rebellion against years of dismantlement of public and social structures imposed in the name of austerity.

What is at stake here is the very neoliberal model itself and not only is ordoliberal Germany supported by allies like Austria, Finland and the Netherlands erecting a wall against any form of leniency, but countries which accepted painful cuts and where conservatives are now in power, like Spain, Portugal and Ireland, see leniency as giving in to the left.

A “Brexit” (the possible abandonment of the European Union by Britain) is a different affair. It is a game being played by British Prime Minister David Cameron to negotiate a more favourable agreement for Britain with the European Union.

A referendum will be held before the end of 2017 and the four million people who voted for the UKIP in the recent elections, plus the country’s “Euro-sceptics”, threaten to push Britain out of the European Union, especially if Cameron does not manage to obtain some substantial concessions from Brussels.

Meanwhile, if Europe is in disarray, the United States has a serious problem of governance. Analyst Moisés Naím, who served as editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine from 1996 to 2010, has pinpointed a few examples of how this has translated into self-inflicted damage.

One concerns China which, after waiting five years trying to get the Republican-dominated Congress to authorise and increase in its stake in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from a ridiculous 3.8 percent to 6 percent (compared with the 16.5 percent of the United States), got fed up and established an alternative fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Washington tried unsuccessfully to kill the initiative by putting pressure on its allies but first the United Kingdom, then Italy, Germany and France announced their participation in the new bank, which now has 50 member countries and the United States is not one of them.

Another example was the attempt by the Republican-dominated Congress to kill the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) which has provided support for U.S exporters to the tune of 570 billion dollars since it was set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934.  In just the last two years, China has provided 670 billion dollars in support for its exporters. Moral of the story: U.S. companies will be at a clear disadvantage.

As Larry Summers, a great proponent of U.S. hegemony, put it, “the US will not be in a position to shape the global economic system”.

The latest snub to the U.S. role of world leader came from four Arab heads of state who snubbed a U.S.-Gulf States summit at Camp David on May 14. The summit had been called by Obama to reassure the Gulf states that the ongoing negotiations with Iran over a nuclear agreement would not diminish their relevance, but the rulers of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain deserted the summit.

However, there is no more striking example of mistake-making than the joint effort by the United States and Europe to push Russian President Vladimir against the wall over his engagement in Ukraine by imposing heavy sanctions.

There was no apparent reflection on the wisdom of encircling a paranoid and autocratic leader, albeit one with strong popular support, by progressively also bringing in all Eastern and Central European countries. The result of this encirclement of Russia is that China has now come to the rescue of Russia, by injecting money into the country’s asphyxiated economy.

China will invest around six billion dollars in the construction of a high speed railway between Moscow and Kazan, is financing a 2,700 kilometre pipeline for the supply of 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas over a period of 30 years, plus several other projects, including the establishment of a two billion dollar common fund for investments and a loan of 860 million dollars to the Russian Sberbank bank.

So, the net result is that Russia has been pushed out of Europe and into the arms of China, and the two are now starting joint naval and military manoeuvres.  Is this in the interest of Europe?

At the end of the day, the decline of Europe and the United States perhaps comes down to a decline of political vision, with democracy being substituted by partocracy, and the statesman of yesteryear being substituted by very much more modest and self-referential political leaders.

This is all taking place amid a growing disaffection with politics, which is now aimed basically at administrative choices, making corruption easy. At least this is what around one-third of electors now appear to believe when they are asked if they think that they can make a difference at elections … and this is why a rapidly growing number of people are deserting the ballot box. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

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Corner of unofficial camp in Calais housing Syrian, Sudanese and Afghan asylum seekers before it was closed on May 28 for health reasons. Credit: Roger Hamilton-Martin/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, Jun 5 2014 (IPS)

Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their home country have come up against a less than accommodating “Fortress Europe”.

As of June 1, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 2.7 million Syrian people who have sought refuge outside of their home country. Notable host countries include Lebanon (estimated 1.1 million), Jordan (600,000), Turkey (760,000), Iraq (200,000) and Egypt (140,000).

However, after what Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation described as “disproportionate worries” over Libyan refugees reaching Europe during the collapse of Gadhafi’s regime in 2011, the continent has again failed its neighbours during an international crisis.“Some attribute it [current reluctance to receive Syrians] to the economic crisis, but I think there is clearly an Islamophobic element” – Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe’s independent Commissioner for Human Rights

UNHCR has called on Europe to accept 30,000 Syrians in 2014, and 100,000 during 2015/2016. The European Union’s most generous country has been Germany, agreeing to 10,000, while several states – including the United Kingdom – have refused to accede to the U.N. programme altogether.

Europe is the largest donor of humanitarian aid, and has made it clear that help will be given in monetary donations for the region, but this generosity will not extend to significant resettlement or temporary hosting. Nicosia, the closest European capital to Damascus, is half as far away as the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, yet Iraq has accepted many times more refugees than all of the E.U. states combined.

Explaining Europe’s reaction to the crisis in Syria, Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s independent Commissioner for Human Rights, told IPS: “When I talk with UNHCR and others, you see that the current reluctance to receive Syrians is in pretty striking contrast with reactions to previous flows of refugees from other countries. Some attribute it to the economic crisis, but I think there is clearly an Islamophobic element.”

The United Kingdom has a long history of resettling refugees in reaction to international crises – the 42,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin in the early 1970s and the more than 22,000 Vietnamese displaced during the Vietnam War are just two examples.

However, after rejecting the United Nations Syrian resettlement plan for Europe, David Cameron’s government set up its own resettlement scheme, known as the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, which will only permit resettlement for a few hundred Syrians currently located in regional refugee camps. The first few arrived in March.

Those countries that adopted the U.N. plan will be subject to accepting increasing numbers of refugees as the war continues and the U.N. raises its quotas. However, the United Kingdom will not be subject to these increases.

British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn spoke to IPS about the scheme: “I feel very disturbed that the British government has not taken in many (Syrians) at all, and has decided to run a British programme rather than a U.N. programme, which seems to be a rather dangerous precedent – you end up with a degree of selectivity.”

“I asked a specific question of the Home Office about why we couldn’t be part of the U.N. programme, they kept saying ‘we’d rather do things the British way.’ I don’t know what the British way is on this. This is a global crisis, we should be part of the solution.”

Political feeling has swung to the right during the past year in the United Kingdom, with the rise of nationalist parties such as the U.K. Independence Party, which performed well at the European elections in May. The party campaigned on an anti-Europe, anti-immigration message.

The response of the mainstream U.K. parties to the rise of UKIP has been to pander to an increasingly divided electorate by stepping up anti-immigration rhetoric. Rejecting the U.N. resettlement scheme prevents immigration figures being further augmented, allowing fodder for parties like UKIP to win votes.

A further blow to Syrians attempting to reach the United Kingdom to claim asylum was struck last week, when an unofficial camp in Calais on the French border closest to the United Kingdom was closed for health reasons.

The camp, which also was used by contingents of asylum seekers from Sudan and Afghanistan, served as a launching point to reach the English coast. Many were attempting to reach the United Kingdom to re-join family or find work to send money back to family in Syria.

French police entered the camps flanked with bulldozers after an outbreak of scabies amongst the migrants, who mostly live in small makeshift tents. In a statement, Amnesty International condemned the convictions saying, “Under international law, France must not carry out forced evictions and must protect all people from them, including migrants and asylum-seekers.”

Immigration is also a hot issue in France, with the anti-immigration Front National party making large gains in the European parliamentary elections. It has called for return to full national border controls, and a reconsideration of the Schengen agreement that allows for free movement between European states that have adopted it.

Meanwhile, asylum seekers remain in limbo, caught between a land that they need to escape from and a continent that is reluctant to welcome them.

A refugee in Calais called Abdul, who spoke to IPS, said: “Every time my dad speaks to me he says we don’t have money to eat. I tell him there is no work in France. What I want is to be able to work and send them back some money. I want to go to the United Kingdom as soon as possible so I can save my family from the life they are living.”

Additional reporting (video) by Natasha Tsangarides and Phillip Nye. Arabic translation support by Claire Badawi.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, May 6 2013 (IPS)

The European Union (EU) has asked its citizens to brace for further economic misery. In a report on European economic prospects released on May 3, the European Commission said that further deterioration is expected to last at least until 2015. But, as every such report says, things will then get better.

Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and publisher of Other News. Credit: IPS

Unemployment in the euro area is expected to climb to 12.2 percent this year, up from 11.4 percent last year. In Spain, unemployment will rise to 27 percent, up from the 25 percent of last year; in Portugal it will rise from 15.9 to 18.9 percent; and after three brutal years of suffering, in Greece it will climb by 2.7 percent to 27 percent.

The trend will be devastating for young people: in Spain alone, it is estimated that 52 percent of young people will be without a job. We are creating a generation that will probably never get back on track.

The same trend is also unfolding in the rich countries of northern Europe. The German economy is expected to grow this year by a mere 0.4 percent, and from Austria to the Netherlands, the picture is one of decline.

This crisis is sapping the foundations and the identity of Europe. Since the end of the Second World War, Europeans have come to expect a social safety net that would cushion the less fortunate until they were able to spring back to work and dignity. Compared with the American dream, in which anybody could achieve the highest economic and social status through individual effort, without meddling by the state, the European dream was very different.

Now, however, most economists agree that this dream has become very distant because there is no way that the economy can lift that many people any longer. In Europe, austerity is eliminating the social safety net.

But while the United States and Japan have taken the road of economic stimulus, injecting massive quantities of money into their systems every month, and already with some visible results, Europe has taken the opposite direction. The European policy is to cut public spending and raise taxes simultaneously as the recipe for eliminating deficits. And, despite clearly available facts and the declarations of some accepting the need for growth, this policy is not changing.

Besides losing its gloss, the EU is fostering a growing resentment. On the same day the European Commission report was released, the strongly anti-Europe United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) registered a major success by taking 25 percent of the votes cast in local elections in the United Kingdom. Similar parties are sprouting everywhere, from Belgium to the Netherlands, from Austria to Finland. And, for the first time, a similar party in Germany is now running on a platform to leave the Euro.

The lack of effective leaders who are up to the task is allowing the cracks in Europe’s foundations to grow. In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament but is vilified every day by demonstrators throughout the country. In France, President François Hollande also enjoys a solid majority but he now has the approval of only 25 percent of the electorate. Portugal has an almost identical situation, Greece has a very strong anti-austerity and anti Europe party and Italy has a new government with an uncertain future.

Few realise that Italy is a special case of malfunctioning and lack of synchronism with Europe. The end of the Cold War led to the death of the modern Italian political parties, which were created and fuelled by the Cold War: the Communist Party and the Christian Democratic Party.

But in the creation of a new political system, an unparalleled event took place: Silvio Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, with a powerful media empire, decided to enter politics to escape personal economic and judicial problems. He became a deft politician and ever since Italy has been split between pro-Berlusconians and anti-Berlusconians.

This latter camp has brought together the entire centre-left and left, and is unlike other European left-wing parties such as the Labour Party in England, the Social Democrats in Germany and the Socialist Party in France. Those parties predate the end of the Cold War, and were not built to counteract a one-person party like Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party. Out of this anomaly has emerged a new Italian political “party”, the Five Star Movement, again led very personally by a comedian-turned-politician, Beppe Grillo, which is also totally asynchronous with Europe. Until Berlusconi retires, Italy will remain split over him, and all elections will be inconclusive and bring no real political agenda to the centre of debate.

If the old generation of German pro-European leaders, like Helmut Kohl and Helmut Schmidt, were still there, it would probably try to educate the Germans on the values of Europe for Germany. Germans are deeply convinced that they should not put their wallets at the disposal of southern Europeans who work less, try to avoid paying taxes, have spent beyond their means and, instead of swallowing the bitter medicine, expect Germans taxpayers to bail them out.

But a study last year by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found that, in 2011 alone, Germany was able to save the equivalent of 11.1 billion dollars. This was because it could borrow money at much cheaper rates than southern Europe. And last month, a study by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation claimed that to leave the euro would cost Germany the equivalent of some 1.6 trillion dollars over 13 years.

The whole of Europe is waiting to see what will happen in the September elections in Germany. The Social Democrats are less pro-austerity than Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in all probability she is going to win. Will she then change her stand against everybody, including even the International Monetary Fund, which is decrying the excesses of austerity? Nobody knows, but many hope.

Meanwhile, the world is not stopping to give Europe time to solve its internal weaknesses. Just read the report of the U.S. National Intelligence Council on global trends. Among others, the U.S., European and Japanese share of global income is projected to fall from 56 percent to 26 percent in 2030. Any further European decline would hasten those projections. So, time is not on Europe’s side.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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