EU's response to election results risks Europe's stability

The weekend's election results in Greece and France have demonstrated more clearly than ever that the European Union and its austerity policies, designed to preserve its flagship euro currency, are feeding a rise in the popularity of extremist parties.

In Greece, the two centrist parties Pasok and New Democracy together received just 30% of the vote compared with almost 80% three years ago, while a 'radical' left-wing coalition called Syriza secured 17% and the openly fascist Golden Dawn gained 7% giving it seats in the Greek parliament.

France also was not immune to such forces, with Marine Le Pen and her Front National party gaining almost a fifth of votes and coming third in the country's presidential contest - an improvement of more than 2.6 million votes on her father's result in 2007.

Continuing a trend that was already in evidence, voters turned to alternatives to the centrist parties as they refused to budge from the Brussels doctrine and appeared unable to provide people with the responsive government they crave.

As the editorial in today's Guardian puts it, "Democracy matters. When Brussels or Berlin loses sight of that simple fact, voters reach for simpler and uglier solutions."

Stability at risk

For the EU's advocates, who claim the organisation is responsible for preserving peace in Europe since the Second World War, this impetus being given to ultra-nationalist forces by the inability of countries locked within the euro to quickly restore competitiveness and growth to their economies should give pause for thought.

The EU's critics on the other hand have long argued that the only true guarantor of continued peace and stability between European nations is effective democracy, where people feel they have meaningful influence over the rules that affect their lives.

Since the EU's fundamental ethos is political integration, which aims to centralise political decision-making in its largely unaccountable Brussels institutions, it's no surprise that growing numbers of people are coming to realise that the EU system is in reality working against goals of peace and stability by driving Europe away from its post-war democratic revival.

Arrogant elite

Such an idea appears far less shocking when leading EU figures are seen stepping in immediately following a public vote in another country to slap down the result.

Take Peter Altmaier, the chief whip of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat party, who said that France's president-elect Francois Hollande needed to learn that while his election victory may herald change in France, it would not be allowed to change anything on the EU level.

Almost glorying in how people and their votes no longer matter when it comes to directing their own political future, Herr Altmaier said: "It is very important indeed to send a message to the markets that nothing will fundamentally change."

Germany's chancellor herself has also stressed her opposition to Hollande's key campaign pledge of reopening the euro fiscal pact, telling the Berlin media "that's just not on."

"We in Germany are of the opinion, and so am I personally, that the fiscal pact is not negotiable. It has been negotiated and has been signed by 25 countries," she said.

Turning her fire on Greece, Mrs Merkel insisted that Athens must also comply with the stringent terms of its £100bn bailout even though more than 60% of the Greek electorate had voted for parties rejecting those terms.

The European Commission has also weighed in, telling the new French leader that all previous agreements between France and EU were binding despite the election.

"We expect agreements to be ratified. That is the very basis of the EU," said a Commission spokesman. Yet isn't the ability of a new president or parliament to overturn the decisions of a predecessor in response to a majority of public votes the very basis of democracy? Can there be any further doubt that the EU and democracy are fundamentally incompatible.

Post-democracy?

The moment of truth now looming is not just an economic one over the future of the fiscal pact and the euro, but also a civil and democratic one that goes to the heart of political power on our continent.

Who truly decides how European countries are governed: voters in elections or the technocrats of the EU?

If the EU elite continue on this course of slapping down events in which people cast their votes and expect things to change, they will be playing increasingly dangerous games with the future of Europe.

When those who govern either cannot, or will not, respond to public votes, the necessity of a radical change in course away from EU centralism and its outdated, 1950s goal of political union becomes even more urgent.

The Left is mobilising against the next EU Treaty ... but the BBC won't admit it

by Marc Glendening

In Britain any media story about disquiet and resistance to a new transfer of powers to the EU inevitably focuses obsessively on the Tory Eurosceptics.

The BBC, of course, always attempts to explain away opposition to a prospective Brussels power grab as being almost exclusively a 'right-wing' phenomenon.

This is in part a consequence of journalistic laziness, in part a cyncial campaign to try and culturally marginalise those who question EU power.

For many years the Democracy Movement has drawn attention to the nasty McCarthyite flavour of the campaign many on the New Labour left, people such as Denis MacShane and Peter Hain, have run against their opponents on the European issue.

The propaganda fantasy offensive being waged the Euro-McCarthyites will soon be hard to maintain. The real story now emerging is how many on the left across Europe are mobilising against the latest move being driven by Merkel and Sarkozy to give Brussels control over the Greek and other Eurozone economies.

As Ian Traynor of The Guardian commented on January 26 in his front page story: "The treaty would enshrine the German model of fiscal and monetarist rigour as binding on the eurozone, in a move that would, in effect, outlaw Keynesian economics."

Late last year, writing in the New Statesman magazine, the influential left-wing commentator Owen Jones, author of the excellent Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, wrote similarly: "Left-wing governments of all hues will, in effect, be banned by this treaty. If the French or the German left returns to power in the near future....it will be illegal for them to respond to the global economic catastrophe with anything but austerity. An economic stimulus is forbidden - because the treaty has burried Keynesianism."

It is not only in Britain that the left is waking up to the fact that the top-down EU one-size-fits-all power system means the death of democracy in the member countries.

Francois Hollande, the French socialist candidate for president who is the clear favourite in his race against Sarkozy, has promised to re-negotiate the treaty as it makes it impossible for him to deliver on his promises as things stand.

This is why democrats across Europe, regardless of their broader political differences, should hope that the Gallic left do indeeed triumph over the EU-fanatical centre-right.

If Hollande does indeed become president and does deliver on his promise to challenge the undemocratic nature of the treaty, it will be interesting to see if the BBC harp on about the French being 'marginalised' as a consequence and the whole ensuing row being the product of 'right-wing' Little Gallicism.

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written by Marc Glendening