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SOUČASNÁ ZÁPADNÍ EVROPA
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Lenka Rovná, Jan Váška
Obor: Teritoriální studia (kombinované studium)
Obsah
BBC.com, What is Islamic State?
Berger S, .A unique past and a questionable future
Bickerton C. a Invernizzi Acetti C., Democracy without parties? Italy after Berlusconi
Ferguson N., Civilization. The West and the Rest
Hitchin P., UK oil and gas: Squeezing the last drop
Martin I., Scottish referendum: who are the winners and the losers?
Mas A., The people of Catalonia have voted. Let democracy take its course
Robbins G. a Lapsley I., The success story of the Eurozone crisis? Ireland’s austerity measures
Spiegel.de, Summit of failure: how the EU lost Russia over Ukraine
Teffer P., Debate on nuclear energy rekindles in parts of Europe
The Economist, Pope Francis’s first year
Theguardian.com, Catalonia looks for alternatives after cancelling independence referendum
Theguardian.com, EU pressed to rethink immigration policy after Lampedusa tragedy
Theguardian.com, Coalition, minority government – or oblivion? How British politics could shake down in May 2015
Vossen K., Classifying Wilders: The ideological development of Geert Wilders and his Party for freedom
Williamson L., Le Pen's French National Front eyes route to power
Uvedené materiály jsou určeny výlučně k vnitřní potřebě distančního studia na IMS UK FSV
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29052144#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20sa
26 September 2014 Last updated at 09:43 GMT
What is Islamic State?
Islamic State (IS) is a radical Islamist group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and
across northern and western Iraq.
Its brutal tactics - including mass killings and abductions of members of religious and ethnic minorities,
as well as the beheadings of soldiers and journalists - have sparked fear and outrage across the world and
prompted US military intervention.
What does IS want?
In 60 seconds: What does Islamic State
want?
The group aims to establish a "caliphate",
a state ruled by a single political and
religious leader according to Islamic law,
or Sharia.
Although currently limited to Iraq and
Syria, IS has promised to "break the
borders" of Jordan and Lebanon and to
"free Palestine". It attracts support from
Muslims across the world and demands
that all swear allegiance to its leader Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri alSamarrai, better known as Abu Bakr alBaghdadi.
What are its origins?
IS can trace its roots back to the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who set up Tawhid wa al-Jihad
in 2002. A year after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and
formed al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which became a major force in the insurgency.
The tactics of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were considered too extreme by al-Qaeda leaders
After Zarqawi's death in 2006, AQI created an umbrella organisation, Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). ISI was
steadily weakened by the US troop surge and the creation of Sahwa (Awakening) councils by Sunni Arab
tribesmen who rejected its brutality. After becoming leader in 2010, Baghdadi rebuilt ISI's capabilities.
By 2013, it was once again carrying out
dozens of attacks a month in Iraq. It had also
joined the rebellion against President Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, setting up the al-Nusra
Front.
In April 2013, Baghdadi announced the merger
of his forces in Iraq and Syria and the creation
of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(Isis). The leaders of al-Nusra and al-Qaeda
rejected the move, but fighters loyal to
Baghdadi split from al-Nusra and helped Isis
remain in Syria.
Religious minorities, particularly Iraq's Yazidis, have
been targeted by Islamic State
At the end of December 2013, Isis shifted its focus back to Iraq and exploited a political stand-off
between the Shia-led government and the minority Sunni Arab community. Aided by tribesmen, the
group took control of the central city of Falluja.
In June 2014, Isis overran the northern city of Mosul, and then advanced southwards towards Baghdad.
At the end of the month, after consolidating its hold over dozens of cities and towns, Isis declared the
creation of a caliphate and changed its name to Islamic State.
Civilian deaths in Iraq 2006-2014
How much territory does IS control?
Some
Sunni Arabs showed their support for Islamic State after the group overran Mosul
Some estimate that IS and its allies control about 40,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of Iraq and Syria roughly the size of Belgium. Others believe they control closer to 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) - about
the size of Jordan. That territory includes cities - Mosul, Tikrit, Falluja and Tal Afar in Iraq; Raqqa in
Syria - oil fields, dams, main roads and border crossings.
Eight million people are believed to be living under partial or full IS control, where the group implements
a strict interpretation of Sharia, forcing women to wear veils, non-Muslims to pay a special tax or convert,
and imposing punishments that include floggings and executions.
How many fighters does it have?
Thousands of foreigners have fought for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq
US officials believe IS could have as many as 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria. Iraq expert Hisham alHashimi says about 30% are "ideologues", with the remainder joining out of fear or coercion.
A significant number of IS fighters are neither Iraqi nor Syrian. The Soufan Group recently estimated that
more than 12,000 foreign nationals from at least 81 countries, including 2,500 from Western states, had
travelled to Syria to fight over the past three years.
What weapons does IS have?
Islamic
State has become one of the most formidable jihadist groups in the world
IS fighters have access to, and are capable of using, a wide variety of small arms and heavy weapons,
including truck-mounted machine-guns, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and portable surface-to-air
missile systems. They have also captured tanks and armoured vehicles from the Syrian and Iraqi armies.
Their haul of vehicles from the Iraqi army includes Humvees and bomb-proof trucks that were originally
manufactured for the US military.
The group is believed to have a flexible supply chain that ensures a constant supply of ammunition and
small arms for its fighters. Their considerable firepower helped them overrun Kurdish Peshmerga
positions in northern Iraq in August, surprising many.
Where does IS get its money from?
Islamic State is reported to have $2bn (£1.2bn) in cash and assets, making it the world's wealthiest
militant group. Initially, much of its financial support came from individuals in Arab Gulf states. Today,
IS is a largely self-financed
organisation, earning millions of
dollars a month from the oil and gas
fields it controls, as well as from
taxation, tolls, smuggling, extortion
and kidnapping. The offensive in
Iraq has also been lucrative, giving it
access to cash held in major banks in
cities and towns it has seized.
In areas under its control, Islamic
State controls trade and collects
taxes and fees
Why are their tactics so brutal?
Videos and photographs of beheadings have helped persuade thousands of soldiers to abandon their
posts
IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider themselves
the only true believers. They hold that the rest of the world is made up of unbelievers who seek to destroy
Islam, justifying attacks against other Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Beheadings, crucifixions and mass shootings have been used to terrorise their enemies. IS members have
justified such atrocities by citing the Koranic verses that talk of "striking off the heads" of unbelievers,
but Muslims have denounced them. Even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who disavowed IS in
February over its actions in Syria, warned Zarqawi in 2005 that such brutality loses "Muslim hearts and
minds".
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/svet/zpravy/1119597
Irák podle prezidenta stojí o mezinárodní pomoc
proti islamistům
vydáno:
05.09.2014, 09:19
aktualizace:
05.09.2014 09:34
Bagdád - Irácký prezident Fuád Masúm v rozhovoru s americkou zpravodajskou stanicí CNN potvrdil, že
Irák nepožádal NATO o pomoc proti islamistům. Obrátil se prý ale na některé členské země aliance,
zejména na USA. Irákem od června postupují radikálové z Islámského státu (IS) a ohrožují kromě
sunnitských oblastí také provincie obývané Kurdy.
Kurdské síly, pešmergové na frontové linii u přehrady u severoiráckého Mosulu. ČTK/AP Khalid
Mohammed
NATO jedná na svém summitu od čtvrtka kromě jiného také o situaci v Iráku. Generální tajemník aliance
Anders Fogh Rasmussen řekl, že aliance od Iráku nedostala žádost o pomoc, ale pokud by dostala,
zabývala by se jí se vší vážností.
Masúm CNN řekl, že s mezinárodní pomocí bude možné IS "rychle porazit". "Odtud a prostřednictvím
tohoto rozhovoru žádám o podporu Iráku v boji proti těmto teroristům, protože Irák je nyní ve velmi
delikátní situaci. Jestliže tato organizace (IS) Irák porazí, bude postupovat do dalších států," řekl Masúm.
Potvrdil, že Bagdád o pomoc NATO nežádal, ale obrátil se prý na jednotlivé členy aliance. "Potřebujeme
několik věcí: odbornou radu a určité druhy zbraní, které je možné obdržet jedině prostřednictvím dohod.
Nepotřebujeme ale pozemní vojáky," sdělil prezident. Prohlásil, že Irák má vlastní vojsko, i když je třeba
je modernizovat.
USA v srpnu začaly bombardovat pozice IS v Iráku a zvažují další vojenskou účast v souvislosti s
brutálními vraždami dvou amerických novinářů. Masúm řekl, že tyto americké nálety byly rozhodujícím
faktorem vývoje v Iráku, a přisvědčil, že pomohly například osvobodit město Amirlí, které IS obléhal
několik měsíců.
"Začínáme věřit, že tuto organizaci z Iráku vyženeme a že ji budeme pronásledovat i pak, i kdybychom
měli hledat její spící buňky v dalších zemích," řekl Masúm. IS působí také na severu Sýrie.
"Je třeba bojovat s IS všude, protože jestliže ovládne Sýrii, její nebezpečí nepomine," sdělil prezident s
tím, že proti IS budou Iráčané v Sýrii moci postupovat jedině ve spolupráci s dalšími zeměmi.
Prezident také očekává, že v nejbližších dnech bude ohlášeno složení nové vlády, čímž pověřil Hajdara
Abádího. Podle prezidenta ve vládě budou zastoupeni jak většinoví šíité, tak také sunnité a další menšiny.
Mohla by tím pominout politická krize, která trvá od dubnových voleb a v níž přišel o svou funkci
dosluhující premiér Núrí Málikí.
Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/svet/zpravy/1128006
Profil: Proti IS útočí USA, Francie, Británie,
Belgie, Dánsko, Austrálie
vydáno:
03.10.2014, 09:03
aktualizace:
03.10.2014 09:26
Bagdád/Praha - Postoj vybraných zemí k leteckým úderům Američanů a dalších spojenců proti pozicím
Islámského státu (IS) (řazeny abecedně):
Dánský stíhací letoun F-16. ČTK/AP ENGEL JANUS
Arabské země
Na leteckých úderech Američanů proti pozicím IS v Sýrii se podílejí Bahrajn, Jordánsko, Katar, Saúdská
Arábie a Spojené arabské emiráty. Saúdská Arábie také poskytne své území k americkému výcviku
syrských bojovníků proti IS.
Rovněž Egypt, který se potýká s teroristickými útoky, podporuje mezinárodně koordinovanou akci proti
IS, leteckých úderů se ale zatím nehodlá účastnit.
Austrálie
Podle rozhodnutí vlády, které nepotřebuje schválení parlamentu, se australské letouny zapojí do náletů
proti IS v Iráku, kam budou také vysláni vojáci ze speciálních jednotek.
Belgie, Nizozemsko
Obě země se rozhodly vyslat do Iráku po šesti stíhačkách F-16.
Británie
Zapojení armády ostrovního království do letecké války proti IS schválil britský parlament - pouze však v
Iráku. Dva britské bojové letouny typu Tornado se poprvé zapojily do bojové mise 27. září. Británie také
dodává zbraně a materiální pomoc kurdským jednotkám, které bojují proti islamistům, a slíbila také, že
pomůže s jejich výcvikem.
Česko
Česká republika podle premiéra Bohuslava Sobotky neuvažuje o tom, že by se do letecké operace
zapojila. Premiér připomněl zásilky munice, která byla poslána z České republiky do Iráku na podporu
bojovníků z kurdských jednotek.
Dánsko
Oznámilo, že k leteckým úderům v Iráku vysílá sedm stíhaček F-16 a rovněž 250 členů personálu.
Francie
Francouzské stíhací letouny poprvé udeřily na pozice IS v Iráku 19. září. Francie se tak stala první zemí,
která se oficiálně připojila k americkým náletům na cíle IS.
Země rovněž pomáhá v boji proti radikálům dodávkami zbraní a podílí se na výcviku kurdských jednotek
bojujících proti islamistům. Poté, co islamisté zavraždili uneseného francouzského občana, zvažuje
Francie rozšíření svých leteckých úderů i na muslimské radikály v Sýrii.
NATO
NATO neplánuje své přímé vojenské zapojení do vojenských operací, je ale připraveno, pokud o to
požádá vláda v Bagdádu, pomoci s výcvikem iráckých bezpečnostních sil. Chce se také podílet na lepší
výměně zpravodajských informací, která má členským zemím pomoci vyrovnat se s hrozbou plynoucí z
návratu některých bojovníků IS zpět do jejich mateřských zemí v Evropě.
Německo
Německo v polovině září oznámilo, že se k leteckým útokům proti IS nepřipojí. Vláda ale rozhodla, že
Kurdům, kteří v severním Iráku bojují proti IS, Německo dodá protipancéřové rakety a samopaly.
Rusko, Írán
Moskva oznámila, že americké nálety proti islamistům v Sýrii bez souhlasu Damašku a mandátu OSN
představují akt agrese. Ke kritice náletů se přidal íránský prezident Hasan Rúhání.
Spojené státy
Spojené státy nasadily své letectvo proti islamistům v Iráku v srpnu a omezovaly se pouze na západ a
sever země. Nedávno Američané poprvé zaútočili na pozice radikálů i poblíž Bagdádu a od 23. září
podnikají s několika arabskými zeměmi letecké údery proti pozicím IS v Sýrii. USA se také podílejí na
výcviku a vyzbrojování iráckých a kurdských jednotek.
Turecko
Parlament této členské země NATO, která sousedí s Irákem i Sýrií, ve čtvrtek schválil vládě mandát k
vojenské intervenci proti IS. Neočekává se ale, že by se turecká armáda měla bezprostředně pustit do
bojových akcí, upozornil ještě před hlasováním turecký ministr obrany Ismet Yilmaz. Součástí rezoluce je
i souhlas poslanců, aby na tureckém území mohli být umístěni zahraniční vojáci podílející se na ochraně
tureckého území nebo přepravující se do zmíněných sousedních zemí.
Turecko je pod tlakem migrační vlny, která ze Sýrie započala už před třemi roky po vypuknutí občanské
války. Na jeho území našlo útočiště více než 1,5 milionu Syřanů a za poslední dva týdny jej zaplavila
další vlna nejméně 160.000 syrských Kurdů prchajících před islamisty.
Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz
5 December 2014 Last updated at 15:48 GMT
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30344625#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Germany jails Islamic State jihadist Kreshnik
Berisha
Berisha, pictured in the red jacket with his lawyer, admitted his involvement with IS in court
A German man has been jailed for three years and nine months for joining Islamic State (IS) militants, in
the first trial of its kind in Germany.
A court in Frankfurt convicted Kreshnik Berisha of membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.
Berisha avoided the heaviest sentence of 10 years after admitting he spent six months with IS in Syria last
year.
German authorities believe more than 500 German citizens have travelled to fight for IS in Iraq and Syria.
The domestic intelligence agency estimates that 60 have died there in combat or suicide attacks, and 180
have returned to Germany, according to the AFP news agency.
Berisha, 20, was arrested at Frankfurt airport last December after returning from Syria.
He was accused of having been with IS fighters in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels are
fighting against forces loyal to the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.
Hundreds of European citizens are thought to be fighting for IS
He was put on trial in September and was offered a deal by prosecutors, where he would receive a lighter
sentence in exchange for confessing.
Prosecutors also suggested the deal would include receiving information from Berisha about the inner
workings of the group.
Berisha was born in Frankfurt to a family from Kosovo.
IS is thought to have attracted hundreds of recruits from European countries in its battle to establish what
it describes as a "caliphate", spanning a borderless stretch of Syria and Iraq.
The US launched air strikes against the militants following their seizure of several towns and cities in
northern Iraq this summer.
Separately, Britain has jailed its first citizen to be convicted of involvement in terrorism in Syria.
Mashudur Choudhury, who was convicted in May, was sentenced to four years imprisonment.
He was one of a group of six men from Portsmouth who are known to have gone to fight in Syria. Four of
them have been killed.
THE BELGIAN STATE: A UNIQUE PAST
AND A QUESTIONABLE FUTURE
Stephanie L. Berger
Introduction
had seceded and declared independence from
Belgium and that the king and queen had fled.
The Belgian national newspaper Le Soir followed up the following morning with the
doomsday headline “Belgium Died Last Night.”
(Bilefsky) Widely believed and widely condemned following the clarification that the program was fictitious, RTBF claimed that the
report was an attempt to stir up much needed
debate regarding the future of Belgium.
Troubling times are nothing new to Belgians, the latter term in itself a loaded one.
Though it is common to anthropomorphize
states and refer to them as singular entities,
Belgium is more often metaphorically expressed
in terms of a marriage, and not a happy one at
that. As Robert Mnookin observed, “The nation’s
founding was . . . not a love match but an
arranged marriage between spouses who had little in common” (p. 106), and ostensibly have
even less in common today. Such conditions
have led The Economist, among others, to assert
that “a praline divorce is in order.” (“Time to Call
it a Day . . .”)
On Saturday, September 15, 2007, eBay
posted one of its most bizarre listings: Belgium was up for sale. “For Sale: Belgium, a
Kingdom in three parts . . . free premium: the
king and his court (costs not included)” read the
ad, whose author later noted that there was also
the small matter of the $300 billion national
debt that the buyer would incur. (“Disgruntled
Voter . . .”) This mock auction, a creative expression of voter frustration, came just prior to
the 100-day mark of the state’s failure to form a
government following the June 10 elections.
This was only the most recent mockery
that the Belgian public has endured. In December of 2006, a TV broadcast now known as the
Belgian breakup hoax rocked the small country
and reverberated in Belgian embassies around
the world. State-owned Walloon broadcast company RTBF interrupted regular programming
to air an elaborately crafted segment depicting
Flemish nationalists and fleeing monarchs;
for 30 minutes, viewers believed that Flanders
13
Today’s prospective divorcées would be
Flanders and Wallonia, which in 1932 retreated
to separate ends of the house, so to speak,
with a legalized territorial demarcation line
establishing the Flemish region in the north and
the Walloon region in the south; in the nineteenth century, the parties in question may have
been the Catholics and Liberals, or Catholics
and Socialists. In effect, “Belgium’s society
and polity have always been deeply split along
several dimensions” (Heisler, p. 33), so one need
only know the time period to know not whether
there was a disagreement at hand, but rather
whom the disagreement concerned. Historian
Tony Judt goes so far as to make the argument that at the state’s inception “it [Belgium] was held together not by any common
feeling of Belgianness but by hierarchically
organized social groups . . . that substituted
for the nation-state.” (p. 2) Thus, in a state
whose cleavages predate the state itself by 1,500
years (Heisler, p. 33) and whose differences —
be they religious, socioeconomic, cultural, or
linguistic — rather than similarities seem to
tenuously hold it together, one must wonder:
Does the Belgian state really matter?
Given Belgium’s track record of catalyzing
ethnic strife and turning out disaffected authors
who refer to their homeland as “that country
that no longer exists” (de Heusch, p. 13), there
is ostensibly little reason to go to the trouble
of maintaining a state with no national identity.
Apart from the monarchy, soccer, and perhaps
beer (Mnookin, p. 113), the Flemish and the
Walloons have nothing in common. The idea
of a shared history is hardly worthy of mention;
and were it not for the infamous “Brussels question,” the regions may well have gone on their
separate, autonomous ways by now. Authors
from nearly every decade since Belgium’s independence have written a doomsday forecast of
an imminent split; yet the state somehow persists. Its remarkable resilience in the face of
innumerable domestic clashes indicates that the
state structure must serve some important function whose absence would leave the regions
comparatively worse-off without it. The framework suits the interests of the Flemish and Walloons, who thus far have opted for unity over
separatism because they recognize the need
for the state to act as a forum for compromise
and a protector of rights. Granted, Belgium may
not parallel the conventional notion of statehood. But in today’s post-modern world that
is moving further away from Westphalian ideals,
that might not be such a bad thing.
This article will trace Belgium’s history
of divisiveness and the different measures each
side has taken to push its particular agenda. The
record shows a continuous conflict between ethnic groups, often leaving disgruntled citizens
and a precarious state structure in its wake.
However, the fact remains that the country
has stayed intact; and the final analysis suggests
that this arrangement, while problematic, will
endure due to the current makeup of the international system1 and the benefits this structure still offers its bickering factions.
Nascent Statehood
Belgium came into existence at a time
when it was still en vogue to become a nationstate in Europe. In reality, the term “nationstate” is a misnomer in this instance and has
never truly applied to Belgium’s situation. After
all, the formation of the United Kingdom of
the Netherlands in 1815 lumped two culturally and linguistically distinct territories — now
the Netherlands and Belgium — into one unit,
done at the behest of the great powers looking
for a buffer state to prevent another war of
Napoleonic proportions. Shortly thereafter,
the unlikely bedfellows of Flanders and Wallonia formed an uncharacteristic Liberal-Catholic
coalition to win independence from the Dutch,
and the constitutional monarchy of Belgium
was established in 1831. Fittingly, the two communities don’t celebrate the national holiday on
the same day: Walloons commemorate July 21
for King Leopold I’s ascension to the Belgian
throne, while Flemings, by decree in 1973,
observe July 11 in honor of a Flemish victory
over a French king in the Middle Ages. (Judt,
p. 6)
The forced marriage was an unhappy one
from the beginning, and the newly constructed
1
The nature of the international system is still one
of sovereign nation-states, an arrangement established by
the great powers of Europe in the Peace of Westphalia in
1648. However, recent trends of globalization and increasing regional interdependence are eroding state sovereignty.
The situation in Belgium will be examined in light of
these concepts later in this article.
14
state did nothing to intermingle the linguistically-divided populations. The nineteenthcentury politicized division, however, had less
to do with language and territory than religious
beliefs (or a lack thereof). Initially a two-party
system comprised of Catholics and Liberals, the
small country saw the addition of a third group,
the Socialists, by the end of the nineteenth century. Each represented more than mere ideological preferences of citizens, but rather an identity unto itself. Describing the extent to which
the parties institutionalized societal divisions,
Heisler notes:
These orientations came to embody most
aspects of life, not only political, economic,
or religious issues. Each of the three segments of the population established organizational infrastructures to match worldviews; therefore, it became possible for
those who identified with the Catholic,
Liberal, or Socialist perspectives . . . to
avoid extensive and intimate contact with
people of a different persuasion. (pp.
36–37)
Thus began the so-called “segmentation” of Belgian society. In a sense, this early compartmentalization of the population set a precedent for
the modern federalization of Belgium, with separate regions, governments, media, and indeed
lifestyles — each distinct and removed from the
other.
On the heels of the religious cleavage
between the Catholics and the Liberals came yet
another division that predates the contemporary Belgian situation, one whose roots were
socioeconomic in nature. At the beginning of
the nineteenth century, the southern region
of Wallonia, replete with coal and other natural resources, underwent one of the earliest
industrial revolutions in Europe and consequently became quite wealthy. This status took
on a greater significance within the state of Belgium, as Wallonia’s wealth was glaringly apparent in contrast with poor agrarian Flanders.
Oftentimes wealth breeds power, and that
axiom held true in Belgium’s case as well. The
Flemish populace took on second-class status
not only in terms of riches but in political,
cultural, and linguistic terms as well. The
francophone elite — both Walloons and privileged Flanders natives who spoke French —
dominated the positions of power throughout
the country. The elite of Flanders had French
educations as well, and for this reason were dissimilar from the rest of the masses inhabiting
the same region. A command of the French language was seen as the only way for advancement
within Belgian society, and consequently the
Flemish2 language was relegated to a low rank
as a symbol of backwardness. Publicly, ambitious Flemings denied their own heritage and
assumed varying degrees of the francophone
culture, as well as the language. This led to
the adoption of such common phrases as
“French in the parlor, Flemish in the kitchen,”
as well as the grudging acceptance of the late
nineteenth century Flemings that “it was necessary to cease being Flemish in order to
become Belgian.” (Heisler, p. 38) This mindset
only served to temporarily repress the regional
identity, as no greater state identity ever truly
gelled.
A Push for Parity
This class divide, originally more of an economic issue, segued into the beginnings of the
ethnic divisions of the present day. In the midnineteenth century, Flemings in the intellectual
and professional sectors began the push for
parity between the French and Flemish languages and cultures, an effort that came to be
known as the Flemish Movement. Among the
movement’s first objectives was to eliminate the
numerous Dutch dialects for the sake of one
standardized language, necessary in order to
achieve parity with the linguistically unified francophones. Embedded in this ideal of language
homogenization was the recognized need for
a true Flemish elite — one that spoke Flemish
rather than French — and thus a need for
improvements in Flemish education, especially
at higher levels. Political aims were secondary in
nature and served mainly as the vehicle to implement the aforementioned changes in the state’s
linguistic structure and educational system.
(Stephenson, p. 503) Modest success came in
1898 when Flemish was declared Belgium’s second official language, a ruling that was more
2
In the Flanders region of Belgium, both the citizens
and the language are characterized as “Flemish.” The Flemish language is the same as the Dutch language, differentiated by name only according to the country where it is
spoken.
15
de jure than de facto: most of official state
business continued to be conducted in French.
More substantial progress came for the
Flemings in the decades to follow. For hundreds
of years, a virtual barrier had separated the
Dutch-speakers to the north from the Frenchspeakers in the south; and though it had
remained relatively static, the boundary had
never been officially recognized by the Belgian
government. Finally, in 1932 the demarcation
line became law; and, more significantly, a
1962 Parliamentary decree established regional
unilingualism in Flanders and Wallonia and
bilingualism for Brussels and state institutions. (Dunn, p. 146) The demarcation line
now had the effect of determining the official
language of the regions: outside of the country’s
capital, Flemish, not French, reigned supreme
in Flanders. This effectively sent a message to
the French-speaking Flemish elite: learn to
speak Flemish — or leave. The principle of bilingualism in government further tempered francophone influence, as seats for Flemish-speakers
opened.
Linguistic-driven politics contributed to
much of the tumult seen across Belgium in
the 1960s. This political shift must be seen in
the context of the turn of economic events
that occurred in the previous decade, when
heavy industry in Wallonia fell on hard times
and unemployment skyrocketed. The North saw
the opposite effect, and for the first time in state
history the Flemish usurped the Walloon’s claim
to economic superiority. (Heisler, p. 39) Success
in Flanders wiped away the shame formerly
felt by the Flemish in the days of their secondclass citizenry, and they began to agitate for
political parity as well. The Flemish wanted
the same government privileges that the Walloons had long enjoyed; they consequently
pushed for an equal division of state offices
and subsidies, and the same level of regional
control in Flanders that the national government allowed the Walloons in Wallonia. This
economic shock to Walloon heavy industry
disrupted the old order and is what caused
Judt to remark that “what finally doomed the
unity of Belgium . . . was the reversal of economic fortunes” (p. 4) and all its attendant consequences.
What the Flemish viewed as nothing more
than an assertion of their rights was perceived
by the Walloons as a bold quest for statewide
dominance; thus in response the Walloons
started seeking reforms of their own in an effort
to protect themselves from the encroaching
North. The ruling coalition in Parliament in the
early 1960s recognized the need to halt the escalating language war and hammered out a series
of new laws that sought to bolster the Flemish
position while mitigating Walloon concerns.
(Dunn, p. 148) To achieve maximum linguistic homogeneity, the 1932 demarcation line was
slightly modified to allow Flanders and Wallonia to include Flemish- and Walloon-speaking
villages, respectively, that had formerly belonged
to the other side. In terms of education, new
facilities were built in Brussels for the Flemish minority, a move designed to simultaneously
help the Flemish and hurt the francophones, as
this law effectively blocked Flemish parents
from sending their children to French-speaking
schools. At the same time, in attempts to
appease the francophones, the government
established French schools in a handful of communes in the Flanders region outside of Brus-
Laws in Action
Initially, these changes looked better on
paper than in reality. Through much of the
1950s and 1960s, the Flemish fought the government over the issue of “Frenchification”
(Dunn, p. 147), the creeping influence of the
francophones on Flemings in the culture and
educational facilities within Brussels. Even
today the Flemish complaint of not feeling at
home in their own capital rings true; earlier
generations made the same protest. The
Catholics and secularists had a long-standing
battle regarding state subsidization of education, an issue the government dealt with in
the 1950s by passing the “School Pact,” which
simply allowed for greater allocation of funds to
both groups. Now the same fight was being
played out by regional foes, with the Flemish
agitating for education equality with the Walloons. This period was marked by what Dunn
calls “the decline in specifically religious or
philosophical conflicts between political parties”
and allowed for “the rise of a more pragmatic
interest-based style of politics,” i.e. the linguistic issue, which would henceforth remain
the focal point of Belgian life. (p. 147)
16
sels to provide resident francophones (of which
there were many) a place to send their children to receive an education in French.
As often happens, in trying to please everyone the government pleased no one, or at least
managed to draw the ire of both sides as a result
of the 1960s legislation. Francophones decried
the laws’ infringement on the rights of selfdetermination and choosing how to educate
one’s offspring, while the Flemish cried expansionism in protest of the construction of
French-speaking schools in Flanders. In hopes
of putting these flaring passions on the back
burner, in 1966 the Prime Minister declared a
“linguistic truce” (Dunn, p. 149) in order to
focus on other issues at hand. Though it was
effective for a time, it was a university crisis that
brought the truce, and that government, to an
end. (Judt, p. 6)
In 1968 the five-hundred-year-old Catholic
University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, or K.U. Leuven [Mnookin, p. 103])
marked the language war’s newest battlefield.
Given Belgium’s history of francophone privilege
in higher education, naturally there remained
many French-speaking university professors and
students at Leuven even after the Flemish language was placed on an equal plane with French.
However, to residents of Leuven, a college town
in a Flemish province, the francophone population — and worse, the primary schools that
existed to serve this group — constituted an
unlawful commune on their soil. In 1962 it
was revealed that residents not associated with
the university had been sending their children
to the French-speaking schools, a perceived stab
in the back of the Flemish Movement that had
for so long struggled to prove, in reality and by
law, that the Flemish language was equal to
French. (Heisler, p. 43) Demonstrations and
protests on both sides ensued, both within the
community and among university students. In
the end, the university split in two, with the
French section of the university leaving K.U.
Leuven and Flanders for Louvain, a town on
the other side of the linguistic border in a Walloon province, where the French-speaking University of Louvain (Université Catholique de Louvain, or U.C. Louvain [Mnookin, p. 103]) was
established. However, there was still the matter of the library. In a classic “Belgian compromise,” the two sides split the assets 50–50:
U.C. Louvain took the books with even call numbers, while the odd-numbered volumes stayed at
K.U. Leuven. (Mnookin, p. 103)
Intricacies of Belgian Government
The above anecdotal evidence of pragmatism speaks to a truth of the larger Belgian story,
where rather than cooperating to find an equitable solution, the two groups only seek to
ensure that no advantage, perceived or actual,
is given to the other side. (Fortunately for the
students, the library-splitting arrangement
did ultimately result in an equitable, though
unconventional, distribution of the assets.) Like
the couple in the midst of a bitter divorce, the
two regions want to take what’s his and hers and
keep the contact between them to a minimum,
drawing a “do not cross” line through the living
space. While democratic, all of this amounts
to inefficiency, excess, and waste in various
levels of government, and a populace divided
to the point that they have nothing in common with those on the other side of the internal border. (Judt remarks that roads crossing
from another country into Belgium have few
indicators of entrance into a new country, but
within Belgium the names of provinces are
posted prominently. “It is as though conventional arrangements had been inverted: the
country’s international borders are a mere
formality, its internal frontiers imposing and
very real.” [p. 6])
On the heels of the Louvain crisis came the
first major revision to the original constitution.
In 1970 the three regions (Flanders, Wallonia,
and Brussels) and three cultural communities
(Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, and German-speaking3) were officially established, with
corresponding governments and competences4
which the separate regional parliaments have
the authority to govern. (Heisler, p. 42) These
competences, devolved to regions and cultural
communities from federal government control,
reflected desires on the part of each group to
have greater power in certain policies, desires
which often came out of fear based on past experiences. Flanders, for example, wanted autonomy in linguistic and cultural fields, a natural
desire given the history of the Flemish as a marginalized group. Walloons, on the other hand,
looking to protect themselves and their status
17
against the recent increase in the Flemish
population and economic power, wanted control over social and economic policies. (Beaufays, p. 70) There were no constitutional amendments during the 1970s that satisfied the
Walloons’ wishes, and the goals of the Flemings
continued to expand and deepen. Thus, Belgian
politics is still marked by demands from both
sides over increased competences for regions.
In reality, little remains under federal control
aside from the military and social security,
and the latter is a point of contention between
the regions. This indicates that the importance of Belgium as a state lies more in its
passive position of allowing lower levels of
government to compete for control than in
any kind of active role in exercising power on its
own terms.
there are two Christian-Democratic parties, one
to cater to the Flemish and one for the francophones. While some may argue that the establishment of these separate systems reflects the
regional divide and serves the citizens’ needs,
the separateness of this structure further reinforces these divides. In other words, the relationship between the institutions and the people is circular, and it is difficult to determine the
driving factor. For example, while Billiet, Maddens, and Frognier note the role of the emergence of the two systems as a contributing
factor in the growing division of the country, the
authors later note that the division necessitated
the creation of the two separate party systems
and rendered the former unitary system obsolete. (Billiet et al., pp. 913–14)
The answer to the question of which factor exerts greater influence — the existing
regional divide or the distinct party systems
— matters less than the reality. Belgium is a
country divided, and the replicated political parties are just one manifestation of this fact. The
multiplicity of governments and government
levels make Belgium’s political system one of
the more complicated ones in the world, as well
as one of the more high-priced. The creation
of duplicate governments under the revised constitution of the 1970s — and even the federalization process itself whereby the federal government ceded powers to the regions and
communities — has proved costly, contributing
to the enormity of the national debt mentioned earlier. The nature of this multi-layered
setup yields substantial inefficiency. Aside
from issue areas that fall under the domain of
more than one government, the Belgian constitution, in its sensitivity to the demands of the
different ethnicities, enforces quotas, requiring
that a set number of representatives hail from
Flanders and Wallonia so as not to give either
region a numbers advantage. This renders the
decision-making process cumbersome at best,
and effectively reduces the Belgian government
to anti-majoritarian politics.5 (Heisler, p. 43) The
level of exasperation of the eBay author that permeates his advertisement noted in the introduction suggests that perhaps Belgian citizens
would prefer to forgo the strict rules of proportionality in the name of greater governmental productivity, but of course only if the opposition were the ones making concessions.
Institutionalized Divisions
While the aforementioned devolution of
the 1970s can be viewed as a victory for the
lower levels of government, the competences
can also be seen as a source of gridlock, making
political decisions needlessly complicated. Any
one issue is likely to involve multiple governments. For example, regions have control over
energy policy, but the state sets the energy
prices. Boundaries between competences tend
to blur and may overlap.
Aside from specific issue areas, overlap is
particularly evident when examining the parties
themselves. Rather than a two-party system like
that of the United States, Belgium has two
separate multiple-party systems. For instance,
3
Belgium is divided into three language communities: French, Flemish, and German. The German community is located on Belgium’s western border with Germany
and is part of the Wallonian region. (Portal Site . . .) The Belgian constitution accords certain areas of control (i.e.
matters of culture) to the language communities, which are
distinct from Belgium’s three regions: Flanders, Wallonia,
and Brussels.
4
The constitutional revisions in the 1970s federalized
the Belgian state, with governments at the national,
regional, and community levels. The central government
underwent the process of devolution, ceding control over
various issue areas to these lower levels and thereby increasing their autonomy from the center. The communities,
for example, have the constitutional authority to create separate education policies for their citizens without input from
the federal government. The Belgians refer to these domains
of control as “competences.”
18
Exasperation is running particularly high in
Flanders, where, following the 100th day without a government in the 2007 elections, a Flemish opinion poll showed that a record 46 percent
of the region wants to see Belgium split, and 65
percent think this result will eventually come
to pass. (“Half . . .”)
This institutionalized media gap reinforces
other areas of cultural separatism, and for some
it illustrates the impotence of the Belgian state.
As Billiet, Maddens, and Frognier remark, “Even
in bilingual Brussels, the French-speaking
and Dutch-speaking education networks are
entirely separate. This means that the central
Belgian authority has barely any policy instruments to promote or socialise a shared Belgian culture.” (p. 915)
For all the fuss made of the cultural division and monolingual media, one would think
that these phenomena had developed relatively recently and indicate some larger social
ill. The fact remains that there is nothing
novel or recent about the ethnic divergence
between the Flemings and the Walloons, and so
the existence of a media gap should surprise
no one and should not hint at the likelihood
of Belgium’s dissolution. Even to the Flemish
woman who could not imagine carrying on a
conversation with a Walloon, the idea of a splintered state was still more unpalatable. Though
many citizens may identify with their region
before their country, this does not necessarily
mean that they want to relinquish their ties to
Belgium.
Importance of Belgian Media
The role of the media ranks high among
visible dividers in today’s Belgium. Ironically,
while technology typically tops the list of factors that drive globalization and connect more
and more people around the world, technology is one of the very elements driving Flanders
and Wallonia apart. Much like their government
arrangements, the regions have confined radio,
television, cinema, and other forms of popculture to their specific spheres. A Fleming
would have little knowledge of, or interest in,
the news or cultural happenings in Wallonia,
and vice versa. A Fleming will read a Flemish
newspaper, listen to a Flemish radio station
on the commute to work, choose among Flemish television programs to watch in the evening,
and go out to see a Flemish movie on the weekend. This would not seem unusual in other
countries. In the United States, most people get
their news in English. But the situations of
Flanders and Wallonia are unusual when one
considers the fact that they are members of
the same country, one approximately the same
size as the state of Maryland. They reside no
more than 170 miles apart from each other;
yet they have no knowledge of the lives of
those living on the other side of the regional
border. (Encyclopedia of the Nations) When
asked about her feelings on the regional divide,
a Flemish woman responded that she “would
have nothing to talk about” with a Walloon, citing the lack of common ground in the realm
of popular culture, such as books and movies.
An Uncertain Future
As Van de Craen notes with a perceptible
air of weariness, “It has been said over and
over again that the country will fall apart, that
there is no need for it to exist, and so on.” (p.
25) Scholars, pundits, and radical political
groups have devoted themselves to this idea.
While a split may not be desired by the majority of the Belgian population as a whole, those
who hint at this so-called imminent breakup
know that they are striking a nerve and giving
life to an idea that, however unlikely it may
seem, is never outside the realm of possibility.
As long as Belgium remains a state and the ethnic cleavages remain intact, the question of
the state’s relevance, and lifespan, will continue
to persist.
As of January 2008, Belgium is setting the
record for the number of days without a formed
government, having already broken the country’s former record of 150 days. The Flemish
parties further stalled the process when on
November 7, 2007, in retaliation for the fran-
The Belgian constitution is one that sets out to define
and protect the rights of its various groups, and in the
process gives disproportional control to minority groups.
The tiny German community of just over 70,000 has the
same powers as the larger Flemish and francophone language communities, and Flanders and Wallonia are equally
represented in Parliament in spite of unequal populations.
A majority is needed to pass a law in government, but the
system is such that a majority is difficult to obtain.
5
19
cophone parties’ refusal to institute greater
regional autonomy, they unilaterally voted to
break up the Brussels electoral district, a move
that Blenkinsop claims “effectively depriv[es]
more than 100,000 French-speaking Brussels
suburbanites of the right to vote for francophone parties.” (p. 2) The Flemish have long agitated for increasing decentralization. A poll from
September 2007 indicates that the separatist
platform of the radical Vlaams Belang party, the
extreme right-wing Flemish nationalist group,
is not so radical anymore. Two-thirds of the
Flemish community think Belgium will eventually split, and nearly half desire this outcome.
(“Majority . . .”)
Even those outside the country are weighing in: another poll shows that more than fifty
percent of French residents living along the border would like Wallonia to become part of
France in the event of a breakup. (Balmer) No
one has extended any such offer to the tiny German community, the afterthought in the Belgian story, whose members want Belgium to
stay together for reasons of identity, homeland, and the pampered minority status that the
state grants them. (Codogno)
Whether or not Belgium remains together
rests more in the hands of those in government
than those casting votes in polls. For every
ecstatic Flemish separatist, there is an equally
obstinate Walloon who vows to freeze the proposed bill concerning the future of the Brussels
electorate, whether fragmented and under
Flemish control or status quo and favoring
the francophones. Though population numbers
would hint that the Flemish have the upper
hand, this is not the case in Parliament. As
Didier Reynders, the head of the francophone
Liberals, put it, “The Belgian pact is based on
compromise. In Belgium, you negotiate on
the basis of protecting minorities. A majority of
six million against four, that’s not Belgium anymore.” (as quoted in Blenkinsop, p. 1) The math
may seem logical, but the Belgian constitution favors minorities over mathematics. The
state exists less for practical purposes than for
protection, and acts as a framework within
which the various groups can meet to voice
their interests and work out their differences in
a way that would not otherwise be possible.
As one resident of the German community
noted, the three communities share linguistic
ties with the surrounding countries, but the
Flemish are not Dutch, the Walloons are not
French, and the German-speakers are not German. (Codogno) For all the separatist talk of a
“greater Netherlands” by right-wing Flemish
politicians, Flanders does not share a great deal
of common ground with the socially liberal
Netherlands. Plus, the Flemish population of
6 million people would revert to minority status if absorbed into their northern neighbor,
whose constitution does not take pains to look
after minority interests in the way that Belgium’s does. The Belgian state also affords
extensive constitutional rights to both Flanders
and Wallonia that neither would retain should
they join the Netherlands or France, respectively. Thanks to Belgium’s minority-minded
constitution, these groups are much stronger
inside the Belgian state than they could ever
hope to be outside of it. The case is magnified
in the case of the German and French language communities, where the countries who
share their languages have populations several
times larger than that of the entire state of
Belgium. And that is not to say that these countries would willingly incorporate the leftover
fragments. Just over half of the French citizens along the border were amenable to the
addition of Wallonia; but in a move that would
affect the whole of France, residents all the
way down to the Mediterranean would need to
share in that opinion.
In short, whether happy about it or not,
members of all of these communities — separated by language, culture, and a host of other
differences — are Belgian, and Belgium is their
home. This does not mean that there is a prevailing idea of a national Belgian identity; it is
well-documented that there are people in each
region, more in Flanders than in Wallonia, who
place their regional identity on a par with or
even above their national identity. (Billiet, Maddens, and Frognier, p. 915) For some Belgians,
the concept of a national identity is a joke
(Van de Craen, p. 24); for others, it is nonexistent, save for a moment in sporting history when a Belgian rider won the Tour de
France. (de Heusch, p. 11) On that point, all Belgians seem to agree, and nowhere in the country will one be badgered into displaying acts of
patriotism. Paradoxically, being a resident of
Belgium does not require one to be Belgian.
20
subsequent compromise that Belgium has experienced, it may ultimately fare better in the globalized era than other states who attempt to ward
it off with such futile measures as quotas and
other regulations to artificially protect an
ephemeral culture that will transform in a matter of decades.
In other words, as Van De Craen puts it,
“Whether or not [Belgium] is falling apart
may well be totally irrelevant.” (p. 26) The
state is not without its problems — the national
debt and the lack of government among them,
as alluded to by the eBay ad — but it is not without purpose. Its reasons for existence may not
fit with the design intent of the original model,
but the original model is increasingly out of
place in contemporary global politics. Belgium has teetered on the brink of disaster more
than once in its history; and the potential costs,
both economic and otherwise, of a split will
likely save it from collapse yet again. Just as the
concept of the nuclear family has evolved, so too
has the conception of the state. Thus, like the
couple who cannot afford the costs and consequences of a divorce or who stay together for the
children, Belgium will take a deep breath, vow
to make the best of it, and stick it out for the
foreseeable future.
It does not follow that the absence of a
strong national identity will bring about the
eventual death of a state, particularly when
the idea of unity was questionable at the state’s
birth. Indeed, the allowing for the expression of
other identities, whether tied to the region,
community, province, or municipality, and
the ability to fight for those interests are paramount and something to be preserved. What
happens within the space can and will change
with the passage of time, so it matters little
that the idea of a national Belgian identity or
culture is not very strong and therefore not a
unifying feeling. Culture is not a static concept,
but one that evolves over time, regardless of
location.
In the face of globalization and increasing regional interdependence, nationalism is
losing its potency, particularly in other countries in the European Union. Just as the idea
of culture is not a constant, neither is the concept of the nation-state. Currently it may be the
preferred method of organization in the international system, but this is only a moment in
history. Just as the international order evolved
a few centuries ago into one of nation-states, so
another form of order could eventually come to
take its place. With all of the ethnic strife and
21
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French Studies, No. 102, 2002, pp. 24–33.
Van Geyt, Gustave, Felix Rousseau, and Georges Smets. “The
Flemings and the Walloons.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.
246, September 1946, pp. 128–33.
22
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The Political Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 1, January–March 2014
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-923X.2014.00000.x
Democracy Without Parties? Italy After
Berlusconi
CHRIS J. BICKERTON AND CARLO INVERNIZZ I ACCETTI
Italian political life may be no stranger to
political instability but, even by its own
tumultuous standards, recent events constitute history-making high drama. On 27
November 2013, the Italian Senate—not an
institution known for its revolutionary
instincts—voted to expel Silvio Berlusconi
from its ranks. This decision comes on the
back of a steady decline in support for il
cavaliere from within his own political family.
Earlier in the same month, when Berlusconi
announced that Forza Italia would withdraw
its support for the cross-party coalition government, a number of his most loyal allies
rebelled. Angelino Alfano, currently Italy’s
interior minister and long considered
Berlusconi’s most likely successor to the leadership of the right, responded by quitting
Forza Italia and setting up his own more
moderate right-wing faction within the parliament.
Berlusconi’s expulsion from the Senate is
more than just another episode in a career
marked by both longevity and the constant
whiﬀ of scandal and controversy. Given
Berlusconi’s two-decade dominance of Italian
politics, his demise has signiﬁcance across the
whole political spectrum. The Italian right
will struggle to contain further fragmentation.
Already we see it divided between a rump
still loyal to Berlusconi, the moderates like
Alfano for whom the experience and privileges of governing have exerted a strong
gravitational pull towards the centre, and
the thoroughly disenchanted seeking refuge
in the reassuring invective of Beppe Grillo
and his Five Star Movement. Curiously
enough, however, Berlusconi’s legacy is likely
to be felt more on the left than on the right of
the political spectrum. The left in Italy has
long debated whether they need a ‘Berlusconi
of the left’ and in Matteo Renzi, the young and
media-savvy Mayor of Florence who won the
leadership elections for the Democratic Party
on 8 December 2013, they seem to have found
the very person they have long fantasised
about. The consequences of this for Italian
politics are likely to be felt for many years to
come.
The crisis of the Italian right
The depth of this crisis for the right stems
from Berlusconi’s highly personalised style of
rule. Rather than being associated with a set of
principles, the right was remodelled around
Berlusconi’s ebullient personality and clientelistic network. His persona was such a central
part of his political appeal precisely because
his entry into Italian politics corresponded
with the collapse of the previous political
order of the First Republic. The complex
web of parties, ministries, parastatal enterprises and local political power-brokers,
known pejoratively as partitocrazia (rule by
the parties), had come under some strain
before the outbreak of political corruption
scandals in 1992, challenged from below by
Umberto Bossi’s Northern League and from
above by Italy’s entry into the European
Monetary System and the signing of the
Maastricht Treaty. However, it was the corruption scandals that ﬁnally brought the old
order down. And it was at this point that
Berlusconi—with his money, showmanship
and charisma—stepped into the vacuum. He
soon found himself standing at the centre of a
political landscape stripped of all its vegetation. Though ideologically on the right, Berlusconi was careful to disassociate himself
from the past. He refused to rely on the extant
structures of Christian Democracy to the
point that Forza Italia meetings were never
held in old Christian Democratic party buildings. In 1994, around 90 per cent of the new
Forza Italia deputies had never before held any
parliamentary seat. Out of power for the
remainder of the 1990s, Berlusconi had time
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to build Forza Italia into something other than
a mere ﬁg-leaf for his electoral goals. But the
individual was never subsumed by the party
and Berlusconi pointedly refused to refer to
his political organisations as parties, preferring instead more exhortative terms such as
Forza Italia and Popolo della Liberta`.
Resisting the idea that ‘Berlusconism’
emerged from a vacuum, some observers
such as Perry Anderson have seen in him a
continuation of the glitz and razzmatazz of
the Socialist leader of the 1980s, Bettino
Craxi.1 The two ﬁgures were certainly close:
they holidayed together on the Ligurian coast
and skied together in the French Alps; Craxi
and his wife were witnesses at Berlusconi’s
marriage to Veronica Lario in 1990. Yet the
diﬀerences are stark. Craxi’s enjoyment of
money and riches was an integral part of the
boom years of the 1980s and in spite of them
he remained very much a party man. His skill
lay in his cultivation of political ties and his
brokering of political alliances. His goal was
to expand the authority of the Socialist party
and his project remained a party political one.
This was also the end to which he directed the
clientelism and political corruption that
ﬁnally forced him into exile: party ﬁnancing,
rather than self-enrichment, was the ultimate
end of Craxi’s illicit ﬁnancing model.
Berlusconi diﬀers from Craxi in many
ways. He gained his momentum from the
collapse of the old order, the very order that
Craxi had embodied so fully. The loyalty
Berlusconi commanded was always to himself rather than to a political tradition. He
pioneered, at least in Italy, a new form of
political mobilisation that cut out the intermediary of the party: isolated individuals
identifying themselves with political celebrities via the stories and footage of newspapers
and television programmes. Berlusconi also
diﬀered from Craxi in his practice of political
corruption. For Berlusconi, political corruption was merely a component part of his
wider business empire; the empire was built
for his personal enrichment, not for party
ﬁnancing, and it facilitated the latter only
once Berlusconi had entered politics.
For all his energy and bluster, Berlusconi’s
record of political and economic reform has
been poor. Though most of his governing
energies were dissipated in his incessant ﬁght
with the judges, another crucial reason for this
ineﬀectiveness was an inability to convert his
personal authority and charisma into a transformative political machine. The Italian right
after Berlusconi thus ﬁnds itself shaped by
this absence of any real legacy independent of
the man himself. It is divided between the
technocratic moderates of the Alfano faction
and the populists of Grillo’s Five Star Movement, with a loyalist core stuck in the middle.
This increasing polarisation between technocracy and populism follows logically from
Berlusconi’s style of political rule. His managerialism—lifted straight from the corporate
boardroom and parachuted into the gilded
governance structures of the Italian political
establishment—gave the Berlusconi years a
curiously technocratic glaze. His populism—
evident in his direct appeals to the Italian
people, his larger-than-life personality, his
personal memoirs published in lieu of a party
manifesto—was proof of his own break with
the ‘partitocracy’ of the First Republic.
The legacy of ‘Berlusconism’ for
the Italian left
It should come as no surprise, then, that the
Italian right is today struggling to adapt to life
after Berlusconi. What is much more surprising is that his legacy is being felt most powerfully on the left. In a highly inﬂuential book
published soon after the last electoral debacle,
the Italian political scientist and spin doctor
for the Democratic party, Mauro Calise,
claimed that one of the reasons for this party’s
historic weakness has been its reticence in
adapting to the requirements of a mediadominated age, which for him inevitably
implies accepting a measure of ‘personalization of leadership’.2 Although Calise
doesn’t go as far as to actually recommend
Berlusconi as a ‘model’ for the Italian left, and
is also careful to distinguish between the
charismatic and clientelistic aspects of his
leadership, this is the lesson many commentators have drawn, and it is in this form that
the question has recently been hotly debated
within the Democratic party itself.3
Today, those who saw in this idea of a
‘Berlusconi of the left’ a viable strategy may
be in the process of getting just what they
wanted—in the guise of the young and entrepreneurial rising star of the Democratic party,
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Matteo Renzi. During the previous electoral
campaign (when his principal rival was the
much more traditional party ﬁgure, Pier-Luigi
Bersani), Berlusconi himself described any the
prospect of Renzi taking up the leadership of
the Democratic party as representing a ‘miracle’ and ironically added that if it were to
happen he might consider voting for that
party himself. The analogies between these
two ﬁgures go further and extend into all
aspects of ‘Berlusconism’.
Renzi has certainly learnt lessons from
Berlusconi in matters of media management
and self-promotion—not just because he is
camera-friendly and knows how to speak in
soundbites, but more importantly because he
knows how and when to spark controversy.
He ﬁrst rose to national prominence when he
made the claim that the Democratic party
needed to ‘junk’ its political leadership.
More than the claim itself, attention came
because of the unconventional outlets chosen
to deliver the message. These included the
popular TV show Amici, aired on one of
Berlusconi’s own channels, where Renzi
appeared in a black bomber jacket giving
high-ﬁves to audience members and joking
about his own resemblance to Fonzie from
Happy Days.
To seasoned observers of contemporary
media-dominated politics, this sort of selfpromotion might not seem so striking. But in
the Italian context, it stands out because of the
left’s long-standing disdain for Berlusconi’s
style of communication. Bersani embodied
this perfectly, with his almost studiously untelegenic appearances and his constant invocations of ‘sobriety’ and ‘common sense’.
Renzi, in marked contrast, is the kind of politician who is always followed by paparazzi
and will have himself ﬁlmed in real time while
exercising his functions as Mayor of Florence.
Once asked in an accusatory tone by an old
heavyweight of the left, Giuliano Amato, the
title of the last book he had read—a question
that solicited an awkward and vague
response—Renzi has today transformed this
celebrity-style anti-intellectualism into a
badge of honour and supposed proof of his
close connection with la gente (ordinary folk).
Indeed, in his transformation of politics into
a media spectacle, Renzi has gone even
further than Berlusconi himself. Whereas
Berlusconi was spontaneous in his superﬁci-
ality and vulgarity, Renzi’s image is carefully
and explicitly managed. In a speech that
launched his bid for the leadership of the
Democratic party on 27 October 2013, Renzi
began with a long recounting of the ‘psychodrama’ that had rested upon the choice of
whether to speak from a podium or not.
This decision was cast as one between presenting a ‘stately image’ and ‘connecting
more directly with his audience’. What is
happening here is not only that the medium
becomes the message, as in Marshal
McLuhan’s famous dictum,4 but the message
itself also becomes more and more about the
medium.
The focus on the personal qualities of the
leader naturally follows from this style of
political communication and much of the
discussion of Renzi’s bid for the leadership
of the Democratic party has revolved around
him as a person: his age, his ambition, his
personality, his clean image; all oﬀset against
Berlusconi’s litany of oﬀences and peccadilloes. Such personalisation points towards a
deeper element of commonality between
them, which is their attack on the political
party as a means of political mobilisation. Just
like Berlusconi, Renzi’s leadership of his party
is based on his personal charisma, which is
used as a rallying point. This sits very uneasily with the Democratic party’s traditionally
strong internal apparatus, which has been the
source of most resistance to Renzi’s heady rise
to prominence. The only real battle that took
place in the run-up to the Democratic party
primaries was over whether the right to
participate in them ought to be restricted to
registered party members or extended to the
electorate at large. Renzi favoured the latter
and it was by winning this battle that he
secured the nomination, knowing that he
could count on the support of many sympathisers outside the party and use that as a
counterweight to opposition from within the
party. This was reﬂected symbolically in his
campaign: throughout, Renzi never appeared
in public displaying or endorsing the Democratic party’s symbols. As he explained in
speeches, his goal was to unite people around
a common project more than it was to divide
them along partisan or party lines.
In some ways, this strategy resembles that
of France’s Se´gole`ne Royal, who ran as
presidential candidate in 2008 using her own
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political movement, Desirs d’avenir, to incarnate an image of youthfulness and independence from the crusty and clannish leadership
of the French Parti Socialiste. However,
Renzi’s own political project is far savvier
than Royal’s and closer to Tony Blair’s transformation of the British Labour party from
within.5 Instead of pitting himself against the
party as an outsider, what Renzi has in mind
when he talks about ‘junking’ it is to import a
whole new model of political organisation,
based on the creation of consensus around a
single ﬁgure. In this model, the party is
reduced to playing a role as a mere conduit
and ampliﬁer. This project is popular and
plebiscitarian in its invocation of direct democracy (rule by the people rather than by
parties), but it is most likely to end up simply
bolstering the technocratic approach to exercising power.
It is here that we ﬁnd another way in which
Renzi is carrying forward and extending the
legacy of Berlusconi. Both adhere to what Ilvo
Diamanti has described as l’ideologia del Fare
(‘the ideology of Doing’)6 and this ideology
fuses together populist and technocratic
aspects. On the populist side, there is the
insistence that one’s record be judged in line
with a set of personal engagements made
directly with the people themselves. Berlusconi, for example, famously signed a ‘contract
with the Italian people’ live on TV just before
the 2001 national elections. Renzi has adopted
this model and structured his own bid for the
leadership of the Democratic party around
four ‘simple proposals’: abolition of the upper
house of parliament; simpliﬁcation of the
administrative structure of the state; reform
of the electoral law on the model of city
council elections; and reform of the justice
system. These proposals are posited as an
explicit contrast to the infamous 150-page
government programme drafted by Prodi’s
ill-fated coalition in the run-up to the 2006
election.
Quite apart from the fact that every one of
these proposals was at one point or other
endorsed, almost verbatim, by Berlusconi
himself, taken together they reveal Renzi’s
technocratic bent. They all betray a fundamental acquiescence to a set of goals assumed
to have already been deﬁned in advance, and
thus no longer in need of public debate or
justiﬁcation. None of Renzi’s proposals, for
instance, involves taking a principled stand
on the central issues of political contention
today: the economic crisis and the notion of
‘austerity’ are not even mentioned since Renzi
has made clear that he would as leader
uphold all of Italy’s existing commitments to
the European Union. Instead, the common
thread running through Renzi’s proposals is
a concentration of power in the hands of the
executive. This seems to be a logical corollary
of the ‘ideology of Doing’ since, as Diamanti
has insightfully suggested, if the deﬁning
feature of one’s political identity is that one
is capable of ‘Doing’, it doesn’t matter what
one does, only that one can do it. The political
enemy therefore quickly becomes the party
system itself and the administrative structure
of the state, both of which are understood as
needless fetters on the eﬃcacy of executive
action.
Even more fundamentally, however, what
seems to underscore Renzi’s political project
is a re-deﬁnition of the Democratic party’s
social constituency. Heir to the mass-based
Italian Communist party, the Democratic
party had traditionally relied primarily on
mobilisation of the working and lowermiddle classes by means of a vast network
of local and grassroots organisations. Renzi,
however, has refused to target his campaign
at this constituency, claiming that ‘workers’
have ceased to be a majority of the Italian
electorate, and that in any case those who
remain don’t primarily vote for the Democratic party anymore. Instead, he has claimed
that a more up-to-date conception of the political left should stand for ‘change’ and ‘progressive reform’, from which for him it
follows that its natural constituency is that
of the ‘new generations’ seeking to replace the
‘old order’ with a more modern and youthful
Italy. In this way, Renzi is attempting to
substitute the old class-based cleavage that
had traditionally underscored the left–right
distinction in Italy with a new political division based essentially on the opposition
between ‘youth’ and the ‘old guard’. At the
same time, however, Renzi has also insisted
that the notions of ‘youth’ and ‘generational
change’ that he stands for should not be
understood in any literal sense. For him,
youth is ﬁrst of all ‘a condition of the spirit’.
Thus, by employing this category he is seeking to appeal to all those people who feel, or at
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least want to think of themselves, as
‘young’—that is, as bearers of ‘newness’, ‘progress’ and ‘change’.
This involves a structural similarity with
another key operation carried out by Berlusconi, and which underscored much of his
success. The central ﬁgure around which
Berlusconi had organised most of his campaigning was that of the entrepreneur as a
self-made man. Once again, however, Berlusconi was keen to make clear that entrepreneurship was not to be understood in a strict
sense. Everybody, he claimed, is potentially
an entrepreneur, to the extent that they are
ambitious and understand their economic
choices as strategic decisions in a longstanding project of self-aggrandisement. In
this way, Berlusconi was able to appeal to
the relatively large class of people in contemporary Italy who think of themselves as selfreliant and upwardly mobile, whether or not
this bears any objective relationship to their
material conditions. For instance, it has often
been pointed out that many of the workers
employed in the vast web of small and medium enterprises that constitute the driving
force of Italy’s economy perceive their own
fortunes as closely tied to that of the businesses they work for. As a consequence, they
often tend to identify their interests with those
of the entrepreneurial class rather than those
of workers, even though from a material point
of view they objectively belong to the latter.7
Indeed, it is precisely this expanding but
also highly volatile electorate that Renzi
seems intent on stealing from Berlusconi,
through the appeal to the category of ‘youth’
as a vector of political mobilisation. Thus,
even sociologically, the underpinnings of
Renzi’s political project are not that far
removed from Berlusconi’s. Of course, the
success of this project will depend upon
Renzi’s capacity to retain the support of the
Democratic party’s traditional constituencies,
preventing the formation of a signiﬁcant political alternative to the left of the Democratic
party. For the time being, this is only a possibility that has been vaunted rather abstractly
by the disgruntled members of the party’s
apparatus. It remains to be seen whether anything will come of it.
The political terrain in Italy after the demise
of Berlusconi therefore appears to have set the
stage for a number of surprises. On the right,
for all of his double-decade dominance, Berlusconi is not likely to leave much of a political
legacy. He was propelled into politics by the
collapse of the old First Republic political
guard and his own power rested upon his
charisma and his refashioning of politics along
the lines of what Bernard Manin has called
‘‘audience democracy’’: the endorsement
through plebiscites of celebrity-style leaders,
with the public reduced to the status of onlookers or sympathisers. This way of doing politics gives prominence to individuals over
party organisations and makes any political
family vulnerable to the passing of its leader,
as we see with the Italian right today. And yet,
if Berlusconi presided as prosecutor in the case
against the Italian version of ‘party government’, we ﬁnd that its most willing executioner lies on the left, in the ﬁgure of Matteo
Renzi. Long resistant to Berlusconi’s mediatisation and personalisation of politics, the Italian left has today given up the ﬁght. Renzi is
going further than Berlusconi ever did in
emptying politics of its reliance upon party
organisations and pushing it down the twin
routes of technocratic administration and
populist political rhetoric. Interviewed
recently in Vanity Fair, Renzi announced that
after a career in politics, he would like to try
his luck at television—a trajectory that is the
exact inversion of Berlusconi’s. Berlusconi
was perhaps the prime beneﬁciary of the political revolution that shook Italy from 1992 to
1994. But ‘Berlusconism’ after Berlusconi will
be felt above all on the left of Italian politics,
and Matteo Renzi—young, voluble, ruthlessly
pragmatic in his treatment of his own political
family—seems set to ﬁnally bury Italian ‘party
government’ and all its associated traditions
and ideals.
Notes
1 P. Anderson, ‘An entire order converted into
what it was intended to end’, London Review of
Books, 26 February 2009, pp. 3–8.
2 Cf. M. Calise Fuorigioco. La sinistra contro i suoi
leader, Bari, Laterza, 2013.
3 On this point see for example the forum
launched by la Repubblica on its Facebook page
precisely on the question of whether what the left
needs to win is ‘a left-wing Berlusconi’, which
includes contributions by noted Italian opinionmakers such as Ilvo Diamanti and Giancarlo
Bosetti.
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4 Cf. M. McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York, Mentor, 1964.
5 Cf. P. Mair, ‘Partyless democracy’, New Left
Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 2000, pp. 21–35.
6 Ilvo Diamanti, ‘L’ideologia del Fare’, Repubblica,
21 February 2010.
7 For an interesting analysis of the sociological
grounds of Berlusconi’s electoral successes see
M. Shinn and J. Agnew, Berlusconi’s Italy: Mapping Contemporary Italian Politics, Philadelphia,
Temple University Press, 2008.
28 Chris J. Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
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Introduction: Rasselas’s Question
He would not admit civilization [to the fourth edition of
his dictionary], but only civility. With great deference
to him, I thought civilization, from to civilize, better in
the sense opposed to barbarity, than civility.
James Boswell
All definitions of civilization … belong to a
conjugation which goes: ‘I am civilized, you belong to
a culture, he is a barbarian.’
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
When Kenneth Clark defined civilization in his
television series of that name, he left viewers in no
doubt that he meant the civilization of the West – and
primarily the art and architecture of Western Europe
from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century.
The first of the thirteen films he made for the BBC
was politely but firmly dismissive of Byzantine
Ravenna, the Celtic Hebrides, Viking Norway and
even Charlemagne’s Aachen. The Dark Ages
even Charlemagne’s Aachen. The Dark Ages
between the fall of Rome and the twelfth-century
Renaissance simply did not qualify as civilization in
Clark’s sense of the word. That only revived with the
building of Chartres cathedral, dedicated though not
completed in 1260, and was showing signs of
fatigue with the Manhattan skyscrapers of his own
time.
Clark’s hugely successful series, which was first
broadcast in Britain when I was five years old,
defined civilization for a generation in the Englishspeaking world. Civilization was the chateaux of the
Loire. It was the palazzi of Florence. It was the
Sistine Chapel. It was Versailles. From the sober
interiors of the Dutch Republic to the ebullient
façades of the baroque, Clark played to his strength
as an historian of art. Music and literature made their
appearances; politics and even economics
occasionally peeked in. But the essence of Clark’s
civilization was clearly High Visual Culture. His
heroes were Michelangelo, da Vinci, Dürer,
1
Constable, Turner, Delacroix.
In fairness to Clark, his series was subtitled A
Personal View. And he was not unaware of the
implication – problematic already in 1969 – that ‘the
pre-Christian era and the East’ were in some sense
uncivilized. Nevertheless, with the passage of four
decades, it has become steadily harder to live with
Clark’s view, personal or otherwise (to say nothing
of his now slightly grating de haut en bas manner). In
this book I take a broader, more comparative view,
and I aim to be more down and dirty than high and
mighty. My idea of civilization is as much about
sewage pipes as flying buttresses, if not more so,
because without efficient public plumbing cities are
death-traps, turning rivers and wells into havens for
the
bacterium Vibrio cholerae. I am,
unapologetically, as interested in the price of a work
of art as in its cultural value. To my mind, a
civilization is much more than just the contents of a
few first-rate art galleries. It is a highly complex
human organization. Its paintings, statues and
buildings may well be its most eye-catching
achievements, but they are unintelligible without
some understanding of the economic, social and
political institutions which devised them, paid for
them, executed them – and preserved them for our
gaze.
‘Civilisation’ is a French word, first used by the
French economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot in
1752, and first published by Victor Riqueti, marquis
de Mirabeau, father of the great revolutionary, four
2
years later. Samuel Johnson, as the first epigraph
to this Introduction makes clear, would not accept
the neologism, preferring ‘civility’. If barbarism had
an antonym for Johnson, it was the polite (though
sometimes also downright rude) urban life he
enjoyed so much in London. A civilization, as the
etymology of the word suggests, revolves around its
cities, and in many ways it is cities that are the
3
heroes of this book. But a city’s laws (civil or
otherwise) are as important as its walls; its
constitution and customs – its inhabitants’ manners
4
(civil or otherwise) – as important as its palaces.
Civilization is as much about scientists’ laboratories
as it is about artists’ garrets. It is as much about
forms of land tenure as it is about landscapes. The
success of a civilization is measured not just in its
aesthetic achievements but also, and surely more
importantly, in the duration and quality of life of its
citizens. And that quality of life has many
dimensions, not all easily quantified. We may be
able to estimate the per-capita income of people
around the world in the fifteenth century, or their
average life expectancy at birth. But what about their
comfort? Cleanliness? Happiness? How many
garments did they own? How many hours did they
have to work? What food could they buy with their
wages? Artworks by themselves can offer hints, but
they cannot answer such questions.
Clearly, however, one city does not make a
civilization. A civilization is the single largest unit of
human organization, higher though more amorphous
than even an empire. Civilizations are partly a
practical response by human populations to their
environments – the challenges of feeding, watering,
sheltering and defending themselves – but they are
also cultural in character; often, though not always,
religious; often, though not always, communities of
5
language. They are few, but not far between. Carroll
6
Quigley counted two dozen in the last ten millennia.
In the pre-modern world, Adda Bozeman saw just
7
five: the West, India, China, Byzantium and Islam.
Matthew Melko made the total twelve, seven of
which have vanished (Mesopotamian, Egyptian,
Cretan, Classical, Byzantine, Middle American,
Andean) and five of which still remain (Chinese,
8
Japanese, Indian, Islamic, Western). Shmuel
Eisenstadt counted six by adding Jewish civilization
9
to the club. The interaction of these few civilizations
with one another, as much as with their own
environments, has been among the most important
10
drivers of historical change. The striking thing
about these interactions is that authentic civilizations
seem to remain true unto themselves for very long
periods, despite outside influences. As Fernand
Braudel put it: ‘Civilization is in fact the longest story
of all … A civilization … can persist through a series
11
of economies or societies.’
If, in the year 1411, you had been able to
circumnavigate the globe, you would probably have
been most impressed by the quality of life in Oriental
civilizations. The Forbidden City was under
construction in Ming Beijing, while work had begun
on reopening and improving the Grand Canal; in the
Near East, the Ottomans were closing in on
Constantinople, which they would finally capture in
1453. The Byzantine Empire was breathing its last.
The death of the warlord Timur (Tamerlane) in 1405
had removed the recurrent threat of murderous
invading hordes from Central Asia – the antithesis of
civilization. For the Yongle Emperor in China and the
Ottoman Sultan Murad II, the future was bright.
By contrast, Western Europe in 1411 would
have struck you as a miserable backwater,
recuperating from the ravages of the Black Death –
which had reduced population by as much as half as
it swept eastwards between 1347 and 1351 – and
still plagued by bad sanitation and seemingly
incessant war. In England the leper king Henry IV
was on the throne, having successfully overthrown
and murdered the ill-starred Richard II. France was
in the grip of internecine warfare between the
followers of the Duke of Burgundy and those of the
assassinated Duke of Orléans. The Anglo-French
Hundred Years’ War was just about to resume. The
other quarrelsome kingdoms of Western Europe –
Aragon, Castile, Navarre, Portugal and Scotland –
would have seemed little better. A Muslim still ruled
in Granada. The Scottish King, James I, was a
prisoner in England, having been captured by
English pirates. The most prosperous parts of
Europe were in fact the North Italian city-states:
Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Siena and Venice. As for
fifteenth-century North America, it was an anarchic
wilderness compared with the realms of the Aztecs,
Mayas and Incas in Central and South America, with
their towering temples and skyscraping roads. By
the end of your world tour, the notion that the West
might come to dominate the Rest for most of the
next half-millennium would have come to seem wildly
fanciful.
And yet it happened.
For some reason, beginning in the late fifteenth
century, the little states of Western Europe, with their
bastardized linguistic borrowings from Latin (and a
little Greek), their religion derived from the teachings
of a Jew from Nazareth and their intellectual debts to
Oriental mathematics, astronomy and technology,
produced a civilization capable not only of
conquering the great Oriental empires and
subjugating Africa, the Americas and Australasia,
but also of converting peoples all over the world to
the Western way of life – a conversion achieved
ultimately more by the word than by the sword.
There are those who dispute that, claiming that
all civilizations are in some sense equal, and that the
West cannot claim superiority over, say, the East of
12
Eurasia. But such relativism is demonstrably
absurd. No previous civilization had ever achieved
such dominance as the West achieved over the
13
Rest. In 1500 the future imperial powers of Europe
accounted for about 10 per cent of the world’s land
surface and at most 16 per cent of its population. By
*
1913, eleven Western empires controlled nearly
three-fifths of all territory and population and more
than three-quarters (a staggering 79 per cent) of
14
global economic output. Average life expectancy
in England was nearly twice what it was in India.
Higher living standards in the West were also
reflected in a better diet, even for agricultural
labourers, and taller stature, even for ordinary
15
soldiers and convicts. Civilization, as we have
seen, is about cities. By this measure, too, the West
had come out on top. In 1500, as far as we can work
out, the biggest city in the world was Beijing, with a
population of between 600,000 and 700,000. Of the
ten largest cities in the world by that time only one –
Paris – was European, and its population numbered
fewer than 200,000. London had perhaps 50,000
inhabitants. Urbanization rates were also higher in
North Africa and South America than in Europe. Yet
by 1900 there had been an astonishing reversal.
Only one of the world’s ten largest cities at that time
was Asian and that was Tokyo. With a population of
around 6.5 million, London was the global
16
megalopolis. Nor did Western dominance end
with the decline and fall of the European empires.
The rise of the United States saw the gap between
West and East widen still further. By 1990 the
average American was seventy-three times richer
17
than the average Chinese.
Moreover, it became clear in the second half of
the twentieth century that the only way to close that
yawning gap in income was for Eastern societies to
follow Japan’s example in adopting some (though
not all) of the West’s institutions and modes of
operation. As a result, Western civilization became
a kind of template for the way the rest of the world
aspired to organize itself. Prior to 1945, of course,
there was a variety of developmental models – or
operating systems, to draw a metaphor from
computing – that could be adopted by non-Western
societies. But the most attractive were all of
European origin: liberal capitalism, national
socialism, Soviet communism. The Second World
War killed the second in Europe, though it lived on
under assumed names in many developing
countries. The collapse of the Soviet empire
between 1989 and 1991 killed the third.
To be sure, there has been much talk in the
wake of the global financial crisis about alternative
Asian economic models. But not even the most
ardent cultural relativist is recommending a return to
the institutions of the Ming dynasty or the Mughals.
The current debate between the proponents of free
markets and those of state intervention is, at root, a
debate between identifiably Western schools of
thought: the followers of Adam Smith and those of
John Maynard Keynes, with a few die-hard devotees
of Karl Marx still plugging away. The birthplaces of
all three speak for themselves: Kirkcaldy,
Cambridge, Trier. In practice, most of the world is
now integrated into a Western economic system in
which, as Smith recommended, the market sets
most of the prices and determines the flow of trade
and division of labour, but government plays a role
closer to the one envisaged by Keynes, intervening
to try to smooth the business cycle and reduce
income inequality.
As for non-economic institutions, there is no
debate worth having. All over the world, universities
are converging on Western norms. The same is true
of the way medical science is organized, from
rarefied research all the way through to front-line
rarefied research all the way through to front-line
healthcare. Most people now accept the great
scientific truths revealed by Newton, Darwin and
Einstein and, even if they do not, they still reach
eagerly for the products of Western pharmacology at
the first symptom of influenza or bronchitis. Only a
few societies continue to resist the encroachment of
Western patterns of marketing and consumption, as
well as the Western lifestyle itself. More and more
human beings eat a Western diet, wear Western
clothes and live in Western housing. Even the
peculiarly Western way of work – five or six days a
week from 9 until 5, with two or three weeks of
holiday – is becoming a kind of universal standard.
Meanwhile, the religion that Western missionaries
sought to export to the rest of the world is followed
by a third of mankind – as well as making
remarkable gains in the world’s most populous
country. Even the atheism pioneered in the West is
making impressive headway.
With every passing year, more and more human
beings shop like us, study like us, stay healthy (or
unhealthy) like us and pray (or don’t pray) like us.
Burgers, Bunsen burners, Band-Aids, baseball caps
and Bibles: you cannot easily get away from them,
wherever you may go. Only in the realm of political
institutions does there remain significant global
diversity, with a wide range of governments around
the world resisting the idea of the rule of law, with its
protection of individual rights, as the foundation for
meaningful representative government. It is as much
as a political ideology as a religion that a militant
Islam seeks to resist the advance of the late
twentieth-century Western norms of gender equality
18
and sexual freedom.
So it is not ‘Eurocentrism’ or (anti-)‘Orientalism’
to say that the rise of Western civilization is the
single most important historical phenomenon of the
second half of the second millennium after Christ. It
is a statement of the obvious. The challenge is to
explain how it happened. What was it about the
civilization of Western Europe after the fifteenth
century that allowed it to trump the outwardly
superior empires of the Orient? Clearly, it was
something more than the beauty of the Sistine
Chapel.
The facile, if not tautological, answer to the question
is that the West dominated the Rest because of
19
imperialism. There are still many people today
who can work themselves up into a state of high
moral indignation over the misdeeds of the
European empires. Misdeeds there certainly were,
and they are not absent from these pages. It is also
clear that different forms of colonization – settlement
versus extraction – had very different long-term
20
impacts. But empire is not a historically sufficient
explanation of Western predominance. There were
empires long before the imperialism denounced by
the Marxist-Leninists. Indeed, the sixteenth century
saw a number of Asian empires increase
significantly in their power and extent. Meanwhile,
after the failure of Charles V’s project of a grand
Habsburg empire stretching from Spain through the
Low Countries to Germany, Europe grew more
fragmented than ever. The Reformation unleashed
more than a century of European wars of religion.
A sixteenth-century traveller could hardly have
failed to notice the contrast. In addition to covering
Anatolia, Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Yemen,
the Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent
(1520–66) extended into the Balkans and Hungary,
menacing the gates of Vienna in 1529. Further east,
the Safavid Empire under Abbas I (1587–1629)
stretched all the way from Isfahan and Tabriz to
Kandahar, while Northern India from Delhi to Bengal
was ruled by the mighty Mughal Emperor Akbar
(1556–1605). Ming China, too, seemed serene and
secure behind the Great Wall. Few European
secure behind the Great Wall. Few European
visitors to the court of the Wanli Emperor (1572–
1620) can have anticipated the fall of his dynasty
less than three decades after his death. Writing from
Istanbul in the late 1550s, the Flemish diplomat
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq – the man who
transplanted tulips from Turkey to the Netherlands –
nervously compared Europe’s fractured state with
the ‘vast wealth’ of the Ottoman Empire.
True, the sixteenth century was a time of hectic
European activity overseas. But to the great Oriental
empires the Portuguese and Dutch seafarers
seemed the very opposite of bearers of civilization;
they were merely the latest barbarians to menace
the Middle Kingdom, if anything more loathsome –
and certainly more malodorous – than the pirates of
Japan. And what else attracted Europeans to Asia
but the superior quality of Indian textiles and Chinese
porcelain?
As late as 1683, an Ottoman army could march
to the gates of Vienna – the capital of the Habsburg
Empire – and demand that the city’s population
surrender and convert to Islam. It was only after the
raising of the siege that Christendom could begin
slowly rolling back Ottoman power in Central and
Eastern Europe through the Balkans towards the
Bosphorus, and it took many years before any
European empire could match the achievements of
Oriental imperialism. The ‘great divergence’
between the West and the Rest was even slower to
materialize elsewhere. The material gap between
North and South America was not firmly established
until well into the nineteenth century, and most of
Africa was not subjugated by Europeans beyond a
few coastal strips until the early twentieth.
If Western ascendancy cannot therefore be
explained in the tired old terms of imperialism, was it
simply – as some scholars maintain – a matter of
good luck? Was it the geography or the climate of
the western end of Eurasia that made the great
divergence happen? Were the Europeans just
fortunate to stumble across the islands of the
Caribbean, so ideally suited to the cultivation of
calorie-rich sugar? Did the New World provide
Europe with ‘ghost acres’ that China lacked? And
was it just sod’s law that made China’s coal
deposits harder to mine and transport than
21
Europe’s? Or was China in some sense a victim
of its own success – stuck in a ‘high-level equilibrium
trap’ by the ability of its cultivators to provide a vast
22
number of people with just enough calories to live?
Can it really be that England became the first
industrial nation mainly because bad sanitation and
disease kept life exceptionally short for the majority
of people, giving the rich and enterprising minority a
23
better chance to pass on their genes?
The immortal English lexicographer Samuel
Johnson rejected all such contingent explanations for
Western ascendancy. In his History of Rasselas:
Prince of Abissinia , published in 1759, he has
Rasselas ask:
By what means … are the Europeans thus powerful?
or why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa
for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and
Africans invade their coasts, plant colonies in their
ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The
same wind that carries them back would bring us
thither.
*
To which the philosopher Imlac replies:
They are more powerful, Sir, than we, because they
are wiser; knowledge will always predominate over
ignorance, as man governs the other animals. But
why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not
what reason can be given, but the unsearchable will
of the Supreme Being.
24
Knowledge is indeed power if it provides superior
ways of sailing ships, digging up minerals, firing
guns and curing sickness. But is it in fact the case
that Europeans were more knowledgeable than
other people? Perhaps by 1759 they were; scientific
innovation for around two and a half centuries after
25
1650 was almost exclusively Western in origin. But
in 1500? As we shall see, Chinese technology,
Indian mathematics and Arab astronomy had been
far ahead for centuries.
Was it therefore a more nebulous cultural
difference that equipped Europeans to leap ahead
of their Oriental counterparts? That was the
argument made by the German sociologist Max
Weber. It comes in many variants – medieval
English individualism, humanism and the Protestant
ethic – and it has been sought everywhere from the
wills of English farmers to the account books of
Mediterranean merchants and the rules of etiquette
of royal courts. In The Wealth and Poverty of
Nations, David Landes made the cultural case by
arguing that Western Europe led the world in
developing autonomous intellectual inquiry, the
scientific method of verification and the
rationalization of research and its diffusion. Yet even
he allowed that something more was required for
that mode of operation to flourish: financial
26
intermediaries and good government. The key, it
becomes ever more apparent, lies with institutions.
Institutions are, of course, in some sense the
products of culture. But, because they formalize a
set of norms, institutions are often the things that
keep a culture honest, determining how far it is
conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. To
illustrate the point, the twentieth century ran a series
of experiments, imposing quite different institutions
on two sets of Germans (in West and East), two sets
of Koreans (in North and South) and two sets of
Chinese (inside and outside the People’s Republic).
The results were very striking and the lesson crystal
clear. If you take the same people, with more or less
the same culture, and impose communist institutions
on one group and capitalist institutions on another,
almost immediately there will be a divergence in the
way they behave.
Many historians today would agree that there
were few really profound differences between the
eastern and western ends of Eurasia in the 1500s.
Both regions were early adopters of agriculture,
market-based exchange and urban-centred state
27
structures. But there was one crucial institutional
difference. In China a monolithic empire had been
consolidated, while Europe remained politically
fragmented. In Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared
Diamond explained why Eurasia had advanced
28
ahead of the rest of the world. But not until his
essay ‘How to Get Rich’ (1999) did he offer an
answer to the question of why one end of Eurasia
forged so far ahead of the other. The answer was
that, in the plains of Eastern Eurasia, monolithic
Oriental empires stifled innovation, while in
mountainous, river-divided Western Eurasia,
multiple monarchies and city-states engaged in
29
creative competition and communication.
It is an appealing answer. And yet it cannot be a
sufficient one. Look only at the two series of
engravings entitled Miseries of War, published by
the Lorraine artist Jacques Callot in the 1630s as if
to warn the rest of the world of the dangers of
religious conflict. The competition between and
within Europe’s petty states in the first half of the
seventeenth century was disastrous, depopulating
large tracts of Central Europe as well as plunging
the British Isles into more than a century of recurrent,
debilitating strife. Political fragmentation often has
that effect. If you doubt it, ask the inhabitants of the
former Yugoslavia. Competition is certainly a part of
the story of Western ascendancy, as we shall see in
Chapter 1 – but only a part.
In this book I want to show that what distinguished
the West from the Rest – the mainsprings of global
power – were six identifiably novel complexes of
institutions and associated ideas and behaviours.
For the sake of simplicity, I summarize them under
six headings:
1. Competition
2. Science
3. Property rights
4. Medicine
5. The consumer society
6. The work ethic
To use the language of today’s computerized,
synchronized world, these were the six killer
applications – the killer apps – that allowed a
minority of mankind originating on the western edge
of Eurasia to dominate the world for the better part
of 500 years.
Now, before you indignantly write to me
objecting that I have missed out some crucial aspect
of Western ascendancy, such as capitalism or
freedom or democracy (or for that matter guns,
germs and steel), please read the following brief
definitions:
1. Competition – a decentralization of both
political and economic life, which created the
launch-pad for both nation-states and
capitalism
2. Science – a way of studying, understanding
and ultimately changing the natural world,
which gave the West (among other things) a
major military advantage over the Rest
3. Property rights – the rule of law as a means of
protecting private owners and peacefully
resolving disputes between them, which
formed the basis for the most stable form of
representative government
4. Medicine – a branch of science that allowed a
major improvement in health and life
expectancy, beginning in Western societies,
but also in their colonies
5. The consumer society – a mode of material
living in which the production and purchase of
clothing and other consumer goods play a
central economic role, and without which the
Industrial Revolution would have been
unsustainable
6. The work ethic – a moral framework and
mode of activity derivable from (among other
sources) Protestant Christianity, which
provides the glue for the dynamic and
potentially unstable society created by apps 1
to 5
Make no mistake: this is not another self30
satisfied version of ‘The Triumph of the West’. I
want to show that it was not just Western superiority
that led to the conquest and colonization of so much
of the rest of the world; it was also the fortuitous
weakness of the West’s rivals. In the 1640s, for
example, a combination of fiscal and monetary
crisis, climate change and epidemic disease
unleashed rebellion and the final crisis of the Ming
dynasty. This had nothing to do with the West.
Likewise, the political and military decline of the
Ottoman Empire was internally driven more than it
was externally imposed. North American political
institutions flourished as South America’s festered;
but Simón Bolívar’s failure to create a United States
of Latin America was not the gringo’s fault.
The critical point is that the differential between
the West and the Rest was institutional. Western
Europe overtook China partly because in the West
there was more competition in both the political and
the economic spheres. Austria, Prussia and latterly
even Russia became more effective administratively
and militarily because the network that produced the
Scientific Revolution arose in the Christian but not in
the Muslim world. The reason North America’s excolonies did so much better than South America’s
was because British settlers established a
completely different system of property rights and
political representation in the North from those built
by Spaniards and Portuguese in the South. (The
North was an ‘open access order’, rather than a
closed one run in the interests of rent-seeking,
31
exclusive elites.) European empires were able to
penetrate Africa not just because they had the
Maxim gun; they also devised vaccines against
tropical diseases to which Africans were just as
vulnerable.
In the same way, the earlier industrialization of
the West reflected institutional advantages: the
possibility of a mass consumer society existed in the
British Isles well before the advent and spread of
steam power or the factory system. Even after
industrial technology was almost universally
available, the differential between the West and the
Rest persisted; indeed, it grew wider. With wholly
standardized
cotton-spinning
and
weaving
machinery, the European or North American worker
was still able to work more productively, and his
capitalist employer to accumulate wealth more
32
rapidly, than their Oriental counterparts. Investment
in public health and public education paid big
dividends; where there was none, people stayed
33
poor. This book is about all these differences –
why they existed and why they mattered so much.
Thus far I have used words like ‘West’ and ‘Western’
more or less casually. But what exactly – or where –
do I mean by ‘Western civilization’? Post-war White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant males used more or less
instinctively to locate the West (also known as ‘the
free world’) in a relatively narrow corridor extending
(certainly)
from
London
to
Lexington,
Massachusetts, and (possibly) from Strasbourg to
San Francisco. In 1945, fresh from the battlefields,
the West’s first language was English, followed by
halting French. With the success of European
integration in the 1950s and 1960s, the Western
club grew larger. Few would now dispute that the
Low Countries, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
Scandinavia and Spain all belong to the West, while
Greece is an ex officio member, despite its later
allegiance to Orthodox Christianity, thanks to our
enduring debt to ancient Hellenic philosophy and the
Greeks’ more recent debts to the European Union.
But what about the rest of the Southern and
Eastern Mediterranean, encompassing not just the
Balkans north of the Peloponnese, but also North
Africa and Anatolia? What about Egypt and
Mesopotamia, the seedbeds of the very first
civilizations? Is South America – colonized by
Europeans as surely as was North America, and
geographically in the same hemisphere – part of the
West? And what of Russia? Is European Russia truly
Occidental, but Russia beyond the Urals in some
sense part of the Orient? Throughout the Cold War,
the Soviet Union and its satellites were referred to
as ‘the Eastern bloc’. But there is surely a case for
saying that the Soviet Union was as much a product
of Western civilization as the United States. Its core
ideology had much the same Victorian provenance
as nationalism, anti-slavery and women’s suffrage –
it was born and bred in the old circular Reading
Room of the British Library. And its geographical
extent was no less the product of European
expansion and colonization than the settlement of
the Americas. In Central Asia, as in South America,
Europeans ruled over non-Europeans. In that sense,
what happened in 1991 was simply the death of the
last European empire. Yet the most influential recent
definition of Western civilization, by Samuel
Huntington, excludes not just Russia but all countries
with a religious tradition of Orthodoxy. Huntington’s
West consists only of Western and Central Europe
(excluding the Orthodox East), North America
(excluding Mexico) and Australasia. Greece, Israel,
Romania and Ukraine do not make the cut; nor do
the Caribbean islands, despite the fact that many
34
are as Western as Florida.
‘The West’, then, is much more than just a
geographical expression. It is a set of norms,
behaviours and institutions with borders that are
blurred in the extreme. The implications of that are
worth pondering. Might it in fact be possible for an
Asian society to become Western if it embraces
Western norms of dressing and doing business, as
Western norms of dressing and doing business, as
Japan did from the Meiji era, and as much of the rest
of Asia now seems to be doing? It was once
fashionable to insist that the capitalist ‘world-system’
imposed a permanent division of labour between the
35
Western core and the Rest’s periphery. But what if
the whole world eventually ends up being
Westernized, in appearance and lifestyle at least?
Or could it be that the other civilizations are, as
Huntington famously argued, more resilient –
particularly ‘Sinic’ civilization, meaning Greater
*
China, and Islam, with its ‘bloody borders and
36
innards’? How far is their adoption of Western
modes of operation merely a superficial
modernization without any cultural depth? These are
questions that will be addressed below.
Another puzzle about Western civilization is that
disunity appears to be one of its defining
characteristics. In the early 2000s many American
commentators complained about the ‘widening
Atlantic’ – the breakdown of those common values
that bound the United States together with its West
37
European allies during the Cold War. If it has
become slightly clearer than it was when Henry
Kissinger was secretary of state whom an American
statesman should call when he wants to speak to
Europe, it has become harder to say who picks up
the phone on behalf of Western civilization. Yet the
current division between America and ‘Old Europe’
is mild and amicable compared with the great
schisms of the past, over religion, over ideology –
and even over the meaning of civilization itself.
During the First World War, the Germans claimed to
be fighting the war for a higher Kultur and against
tawdry, materialistic Anglo-French civilisation (the
distinction was drawn by Thomas Mann and
Sigmund Freud, among others). But this distinction
was hard to reconcile with the burning of the Leuven
University and the summary executions of Belgian
civilians in the first phase of the war. British
propagandists retorted by defining the Germans as
‘Huns’ – barbarians beyond the Pale of civilization –
and named the war itself ‘The Great War for
38
Civilization’ on their Victory medal. Is it any more
meaningful to talk today about ‘the West’ as a unitary
civilization than it was in 1918?
Finally, it is worth remembering that Western
civilization has declined and fallen once before. The
Roman ruins scattered all over Europe, North Africa
and the Near East serve as potent reminders of that.
The first version of the West – Western Civilization
The first version of the West – Western Civilization
1.0 – arose in the so-called Fertile Crescent
stretching from the Nile Valley to the confluence of
the Euphrates and the Tigris, and reached its twin
peaks with Athenian democracy and the Roman
39
Empire. Key elements of our civilization today –
not only democracy but also athletics, arithmetic,
civil law, geometry, the classical style of architecture
and a substantial proportion of the words in modern
English – had their origins in the ancient West. In its
heyday, the Roman Empire was a startlingly
sophisticated system. Grain, manufactures and
coins circulated in an economy that stretched from
the north of England to the upper reaches of the Nile,
scholarship flourished, there was law, medicine and
even shopping malls like Trajan’s Forum in Rome.
But that version of Western civilization declined and
then fell with dramatic speed in the fifth century AD,
undone by barbarian invasions and internal
divisions. In the space of a generation, the vast
imperial metropolis of Rome fell into disrepair, the
aqueducts broken, the splendid market places
deserted. The knowledge of the classical West
would have been lost altogether, but for the librarians
40
41
of Byzantium, the monks of Ireland and the
popes and priests of the Roman Catholic Church –
42
not forgetting the Abbasid caliphs. Without their
stewardship, the civilization of the West could not
have been reborn as it was in the Italy of the
Renaissance.
Is decline and fall the looming fate of Western
Civilization 2.0? In demographic terms, the
population of Western societies has long
represented a minority of the world’s inhabitants, but
today it is clearly a dwindling one. Once so
dominant, the economies of the United States and
Europe are now facing the real prospect of being
overtaken by China within twenty or even ten years,
with Brazil and India not so very far behind. Western
‘hard power’ seems to be struggling in the Greater
Middle East, from Iraq to Afghanistan, just as the
‘Washington Consensus’ on free-market economic
policy disintegrates. The financial crisis that began
in 2007 also seems to indicate a fundamental flaw at
the heart of the consumer society, with its emphasis
on debt-propelled retail therapy. The Protestant ethic
of thrift that once seemed so central to the Western
project has all but vanished. Meanwhile, Western
elites are beset by almost millenarian fears of a
coming environmental apocalypse.
What is more, Western civilization appears to
have lost confidence in itself. Beginning with
Stanford in 1963, a succession of major universities
have ceased to offer the classic ‘Western Civ.’
history course to their undergraduates. In schools,
too, the grand narrative of Western ascent has fallen
out of fashion. Thanks to an educationalists’ fad that
elevated ‘historical skills’ above knowledge in the
name of ‘New History’ – combined with the
unintended consequences of the curriculum-reform
process – too many British schoolchildren leave
secondary school knowing only unconnected
fragments of Western history: Henry VIII and Hitler,
with a small dose of Martin Luther King, Jr. A survey
of first-year History undergraduates at one leading
British university revealed that only 34 per cent knew
who was the English monarch at the time of the
Armada, 31 per cent knew the location of the Boer
War, 16 per cent knew who commanded the British
forces at Waterloo (more than twice that proportion
thought it was Nelson rather than Wellington) and 11
per cent could name a single nineteenth-century
43
British prime minister. In a similar poll of English
children aged between eleven and eighteen, 17 per
cent thought Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of
Hastings and 25 per cent put the First World War in
44
the wrong century.
Throughout the English-
the wrong century.
Throughout the Englishspeaking world, moreover, the argument has gained
ground that it is other cultures we should study, not
our own. The musical sampler sent into outer space
with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977 featured
twenty-seven tracks, only ten of them from Western
composers, including not only Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven but also Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry
and Blind Willie Johnson. A history of the world ‘in
100 objects’, published by the Director of the British
Museum in 2010, included no more than thirty
45
products of Western civilization.
Yet any history of the world’s civilizations that
underplays the degree of their gradual subordination
to the West after 1500 is missing the essential point
– the thing most in need of explanation. The rise of
the West is, quite simply, the pre-eminent historical
phenomenon of the second half of the second
millennium after Christ. It is the story at the very heart
of modern history. It is perhaps the most challenging
riddle historians have to solve. And we should solve
it not merely to satisfy our curiosity. For it is only by
identifying the true causes of Western ascendancy
that we can hope to estimate with any degree of
accuracy the imminence of our decline and fall.
UK oil and gas: Squeezing the last drop
15 September 2014 By Penny Hitchin
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2014/09/squeezing-the-last-drop.cfm (zkráceno)
Despite the UK's ambitious plans for a sustainable low-carbon economy, with significant
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to be achieved by 2050, oil and gas are set to remain a
crucial medium-term component of the energy mix.
Although the UK currently relies on the North Sea for more than half its total oil and gas,
production has been declining since 1999. Maximising domestic oil and gas production would
increase Britain's energy security and reduce its reliance on expensive imports. What are the
prospects for the industry?
The search for oil and gas in the North Sea started in the 1960s. Exploration had been held
back by the lack of international agreement covering ownership of mineral rights outside the
three-mile limit, and because technology for offshore development was in its infancy. The
Continental Shelf Act 1964 addressed the first of these issues by expanding the UK
government licensing powers for mineral exploration and development from within three
miles to 200 miles (320km) of its shores. The dynamism and innovation of a fast growing
offshore sector brought about rapid progress in the second.
The first exploration licences were issued in 1964. BP, which had a reputation for taking on
risky ventures, started its UK operations offshore by exploring an area east of the Humber in
the Southern North Sea. Its jack-up drilling vessel Sea Gem found gas 8,500ft (2,600m) below
the seabed. Drilling continued to a depth of 10,000ft and by the end of 1965 a 12-metre flare
was burning at the top of the rig. Newspaper headlines billed it the arrival of North Sea
Klondike.
Other discoveries followed and the Southern North Sea gas industry boomed, hastening the
demise of town gas made by burning coal.
Between 1967 and 1977 nearly 5,000km of new gas transmission infrastructure was built in
Britain, while millions of domestic, commercial and industrial customers had their premises
and equipment converted to burn natural gas.
Increased exploration and investment followed as the pioneering oil companies headed north
in search of oil. In 1970 BP struck oil in 100m of water 175km from Aberdeen. The
company's share price soared amid hopes that the North Sea could become a major source of
crude oil. For a nation that imported almost all its oil, this was a dizzying prospect with the
potential to transform the economy and the balance of payments.
In 1975 the first oil was pumped to the mainland. Discoveries and development continued
apace. By the mid-1980s there were over 100 installations. International oil companies and
oilmen flocked to Aberdeen, which thrived on the investment, becoming known as the Oil
Capital of Europe.
Extracting oil from beneath the seabed in the harsh North Sea environment was hard.
Working conditions were tough and the necessary skills were often acquired on the job. North
Sea pioneers describe the situation as akin to the Wild West. Safety came second to
production. But the Piper Alpha catastrophe of 1988, the worst disaster in the North Sea,
changed all that. The death of 167 men and the conflagration on the most prolific platform in
the North Sea led to the Lord Cullen report and to a major review of safety procedures and
standards. The UKCS (UK Continental Shelf) is now considered to set the highest safety
standards in the industry.
Decline in production
UK oil production peaked in 1999 and has been declining since by 5-10 per cent a year.
Industry body Oil and Gas UK calculates that some 42 billion barrels of oil have been
extracted with another 24 billion still potentially left under the UKCS. Exploration and
appraisal drilling has more than halved in the last five years, with 80mmboe (million barrels
of oil equivalent) discovered compared with 520mmboe produced. Production has fallen by
38 per cent in the last three years and production efficiency has declined from 80 per cent to
60 per cent in the last 10 years. Currently the UKCS has the highest level of investments and
operating costs ever, with operating expenditure and average unit operating costs up.
Recovery rate is currently 46 per cent across UKCS oil fields.
Forty years ago the UKCS consisted of a small number of large fields operated by large oil
and gas majors who built the infrastructure to extract oil and gas from large fields. Having
produced the most accessible oil they move on and are replaced by small and medium
independent operators who develop the smaller fields that remain.
The profile of North Sea oil and gas operations has changed since its heyday. In the last 20
years, the number of UKCS fields has increased from 90 to 300, with nine out of 10 current
fields producing fewer than 15,000 barrels per day. The average discovery is now fewer than
25 million barrels. Many fields are marginal and very interdependent and there is strong
competition for capacity in the infrastructure bringing the product ashore. Keeping these
ageing assets in safe operational order is a perennial challenge.
Various geological, geographical or economic factors render fields marginal. These can
include low recoverable reserves, distance from existing production facilities and technically
challenging crude oil characteristics that need greater capital investment to develop, as well as
fields where production income falls below operating expenditure.
Squeezing the last drop
The oil and gas sector plays an important role in the UK economy, supplying nearly half of
the nation's primary energy demand and paying billions in tax revenues. In June 2013 the
government commissioned a review of UK offshore oil and gas prospects, led by Aberdeen
oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood. His UKCS Maximising Recovery report was published in February
2014.
Wood wants "to ensure every last drop of oil is squeezed out" of the North Sea. His
recommendations include developing a new shared strategy for maximising economic
recovery of oil and gas for the UK, creating a new regulatory body to oversee it and getting
greater collaboration within the industry.
"We need to maximise the recovery of our hydrocarbon reserves and attract investment," he
said. "I see this as a watershed opportunity to ultimately reshape the regulatory environment,
extend the life of the UKCS and bring at least £200bn additional value to the economy over
the next 30 years."
Partnership plays an important role in innovation. The Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC)
was set up earlier this year to create and fast-track technology solutions to help unlock new
reserves and to extend the field life in the North Sea. OGIC links more than 2,300 oil and gas
companies to the 12 UK universities with academic staff and researchers focused on oil and
gas technologies. It will provide funding for over 100 projects in the next five years.
As developments in technology expand the boundaries of possibility, the mature basins of the
North Sea are being persuaded to gradually yield up remaining reserves.
Debate on nuclear energy rekindles in parts of Europe
13.10.14 by Peter Teffer
http://euobserver.com/news/126007
The role of nuclear energy has returned to the centre of the political debate in various corners
of Europe. Two nations are discussing their reliance on nuclear energy this week: one whether
to expand it, the other whether to decrease it. A third was given the go-ahead for a new
nuclear power plant last week.
On Tuesday (14 October) the Finnish parliament will discuss the plan for a new nuclear
facility, while the French parliament will vote on an energy package that includes scaling
back the country's reliance on nuclear energy from 75 percent to 50 percent by 2025.
And last week came the European Commission's approval of a British plan for a nuclear
power plant. The plant should, from 2023 onwards, provide 7 percent of the United
Kingdom's electricity. Last Wednesday (8 October), competition commissioner Almunia
announced that British help for the scheme did not constitute illegal state aid.
Environmentalists fear that the approval of the British plan will set a precedent, encouraging
other European countries to subsidise nuclear plants too. “That would be the new start for
nuclear energy in Europe”, Austrian Green MEP Michel Reimon told EUobserver.
But regardless of state subsidies, nuclear energy is and looks to remain an important energy
source for a substantial part of the EU. Exactly half of the 28 member states of the European
Union have nuclear power plants, which produce 14 percent of the energy consumed in the
bloc. Nuclear energy is the source for around one-third of the EU's electricity. In France,
where nuclear energy is not a controversial issue, it accounts for about three quarters of the
country's electricity supply.
After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in March 2011, several European nations decided to
reduce their reliance on nuclear plants or abandon construction plans for new ones. Germany
decided to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2022. Switzerland, not an EU member,
decided to cancel plans for new plants and to phase out nuclear power by 2034.
A plan to revive nuclear energy in Italy was struck down almost unanimously: 94 percent of
voters opposed nuclear power in a referendum held three months after Fukushima (Italy had
used nuclear power plants from the 1960s until 1990, when they were closed in the wake of
public antipathy towards nuclear energy after the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine).
Meanwhile, in 2012, the Belgian government led by prime minster Elio di Rupo decided that
the country should be nuclear-free by 2025. The first step would be to close two reactors in
the northern Belgian town of Doel in 2015. The closure will be somewhat delayed, however.
Belgium faces a possible energy shortage this winter - ironically because three other nuclear
reactors had to be temporarily closed. The new centre-right government has decided that Doel
1 and 2 will remain open until at least March 31, 2015 and March 31, 2016, respectively. The
government is also considering keeping them open until 2025. In their coalition agreement,
released last Thursday (9 October) they vow to take a decision before the end of this year.
But now that more than three and a half years have passed since the Fukushima accident,
public opposition to nuclear energy is waning, MEP Reimon said. “After Fukushima, the antinuclear sentiment was very strong”, said Reimon. “Now, with some time since then, it's less
strong. This is how public opinion works.” Directly after the Chernobyl accident 1986,
opposition to nuclear energy also increased. One year later, the number of opponents
decreased again (although it was still higher than before the nuclear disaster).
No consensus
It is difficult to speak of a “European attitude” towards nuclear energy. The most recent EUwide poll by the European Commission (conducted five years ago) showed big disparities
among nation states. At the low end, only 29 percent of Austrian respondents said they agreed
that nuclear energy helps to limit climate change, while among the Swedes, 73 percent agreed
with that statement.
For Reimon, his anti-nuclear position has double roots. Not only is he a member of the
Greens, but he is also Austrian. Austria has a long anti-nuclear tradition that dates back to
1978, when Austrians narrowly voted against nuclear power in a referendum. Cementing this
stance, Austria has said it will take the commission to court for its decision to allow the UK
its subsidy of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. The Austrian chancellor and vicechancellor are a social-democrat and a conservative, respectively, but anti-nuclear views in
Austria are held from left to right, Reimon said. “You could not be in a high political position
in Austria and support nuclear energy”, said Reimon.
Public opinion on the matter varies throughout the continent and has cultural and historic
roots. And while in Finland the Green party withdrew from prime minister Alexander Stubb's
government in September because it opposed the approval for a new nuclear plant on
environmental grounds, the fact that it will be built by a Russian state-owned company is an
equally important factor for many who are opposed to it.
In Germany, the phase-out of nuclear energy has to be seen in the context of the influential
anti-nuclear movement which dates back to the early seventies. And the fact that the country
has had a strong Green party in parliament, which was part of the coalition government from
1998 to 2005. The Greens still have 63 seats in the 631-seat Bundestag. This helps keep
environmental issues on chancellor Angela Merkel's political agenda.
In the UK, on the other hand, the Green party has only one member in the 650-seat House of
Commons. There is also something peculiar about the UK and its views towards nuclear
energy. There was never a strong 'Fukushima effect' in the country, according to the article
Public Attitudes to Nuclear Power and Climate Change in Britain Two Years after the
Fukushima Accident from March 2013.
“The available evidence so far suggests that British attitudes towards nuclear have been
largely unchanged in the wake of the Fukushima accident”, Wouter Poortinga from the
Cardiff University wrote with three others.
In a phone conversation, Poortinga also noted a sharp distinction between attitudes in the UK
and Germany. The professor of environmental psychology explains that the difference is
partly due to framing of the nuclear debate. “The British media reported very differently on
Fukushima compared to the German media”, he said. In Germany the nuclear debate is "an
old debate", already decided. British media focused on the fact that tsunamis are not a risk to
the UK and that domestic nuclear energy is "simply needed", both for fighting climate change
and to have an amount of energy independence. Poortinga says some influential
environmentalists in the UK see nuclear energy as a “lesser evil”.
British environmentalist George Monbiot is an important voice of that lesser evil argument.
Ten days after the Fukushima disaster, Monbiot wrote in the Guardian he has become pronuclear, because “the energy source to which most economies will revert if they shut down
their nuclear plants is not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuel.”
“In the seventies and eighties, if you were part of the environmental movement, you were
automatically anti-nuclear. That changed in the nineties with climate change”, Poortinga said.
The CO2 line
With all the possible ecological problems that are associated with nuclear energy – the natural
consequences of a disaster and the radioactive waste – it has one huge environmental
advantage over fossil fuels. It hardly emits greenhouse gases, which pro-nuclear trade
associations like to point out.
Nations are trying to reduce emissions of these gases to prevent global warming to exceed 2
degrees Celsius. Later in October, EU government leaders will decide how much emissions
should be reduced by 2030. Nuclear energy might help some countries to reach that target.
For Reimon however, nuclear is just as “evil” as fossil fuels. “An argument about if nuclear or
coal is the bigger [problem] is wasted time”, he says. Reimon would prefer “zero” nuclear
energy in Europe.
However, that is not something for the European institutions to decide. The European
Commission hopes the government leaders will decide that they will reduce their greenhouse
gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, but is “technology-neutral” on how that goal is
achieved. “It's for the member states to define their own mix”, said Humberto Delgado Rosa,
director of mainstreaming adaptation and low carbon technology at the commission's climate
action department.
“For some that will mean nuclear, for some that will mean no nuclear. For all that will mean
more renewables and more energy efficiency.”
Scottish referendum: who are the winners
and losers?
The reputation of key figures in the referendum campaign
were both bolstered and battered - how did they do?
By Iain Martin
7:02AM BST 21 Sep 2014
DAVID CAMERON
High point: The No campaign’s victory meant the Prime Minister could emerge from
Number 10 on Friday morning to make a magnanimous statement that captured the mood of
the moment well. He could have gone down as the Tory leader who presided over the breakup of the UK, yet his decision to take on the nationalists in a referendum was vindicated with
a clear win for the Union.
Low point: In the final 10 days of the campaign, it looked as though the Prime Minister’s
gamble of agreeing to a referendum was about to go spectacularly wrong, when a poll
suggested that Yes was in front. In response, the desperate No campaign offered Scotland a
timetable for the rapid implementation of extra unspecified powers. Tory MPs stayed quiet,
although privately many were livid that Scotland was being offered ever more in a desperate
bid to get it to stay. Talk of a Tory leadership contest resurfaced.
Verdict: The Prime Minister is an escapologist who has a long-established knack of rescuing
the situation at the 11th hour. He won the Tory leadership on the same basis, and got to
Number 10 in 2010 with a deft last-minute manoeuvre offering coalition. Once again, on
Scotland, he rallied late and was lucky. The Union was saved and Labour at Westminster is
now boxed in, with Mr Cameron promising far greater devolution for Scotland and matching
powers for England, which is opposed by Labour.
ALEX SALMOND
High point: In the final stretch of the campaign, Mr Salmond had the British Establishment
on the run. That moment that campaigns look for, when momentum flows with one side to
such an extent that it becomes unstoppable, seemed to have arrived. Mr Salmond oozed
confidence and his friends declared that he had won, whether the vote was a Yes or a No.
Either it was independence or he would have so many new powers that no one would be able
to tell the difference.
Low point: Defeat in the referendum and resignation as First Minister and SNP leader, all
within 24 hours, counts as the ultimate bad day at the office. Initially, Mr Salmond and the
SNP spin-machine attempted to portray defeat as some kind of victory, because more powers
for the Scottish Parliament were on the table. It only ended up making him look like a bad
loser and his concession speech at dawn lacked gravitas. After several hours of discussions
with colleagues, he decided to quit.
Verdict: Mr Salmond had waited for decades for this vote and when it came, Scotland voted
to stay in the Union. In the final run-up to polling day, Mr Salmond had surrendered to
nationalistic hubris by lashing out, just when he should have been trying to reassure moderate
voters. But Mr Salmond slips away, well aware that he has been one of the most significant
figures in recent British history. He took a nationalist party to power and transformed the
constitutional landscape.
GORDON BROWN
High point: The former Prime Minister’s speech to No activists on the eve of the poll has
been described as the best oration of his long career. With great passion, he served up a
defence of British unity and shared endeavour that critics complained, somewhat unfairly, had
been lacking from the No campaign. In the final week, his reputation soared as a result of
these heartfelt pleas to Labour voters.
Low point: Mr Brown is a deeply tribal figure who always expects to be in charge. As a
result, he struggles to build partnerships, and he even refused to be involved in the cross-party
initiative Better Together. Instead he would work only under the Labour banner. This added
to the existing tensions in the No campaign and wasted time and energy that would have been
better spent exclusively on confronting the nationalists.
Verdict: Mr Brown’s barnstorming efforts during the final, frantic efforts to save the Union
substantially boosted Better Together morale. However, his extravagant promises on a
timetable for more powers for Scotland have stored up enormous amounts of trouble. To the
astonishment of the Cabinet in London, and Tory MPs generally, Mr Brown was allowed,
during the close of the campaign, unilaterally to remake the British constitution on the hoof.
ED MILIBAND
High point: When a poll put Yes in front, and the situation looked most perilous, Mr
Miliband buried his differences with Mr Cameron and agreed on a series of emergency
initiatives. He and the Prime Minister, along with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg,
abandoned Prime Minister’s Questions and headed to Scotland to plead with voters not to
leave the United Kingdom.
Low point: Humiliatingly, the Labour leader had to ask his political “dad”, Gordon Brown, to
come to the rescue when it looked as though Labour was going to lose the Union because its
voters in poorer parts of the west of Scotland were deserting en masse and switching to Yes.
Verdict: Mr Miliband showed considerable self-awareness when he accepted that his poor
personal ratings in Scotland meant it was not sensible for him to be the main focus of the No
campaign in the final days. Other than that self-sacrifice, he cannot be said to have had a good
campaign. Whereas previous Labour leaders have tended to have considerable reach and
appeal in what used to be the party’s Scottish heartlands, it is now clearer than ever that he
does not.
THE QUEEN
High point: In a beautifully measured statement after Scotland voted No, the monarch’s
appeal for reconciliation hit the perfect note. The campaign, and the upswell of emotion as the
race narrowed in the final weeks of the campaign, had proved that people in all parts of the
UK cared about Scotland remaining as part of the United Kingdom.
Low point: As the Queen attended the Braemar Gathering in the Highlands – two weeks ago,
when a poll suggested the Yes campaign had taken the lead – it looked as though the Union
was about to be lost. The Prime Minister explained the gravity of the situation, and chose to
give Braemar a miss, for fear that a picture of him dressed in tweed with the Queen would
send the wrong message to swithering Scottish voters. The Queen’s kingdom was in danger.
Verdict: The UK remains intact and the Queen’s handling of the biggest constitutional crisis
of her reign was impeccable. Ahead of the vote, she expressed the hope that voters would
think carefully about the future, but stopped short of a direct appeal to No. That would have
compromised her neutrality and outraged Yes voters.
ALISTAIR DARLING
High point: The former chancellor and leader of Better Together went into the first head-tohead television debate in early August with Mr Salmond as the underdog and emerged as the
winner, thanks to his persistent cross-examination of the First Minister. The SNP leader
struggled when asked what his Plan B was in the event of Westminster not agreeing to a
currency union after a Yes vote. It was a moment of great vindication for Mr Darling.
Low point: In the spring, the leadership of Better Together was hit by infighting as members
of various disgruntled factions criticised Mr Darling’s approach to the campaign. The
suggestion was that he lacked fire and passion. There were even erroneous suggestions that he
was about to be replaced.
Verdict: Mr Darling deserves much of the credit for the saving of the Union. The cross-party
campaign, involving the Tories and a Scottish Labour Party riven by hatred and rivalries, was
always going to be difficult to run. For two years, mostly maintaining his cool throughout, he
corralled these disparate forces and kept the focus on the nationalists’ weak spot. In the end,
the polling undertaken on referendum day suggests that these currency warnings and fears of
uncertainty were the deciding factor for No voters.
NICOLA STURGEON
High point: When polls and focus groups suggested that women voters were turned off by Mr
Salmond’s “smart Alex” demeanour on the campaign trail, his trusted and long-suffering
deputy was brought to the fore. Ms Sturgeon’s style, while still punchy, is less abrasive. In
this phase, she was deployed very effectively as the more reasonable face of the SNP.
Low point: After Mr Salmond won the second televised debate against Mr Darling, the SNP
leader came roaring back. The cry from his supporters was that the campaign had to “let Alex
be Alex” and the SNP leader was at his worst, threatening the media and talking as though
victory was his. Ms Sturgeon was much less prominent.
Verdict: Ms Sturgeon emerges from the campaign as a winner and the SNP leader and First
Minister in waiting. She will face a challenge of some sort – and leadership contests can go
wrong for the favourite – but barring an upset, she will become the first woman First Minister.
As the Westminster parties squabble over more powers, Ms Sturgeon will be on hand to say to
Scottish voters that she, and her party, stand up for Scotland’s interests. It could have big
electoral appeal in a country where 45 per cent of voters want to leave the UK.
MARK CARNEY
High point: The Governor of the Bank of England is said to harbour political ambitions in his
native Canada once his term in charge of the UK’s central bank is over. If so, his experience
in the Scottish referendum campaign has given him the training of a lifetime. As the pound
fell and the City started to panic, with 10 days to go, Mr Carney stepped up his warnings that
the nationalists’ plans for a currency union were a non-starter. His late intervention was robust
and to the point.
Low point: His first major speech in Edinburgh earlier this year on the inadvisability of the
currency union was welcomed by many Unionists, but in time it came to be seen as far too
mild-mannered and tricksy. A bigger warning, earlier on from the Governor would have had a
huge impact. The Chancellor, George Osborne, and the Treasury wanted stronger stuff from
him.
Verdict: The City Establishment woke up to the risks of Scottish separation only late in the
campaign when it looked as though it might happen. Mr Carney’s urbane style – and his
commendable insistence that he must protect his independence – meant that Mr Salmond
could say that the bank’s warnings were not really warnings at all. By the end of the
campaign, Mr Carney realised that forceful plain-speaking was required. The nationalists’
poor planning on the currency was the major factor in spooking voters. Scotland voted No and
the City and the Treasury breathed a huge sigh of relief that economic chaos had been averted.
Scottish independence referendum:
winners and losers
Politicians are not the only ones feeling the impact. Here’s how
the campaign has affected a rather more eclectic group
o
Frances Perraudin
o
The Guardian, Friday 19 September 2014
Kay Burley
Sky News anchor Kay Burley, who has been leading much of the station’s
coverage of the referendum, attracted attention with her style of commentary.
“Well, that tells you all you need to know,” she said, as men in high-visibility
jackets struggled to raise the Saltire over 10 Downing Street, allowing it to fall
from its pole on live television – #flaggate started trending on Twitter shortly
afterwards. During a broadcast from Aberdeen on Wednesday she could be
heard describing one yes campaigner as a “bit of a knob”. She later tweeted a
heart-felt apology, saying “soz” for her poor language.
Rupert Murdoch
Murdoch arrived in Scotland on Saturday in order to gauge the mood for
himself. His attempts to remain “incognito” for 24 hours failed when sightings
of him in pubs in Aberdeen and Glasgow started appearing on Twitter. Having
once described Alex Salmond as the best politician in the UK, he fuelled
speculation that the Scottish Sun would back independence with cryptic
comments on Twitter. “Wrestling with Scottish vote. Scottish Sun No. 1. Head
over heart, or just maybe both lead to the same conclusion,” read one. In the end
the paper sat on the fence, saying “we believe in the people of Scotland to make
the right decision”. It seems it was too close to call for Murdoch, who likes to
back the sure winner. This time it definitely wasn’t the Sun wot won it.
The Sunday Herald
It’s a tricky business, newspapers – declining print sales, the challenges of
digital – so you’d need a braveheart to potentially annoy a large group of your
readers by backing one side or the other in a fight for their nation’s destiny.
The Sunday Herald ingratiated itself with the Nationalists when it became the
only major newspaper to come out in favour of independence. In a leader
published in May, the paper argued that “a vote for independence says that a
small country is not helpless in a big, troubling world”. In the runup to the vote,
when mainstream media organisations were being accused of anti-independence
bias, Herald journalists were welcomed with open arms. As for what no voters
thought …
J K Rowling
J K Rowling, who made the single biggest donation to the no campaign when
she donated £1m to Better Together back in June, made her last comment on the
matter on Wednesday. “My head says no and my heart shouts it - but whatever
happens, I hope we’re all friends by Saturday,” she tweeted. Rowling, who lives
in Edinburgh and wrote the first Harry Potter novels in a cafe in the city’s Old
Town, hasn’t had a particularly easy time of it. She became the target of
nationalist trolling from what became known as “cybernats” – a word coined by
Labour peer George Foulkes. (Yes, cyberbrits exist too.)
Jim Murphy
Former Labour minister for Scotland and current shadow minister for
international development Jim Murphy emerged as a Better Together campaign
warrior. His secret weapon? Irn Bru. When hestarted campaigning back in June,
he invited his undecided constituents to visit him, promising it would be “just
me, my Irn Bru crate and my size 13 feet and whoever turns up”. Since then he’s
been addressing audiences from an Irn Bru crate, instead of a soap box, and
frequently been pictured with the drink in his hand. What this has done for Irn
Bru’s image is a matter of fierce debate.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/catalonia-cancels-referendum-onindependence-from-spain
Catalonia looks for alternatives after
cancelling independence referendum
Regional government decides not to hold vote, challenged in court by Madrid, and moves to
announce an alternative process
•
theguardian.com, Tuesday 14 October 2014 07.32 BST
Artur
Mas,
the
Catalan president, at a rally in May. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images
The Catalan government is calling off a referendum on independence from Spain planned for
9 November amid fierce opposition from Madrid.
Spain’s constitutional court decided unanimously in September to hear the central
government’s case against the poll, which automatically suspended the referendum until it
hears arguments and makes a decision – a process that could take years.
The regional government of Catalonia had vowed to press ahead with the vote but during a
meeting of pro-referendum parties on Monday it backed off.
“The government has determined that the consultation [referendum] can’t take place,” Joan
Herrera, a lawmaker with the tiny leftist Initiative for Catalonia party, said after the talks.
Catalonia’s nationalist government, led by Artur Mas, would announce an alternative proposal
on Tuesday, he said. Mas is scheduled to give a press conference on Tuesday morning.
Mas had previously promised to respect the law in his drive for a non-binding vote on
whether the wealthy north-eastern region should break away.
He has hinted that if the central government blocked the independence vote he could call an
early regional election that would act as a plebiscite.
Mas has faced an undertow of fierce separatist yearning in the street and among his political
allies. Members of the leftwing Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which props up Mas’s
conservative CiU coalition in the regional assembly, have pressured him to defy the court
order.
In a statement after the news broke that the government had decided to call off the
referendum, the ERC said: “There is only one path: that parliament make an immediate
declaration of independence.”
Polls suggest the ERC could make big gains if Mas were to call early elections, leaving
Madrid facing a Catalan government more fiercely set on independence.
With an economy roughly the size of Portugal’s, Catalonia and its 7.5 million inhabitants –
16% of the Spanish population – have long been an engine for the country as a whole.
The region has its own widely spoken language that was repressed during the dictatorship of
General Francisco Franco and a proudly distinctive culture.
The 1992 Summer Olympics, in part financed by the national government, helped transform
the Catalan capital, Barcelona, into one of Europe’s most visited cities.
But a growing number of Catalans resent the redistribution of their taxes to other parts of
Spain and believe the region would be better off on its own.
The 2008 real estate crash, which triggered a five-year economic downturn across Spain, and
a 2010 decision by Spain’s constitutional court to water down a 2006 statute giving the region
more powers have added to the growing pressure for secession.
Catalans were fired up by the September independence referendum in Scotland even though
voters there rejected a separation from Britain.
Hundreds of thousands of people formed a giant “V” for “vote” in downtown Barcelona on 11
September, Catalonia’s national day, to push for the right to hold the referendum
The Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a powerful civil pro-independence group, which
organised the protest, had already started a campaign of door-to-door canvassing for the
referendum.
But a 5 October poll showed only 23% of Catalans supported the idea of forging ahead with
the referendum and 45% wanted the regional authorities to comply with the stay ordered by
the constitutional court.
Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has called for dialogue with Catalans to resolve the
impasse.
“Law and dialogue, this is the way out of this situation,” he said at a campaign event for his
conservative People’s party on Saturday in Guadalajara just north of the Spanish capital.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/12/catalonia-voted-democracy-spainreferendum
The people of Catalonia have voted. Let
democracy take its course
Following the Catalans’ overwhelming backing for independence, Spain needs to listen and
give us an official Scottish-style referendum
Artur Mas, Catalonia's regional president
o
theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 November 2014 14.30 GMT
On Sunday, 2,305,290 people voted at 1,317 polling stations across Catalonia, in addition to
13,573 Catalans who voted worldwide. This was a similar turnout to May’s European
elections. A cross-party international delegation of observers, which included members of
different European and national parliaments, stated that the vote was “conducted successfully
in challenging circumstances” and they emphasised the calm that dominated every aspect of
the vote.
Up to 80.7% of the voters chose “yes-yes” in answer to the two-part question of “Do you
want Catalonia to be a state?” and, if so, “Do you want that state to be independent?”.
Another 10% voted “yes” to Catalonia being a state but “no” to that state being independent,
while 4.5% voted a clear “no” to Catalonia being a state at all.
The Spanish government refused all of our requests for dialogue, and instead of seeking a
political solution to a political problem opted for legal tactics to block every way we tried to
hold a democratic vote on Catalonia’s future. We sought to have an authorised referendum
like Scotland and Quebec, and the Spanish parliament refused that. The constitutional court
then suspended our call for a non-binding consultation. When we then moved to a nonbinding participatory process, they likewise tried to suspend that.
But a huge majority of Catalans, whether in favour of independence or not, just wanted to
express their wishes at the ballot box having given my government and the Catalan parliament
a mandate for that in the last parliamentary elections in November 2012. Therefore, despite
constant threats from the Spanish government, we were not intimidated and went ahead with
our vote. If the Spanish public prosecutor is looking for someone to blame, that person should
be no one else but me.
Catalans gather in a
bid to create a 400-kilometre (250-mile) human chain, part of a campaign for independence
from Spain. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images
We made no pretence that this was a referendum, or in any way legally binding, just that it
was the best we could do given the Spanish government’s attitude. Forty thousand people
volunteered to staff the polling stations, as we could not use public employees. Millions left
their homes and thousands waited in lines for hours. Many people, especially older citizens
who lived under the dictatorship for decades, cried as they cast their ballot. Many young
people voted for the first time and were happy that their voice was taken into account on this
crucial issue.
There was neither a single window broken on Sunday nor any incident whatsoever during the
vote. Catalans are a peaceful people; we have also been very patient. We seek no harm to
Spain. We are bound together by geography, history and culture. But now we Catalans would
like to govern ourselves within the framework of the EU. We seek a way to do that as friends
of Spain, not as enemies. And following Sunday’s participatory process, I believe we have
earned the right to a proper legally binding referendum, as in Scotland and Quebec, with all
its consequences. Legal excuses are not good enough. The law follows politics in every
democracy. And if there is political will, a legal way can be found.
I therefore call on Spain’s government, and also on Spain’s people, to listen to the people of
Catalonia. The hour has come and our whole hearts are in this. I also call on the international
community to urge President Rajoy and Spain’s parliament to allow Catalonia to choose its
own system of government, for ourselves and for our children. Spain was a shining example
of a country that suffered 40 years of dictatorship and peacefully transformed almost
overnight into a western democracy. Let’s keep that light of democracy shining.
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The success story of the Eurozone crisis? Ireland's
austerity measures
Geraldine Robbins & Irvine Lapsley
Published online: 05 Feb 2014.
To cite this article: Geraldine Robbins & Irvine Lapsley (2014) The success story of the Eurozone crisis? Ireland's austerity
measures, Public Money & Management, 34:2, 91-98, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2014.887515
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2014.887515
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91
The success story of the Eurozone
crisis? Ireland’s austerity
measures
Downloaded by [212.96.164.82] at 11:52 22 November 2014
Geraldine Robbins and Irvine Lapsley
This paper examines the response of the Irish government to the Eurozone fiscal
crisis. This paper discusses the external financial assistance programme sought
and implemented, economic recovery to date, and the impacts of austerity in
Ireland. As Ireland nears the end of the ‘Programme of Support’ from Europe the
contention that Ireland is a success story is explored. The paper reveals the
primacy of financial cutbacks in the Irish response and the limited efforts at
public management reforms.
Keywords: Austerity; Eurozone; financial crisis; Ireland.
Recent financial press commentary paints a
positive picture for Ireland’s future. The 10th
review by the European Union/European
Central Bank/International Monetary Fund
(EU/ECB/IMF—the ‘Troika’) of Ireland’s
progress concludes that the gradual recovery is
continuing and there have been further
improvements in market conditions for the
sovereign debt problem and the banks. The
11th review concludes that maintaining steady
fiscal consolidation efforts is central to Ireland’s
future. Ireland has earned the nickname of the
‘poster boy for austerity’ for adhering to the
Programme of Support from the Troika (Halpin
and Papachristou, 2013). Ireland became the
first Eurozone country to slide into recession in
September 2008 with economic activity at its
weakest in a quarter of a century (Smith, 2008).
Now Ireland looks set to become the first
country to exit an EU-led bailout (Horta e
Costa, 2013). There are differing views on this
success:
ground. Austerity is not working (Begg, 2013).
There has been heavy reliance on this external
financial assistance programme, strict
compliance with its terms and accompanying
large cuts in public expenditure. The gravity of
the situation has created an arena where
financial cutbacks and austerity dominate:
While there is evidence of some public sector
reform progress there is also evidence of limited
substantive reform to date. The financial
straitjacket imposed by the EU/ECB/IMF
agreement is a fundamental constraint on the
actions of the state. However, the straitjacket
provides legitimating support for government’s
programme of cutbacks in public services and
new taxes. Nevertheless, as noted above, there
is a mixed response to government attempts to
rationalize its public services. Ireland’s
government noted in its public sector reform
programme that placing customer service at
the heart of government is its focus (Department
of Public Expenditure and Reform, 2011, p. 3).
However, the Irish government’s claim to place
the citizen at the centre of public sector reform
efforts is somewhat disingenuous in view of
funding cuts in health, education, social services
and policing.
The corner has been turned in financial
terms—the cost of issuing new government
bonds has fallen and there have been some
improvements in GDP growth rates. This paper
sets out the response of the Irish government
to the impact of the financial crisis in the
Eurozone. It focuses on the impacts of the
government response in shaping the future
economic health of the country. The paper
does not consider wider socioeconomic impacts
of the actions of government—those are for
future studies when these impacts are clear.
Like some terrible World War 1 conflict, we have
sacrificed millions of lives to gain a metre of
Conceptual framework
Ireland is not alone in needing to make cutbacks.
Ireland is setting standards and what has been
done has been huge by any standards. More than
two-thirds of the work has been done in terms of
fiscal policies (Lagarde, 2013).
Irvine Lapsley is
Director of the
Institute of Public
Sector Accounting
Research at the
University of
Edinburgh Business
School, Scotland.
Geraldine Robbins is
a lecturer in finance
at the National
University of Ireland
Galway and Senior
Researcher at the
Whitaker Institute
for Innovation and
Societal Change,
NUI Galway,
Ireland.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2014.887515
© 2014 CIPFA
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MARCH 2014
92
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Other countries in the Eurozone area are faced
with various fiscal and financial crisis. Fiscal
crises culminate at a point that require decisions
about cutbacks that are both politically sensitive
and unpopular (Kickert, 2012). In Greece,
Spain, Portugal and Italy national governments
in their strategies of retrenchment failed to
connect cutback management to ambitious
administrative modernization programmes (Di
Mascio and Natalini, 2013). Cutback
management involves a choice between equity
and efficiency concerns in choosing decision
rules to allocate the cuts (Levine, 1978). There
is a tension here between old-style public
administration values and those of the new
public management (NPM) that gives different
prominence to these two values. The pressure
for cutbacks can come from two sources:
external pressures or politicians’ ideological
convictions on the need for change (Dunsire
and Hood, 1989). There is belief that financial
and staffing pressures on public sector
organizations will make them fitter, leaner and
more efficient (Dunsire and Hood, 1989, p.
186). Evolving control frameworks under NPM
are weakening the priority given to equity
concerns in policy design and implementation
(Denhardt, 2004). A market-led approach to
the business of government and the subsequent
discharge of accountability solely in efficiency,
effectiveness and responsiveness terms is
considered deficient as a measure of
accountability (Bardouille, 2000; Denhardt and
Denhardt, 2000). This conflict between social
democratic considerations and the drive for
efficiencies is at the heart of recent debates over
public sector management reforms. Suleiman
(2003) suggests that NPM ideas aimed at
addressing weaknesses in traditional
bureaucracies in the pursuit of efficiency serve
to undermine democracy itself. A concern with
cutback management is the threat to the social
Table 1. EU/ECB/IMF programme of financial support.
Billion Billion
euro
euro
External European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM) 22.5
IMF Extended Fund Facility
22.5
European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) and
bilateral loans from the UK, Sweden and
Denmark
22.5
Internal
National Pension Reserve Fund and other
domestic cash resources
Total
Source: EU/ECB/IMF (2010).
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENTMARCH 2014
17.5
67.5
17.5
85.0
contract—job security and other values—and
the consequences of this for employee
motivation (Pandey, 2010) as governments aim
to reduce the size of public sectors. In the case
of Ireland, cutbacks were necessary because of
a crisis with multiple causes. The primary cause
of the crisis and assistance secured to address it
is examined in the next section.
The crisis
On the last day of September 2008, the six
domestic banks received government
guarantees on all deposits and specific debt
instruments until September 2010 (Oireachtas,
2008; Honohan, 2009); these were subsequently
extended until 28 March 2013. As the
government struggled to recapitalize the banks,
the cost of government borrowing reached
unsustainable highs—14% in July 2011. For a
more detailed review of the banking crisis, the
sustainability of Irish debt and the fiscal policies
that contributed to the crisis, see Honohan
(2010), Regling and Watson (2010), Bergin et
al. (2011), McHale (2012) and Kane (2012). In
November 2010, the Irish government formally
sought external financial help. An 85 billion
euro financial assistance programme was
approved by the IMF in liaison with the ECB
and European Commission (EU/ECB/IMF,
2010, p. 8) in December 2010. The 85 billion
euro Programme for Support involves 67.5
billion euro of external assistance and 17.5
billion euro of funds to be generated internally
(see table 1 below). This 67.5 billion euro is a
loan which must be repaid in full with interest.
The programme provided for up to 50
billion euro in fiscal needs and up to 35 billion
euro in banking support measures between
2011 and the end of 2013. The programme
required actions to address fiscal consolidation,
financial sector reforms, and structural reforms.
Structural reforms were aimed at resource
conservation and improving competition to
drive economic recovery. These changes have
had a range of impacts which will be reviewed
in the next two sections.
Where we are now?
In this section the impact of the crisis on
economic growth, the extent of and cost of
government borrowing, the government
surplus/deficit and migration are explored.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Ireland (at
constant market prices) increased in 2011, for
the first time in four years (see table 2). Having
peaked in 2007, the GDP growth rate was
negative for the next three years. In 2011, the
GDP growth rate was positive again at 1.6%
© 2014 CIPFA
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93
and was marginally positive in 2012. However,
on a seasonally adjusted basis, GDP (at constant
market prices) for the fourth quarter of 2012
showed almost no change compared with the
previous quarter and GDP decreased 0.6% in
the first quarter of 2013 as compared with
quarter four of 2012 (Central Statistics Office,
2013a).
General government consolidated gross
debt as a percentage of GDP in Ireland declined
from 31.9% to 24.8% over the 2002–2007 period
but then increased steeply in 2008 to 44.2%.
The debt to GDP ratio has continued to increase
strongly year-on-year since 2008 and stood at
117.6% of GDP by the end of 2012. The steep
rise in this government debt to GDP ratio
reflects two things:
Table 2. Irish GDP and GDP growth rates
2005–2011.
•Declining GDP in the years 2008 to 2010 and
only modest growth in GDP since then (see
table 2).
•Additional borrowing annually as the
government continues to spend more than
it collects in taxes, thereby giving rise to the
need to borrow to finance annual current
expenditure.
Year
%
Actual/target
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
11.5
10.9
9.4
7.6
7.5
4.8
2.8
Actual
Actual
Actual (target 10.6%)
Actual (target 8.6%)
Budget
Budget
Budget
Ireland had the third highest debt to GDP ratio
in the EU in 2011 behind Greece and Italy. The
Eurozone 17 debt to GDP per cent over the
period 2002 to 2008 remained close to 70%
before rising over the last three years to stand
at 87.2% in 2011 (Eurostat, 2011). It is
anticipated that Ireland’s debt/GDP ratio will
peak at 120.3% in 2013 before falling to 117.4%
in 2015 (Department of Finance, 2012). Table
3 shows Ireland’s deficit has been declining as
a percentage of GDP. For 2011 it was 9.4% well
below the EU/ECB/IMF programme target for
2011 of 10.6% (Department of Finance, 2012).
EU/ECB/IMF programme targets were also
reached in 2012.
The cost of funding public services has also
been affected. The yield on Irish government
bonds dropped to 3.67% in late 2013 having
peaked at 14% in mid 2011. There was a more
pronounced decline in yields on shorter
maturities (National Treasury Management
Agency, 2012, p. 9). This decline in bond yields
Year
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
GDP
Growth in GDP (%)
163.0
177.7
188.7
178.9
161.3
156.5
159.0
160.2
8.5
9.0
6.2
-5.2
-9.8
-2.9
+1.6
+0.9
Sources: Central Statistics Office (2012a, pp.17–18;
2013b).
Table 3. Deficit as a percentage of GDP.
Sources: Central Statistics Office (2012a) and Eurostat
(2013).
strengthens the state’s chances of a full return
to the bond markets and emerging from the
bailout programme in late 2013 without
requiring further significant financial support.
Net migration statistics form a part of the
Irish crisis story. Numbers emigrating from
Ireland started to increase sharply from 2005,
and numbers leaving Ireland have continued
to increase (see table 4) thus masking a bigger
problem in unemployment statistics since 2009.
Unemployment was 6.4% in 2008 and had
increased to 14.7% in 2012 although
preliminary seasonally adjusted numbers for
2013 show an improvement at 13.7% (Central
Statistics Office, 2013b). Emigration in any
single year in the previous 10 years had not
exceeded 31,500 people, with average
emigration of 28,400 people in the 10 years to
2004. In contrast, the number of immigrants
peaked in 2007 and fell sharply for the next
Table 4. Net migration Ireland 2004–2012 (000s).
Immigration
Emigration
Net
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
58.5
26.5
32
84.6
29.4
55.1
107.8
36.0
71.8
151.1
46.3
104.8
113.5
49.2
64.3
73.7
72.0
1.6
41.8
69.2
-27.5
53.3
80.6
-27.4
52.7
87.1
-34.4
Source: Central Statistics Office (2012b), table 1.
© 2014 CIPFA
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MARCH 2014
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three years to reflect a more typical pattern of
50,700 immigrants on average per annum over
the 10 years prior to 2004.
However, further analysis of emigration
statistics shows that Irish people emigrating
accounted for less than 50% of total emigration
until 2011 (52.1%): see table 5 (Central Statistics
Office, 2012b). From 2006 to 2012 other
Europeans accounted for large numbers of
emigrants from Ireland.
Central Statistics Office numbers show that
the number of Europeans emigrating between
2006 and 2008 almost doubled and stayed at
this level for the next four years, reflecting the
departure of many Eastern Europeans who
had come to work in the construction and
other sectors in the boom years. The impact of
the crisis on objective economic and financial
indicators and also on the human pattern of
migration occurred along side efforts to reform,
as well as reduce, the cost of public services.
Public sector expenditure reduction and
reform
In this section the impact of the crisis on public
sector workers’ incomes, public service capacity
and the opportunity for public sector reform is
examined. Existing public sector workers have
endured pay cuts, with harsher cuts to be
imposed on new recruits to the public sector—
a clear instance of the equity/efficiency tension
in cutback management choices as noted earlier
by Levine (1978). Future recruits to the public
sector may respond negatively to this reduced
benefits contract—a concern raised by Pandey
(2010). In March 2009, a pension levy of 7% on
average was applied to the earnings of public
servants (other than judges) (Oireachtas, 2009).
In addition, a reduction in rates of pay and
allowances took effect on 1 January 2010, and
combined with the pension levy, resulted in an
effective average reduction of 14% in the salaries
of existing public sector staff, as well as a pay
freeze until 2014 (Oireachtas, 2009; Irish
Government, 2010a; European Commission
Directorate-General for Economic and
Financial Affairs, 2011).
In June 2010, against a background of
private sector wage cuts and redundancies, the
government and public sector unions reached
an agreement aimed at wide-ranging reform of
the public sector, increased flexibility and
redeployment and reduced headcount on a
voluntary basis. This Public Service Agreement
2010–2014 (Croke Park 1) is an agreement
between the Irish government and the
Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade
Unions, which represents public sector workers,
to work together to change the way in which
public services are managed and delivered so
that both the cost of public services and the
number of people working in the public service
will fall significantly, yet continue to meet the
need for services and improve the experience
of service users. A national implementation
body was established in July 2010. This body is
responsible for overseeing, driving and
verifying progress on the implementation of
the Croke Park Agreement across the public
service and for the resolution of issues as they
arise. In late June 2013, Croke Park 2 (also
known as the Haddington Road Agreement)
was agreed (Irish Government, 2013). This
involved a further pay cut (of 5.5%) for public
servants earning more than 65,000 euro per
annum on their full salary and other measures
aimed at delivering 1 billion euro in further
savings by 2016. Salary cuts increase
progressively to the point of a 10% marginal
reduction for those earning more than 185,000
euro. An earlier version of this agreement had
been rejected in Spring 2013. After the rejection
of the Croke Park 2 Agreement by public sector
trade unions, the government passed
emergency legislation which allowed it to
impose pay cuts on higher earners (salaries
greater than 65,000 euro), suspend increments,
and alter the terms and conditions of public
sector workers for public service groups that
decided not to sign up to Croke Park 2
(Oireachtas, 2013). The general secretary of
the Civil Public and Services Union noted that:
…members had been left with ‘Hobson’s Choice’
over the deal and that…the result could not be
seen as an endorsement of the Haddington Road
Agreement, but rather as a result forced by
government through intimidation and fear.
Table 5. Migration from Ireland by nationality 2006–1012.
Irish
EU-27
Rest of World
Total
2006
2008
2010
2012
42.5%
40.3%
17.2%
26.7%
54.9%
18.4%
41.8%
44.8%
13.4%
53.4%
33.9%
12.7%
36,000
49,000
69,200
87,100
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENTMARCH 2014
…the passing of emergency legislation, with
draconian ministerial powers to change the
conditions of government employees, [has] left
members with a gun to their heads.
The Unite Union regional secretary at the
biennial conference of the Irish Congress of
© 2014 CIPFA
95
Trade Unions described attacks on working
people as a ‘war’, while at the same Congress
union staff representing the Irish Nurses and
Midwives union said that:
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…the Labour Party [coalition partners in
government] must be told it could not leave power
with the financial emergency legislation still on
the statute books to be used as a weapon of mass
destruction against workers by a future
administration (Wall, 2013a).
A key objective of the Croke Park
Agreements is to avoid the scale of industrial
unrest which characterized Ireland in the 1980s.
There have been indications of this in recent
press reports (Halpin, 2013; Wall, 2013b).
Historically, Ireland has been slow to adopt
public sector reforms, although this changed
somewhat with codification of NPM ideas in
legislation which supported implementation
of NPM principles under the Strategic
Management Initiative in Ireland from the
mid 1990s (Robbins and Lapsley, 2005). In a
speech at the International Research Society
for Public Management Conference in April
2011, Brendan Howlin, the newly-elected
minister for public service reform noted that
there was now an opportunity to radically
change public service delivery and that parts of
the Irish public sector were not fit for purpose
and in need of reform. The Department of
Public Expenditure and Reform, which was
established by legislation on 6 July 2011, is
responsible for reducing public expenditure
and leading public service reform under the
terms of the Croke Park Agreement.
‘Expenditure’ and ‘reform’ in the title of the
department convey a commitment by the
government to interlink these two elements.
The Department of Public Expenditure and
Reform and all government departments
carried out comprehensive expenditure reviews
(CERs) in 2011. These and future CERs are
intended to become ‘the keystone of financial
management’ (Department of Public
Expenditure and Reform, 2012a, p. 12).
Since 2009, public sector workers have
experienced cuts in salaries, cuts in staff
numbers and signed two public service
agreements aimed at maintaining a stable
industrial relations environment. In tandem
with reductions in public service staff numbers,
the Department of Public Expenditure and
Reform has planned a programme of reform
based on:
•A renewed focus on customer service.
© 2014 CIPFA
•Maximizing new and innovative service
delivery channels.
•Radically reducing costs to drive better value
for money.
•Organizing in new ways and increasing the
focus on implementation and delivery
(Department of Public Expenditure and
Reform, 2011, p. 3).
The Irish government has stayed firmly
within guidelines adhering to the budget
reduction terms of the EU/ECB/IMF bailout
with a consequent reduction in public services,
particularly health services. All 11 quarterly
reviews have taken place (as of November
2013) and satisfactory progress has been
reported (International Monetary Fund, 2012;
2013). While public sector reform is an element
of the reform package it appears that most
attention has been on budgetary reductions,
with consequent decreases in organizational
capacity. The range and quality of public
services have been affected and reductions in
budgets have been keenly felt in health and
education. For instance, there has been in
excess of a 12% reduction over the three-year
period 2008 and 2011 of home help hours for
an increasing number of primarily elderly, but
also disabled citizens (Health Service Executive,
2011, table 14). In the health sector, staff
numbers are required to decrease by 12.2%
(net reduction of 12,400 staff) to achieve
budgetary targets. To date net reductions of
10,000 staff have been made, many of these
front-line staff (Health Service Executive, 2013).
Government policy statements articulating a
renewed focus on customer service is at odds
with the public’s experience of policy impacts
of cutbacks such as these—a case of inconsistency
between policy and practice. This reduced
service for vulnerable sections of the population
raises concerns about equity and efficiency
trade-offs, a concern raised by Denhardt (2004).
The primacy of financial cutbacks is explained
further in the next section.
Budgets—cuts, cuts, cuts
A National Recovery Plan was published in
November 2010. It outlined actions to
implement a fiscal policy aimed at maintaining
a government deficit at not more than 3% of
GDP in line with the Stability and Growth
Pact—the agreement between European
member states to protect the European
Economic and Monetary Union. The recovery
plan included a 15 billion euro budgetary
adjustment over the four-year period 2011–
2014. Budget 2011 (delivered in December
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MARCH 2014
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96
2010) was the first phase of implementation of
this plan. Two-thirds of the adjustment (10
billion euro) was to come from expenditure
cuts, with one-third (5 billion euro) expected to
be generated from increased government
revenues. The public service pay bill had already
been reduced by 1.4 billion euro in 2009 as a
result of pay cuts and a pension levy now paid
by employees. This was the first reduction in
public sector pay since 1933 (Department of
Public Expenditure and Reform, 2012b). As
with the cuts in expenditure, on the revenueraising side 40% of the adjustment was
frontloaded to the first year of the plan—2011.
On the revenue-raising side the focus was on
broadening the tax base, as in 2010, 45% of tax
units paid no income tax (Irish Government,
2010b, p. 89).
Budget 2011, delivered in December 2010,
consisted primarily of the pay cuts outlined
earlier for public servants, cuts in social
protection payments and cuts in capital
expenditure. Budget 2012 and 2013 consisted
of a combination of increased taxation measures
including a new property tax and cuts in funding
for public services. Cuts in funding for health
services for instance included: reductions in
numbers of health service staff under the
Employment Control Framework, savings in
procurement, and savings in prescription drug
payments through greater prescribing of
generic drugs. Cuts in education included:
cuts in capitation grants across a range of
further and adult education courses, reduction
in the student maintenance grant, and a
reduction in the fund for students with
disabilities.
Conclusions
As noted by Dunsire and Hood (1989), the
pressure for cutbacks may come from two
sources. In advance of the request for external
financial assistance from Europe, the Irish
government had already embarked on a series
of cutbacks in three budgets during the 14
months to December 2009. Further cutbacks
came at the insistence of the Troika. While in
Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, national
governments in their strategies of retrenchment
failed to connect cutback management to
ambitious administrative modernization
programmes (Di Mascio and Natalini, 2013),
the response of the Irish government was to
prioritize cutbacks in public services and new
taxes. The government elected in February
2011 established the Department of Public
Expenditure and Reform in July 2011. The
cabinet committee responsible for reviewing
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENTMARCH 2014
progress on the public sector reform plan
consists of the most senior politicians and civil
servants. The extent of public sector reform in
its rationalization programme is distinct. In the
public service reform plan issues of efficiency
are raised nine times while equity is not
mentioned at all. The discharge of
accountability solely in efficiency, effectiveness
and responsiveness terms is considered deficient
as a measure of accountability (Denhardt and
Denhardt, 2000; Bardouille, 2000). Suleiman
(2003) suggests that NPM ideas aimed at
addressing weaknesses in traditional
bureaucracies in the pursuit of efficiency serve
to undermine democracy itself. While equity as
a concern is not mentioned, democratic
accountability concerns are considered six times
in the reform plan indicating some sense of
balance between managerial accountability and
efficiency concerns on the one hand and
democratic considerations on the other.
However, while public sector reform has
received some attention, the primary focus of
government and civil servants has been on
adherence to the EU/ECB/IMF programme.
Fiscal imbalances in Ireland, as elsewhere,
have required cutbacks that have proven
unpopular (Kickert, 2012). There are potential
consequences arising from this element of
cutback management in terms of employee
motivation and commitment (Pandey, 2010).
Net migration, since 2009, masks a larger
unemployment problem. Evidence was
provided earlier in the paper of the growing
disquiet about salary cuts, changes in terms of
employment and other public service cutbacks
which impact on the organizational capacity of
the public sector.
Ireland’s EU/ECB/IMF bailout has come at
a cost of reduced sovereign control. The loss of
control of the Irish government over its own
budgetary policy was highlighted in November
2011 when details of the Irish national budget
for 2012 were discussed by the Bundestag’s
budget committee in advance of being discussed
in the Irish parliament. The Irish budget 2012
blueprint had been given to the German finance
ministry as part of the agreed quarterly reviews
of Ireland’s 85 billion euro Troika programme
of support. EU/ECB/IMF oversight will
continue for years after Ireland exits the
programme. Oversight of the country’s budget
will be a permanent feature under the EU’s
new regulations following the near collapse of
the euro.
There are some positive developments.
Compared with other Eurozone countries,
there is relative political stability in Ireland
© 2014 CIPFA
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97
since the current government enjoys a
substantial majority in parliament. The second
public service agreement has been reached,
albeit after the threat of emergency legislation
to facilitate implementation of salary cuts if it
was not agreed. This second agreement contains
the word ‘stability’ in its title, denoting the
importance of industrial relations stability to
facilitate economic recovery. These aspects of
stability assist in boosting confidence in Ireland’s
economic future. Unemployment statistics for
2013 show an improvement for the first time in
five years, although this masks growing net
emigration numbers. Investor confidence has
grown as evidenced by the decline in yields on
long- and short-term government bonds.
Recent short-term and long-term bond
offerings have been oversubscribed, indicating
a renewed interest and demand for Irish
sovereign debt, which augurs well for future
fundraising efforts as Ireland prepares to exit
the programme of financial support. Structural
reforms are focused on maintaining flexibility
in the labour market and enhancing
competitiveness. Growth in economic activity
depends on the availability of cheap finance to
fuel economic demand. However, Ireland’s
economic fortunes depend in large part on
revival of trading partner growth which recently
(2013) has halted the faltering progress Ireland
was making on GDP growth.
The Department of Public Expenditure
and Reform is in its infancy. Some limited steps
have been taken to link reforms with cutbacks.
The comprehensive expenditure review 2012–
2014 implements commitments made in the
public service reform plan. However, the focus
is on identification of savings by reducing both
the number of agencies and staff numbers—is
this cutbacks or true reform? A further study of
the impact of reforms will be needed to examine
the influence of reforms on the public service
experiences of the Irish public as these changes
are embedded. The crisis has given government
the impetus to downsize the public sector
through a range of cutbacks. The quarterly
reviews within ‘the Troika agreement’ provide
a framework for addressing long standing
problems. The programme for future public
service reform is now supported by new fiscal
rules, a medium-term expenditure framework
underpinned by a regular comprehensive
review process, updated and refocused value
for money reviews and a move to performance
budgeting. All of these elements have
undertones that reflect a concern with
efficiencies. Overall, the impact of this Irish
austerity programme is a reduction in the
© 2014 CIPFA
capacity of the public sector to deliver public
services. The maxim of ‘more with less’ has a
hollow ring in the context of public management
challenges in this environment of austerity.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the participants
at the following seminars for their helpful
comments: the New Thinking Research
Seminar Series at the University of Edinburgh
Business School, Scotland (February 2013),
the KEFU Seminar, Lund University, Sweden
(March 2013), and the Management Seminar
Series, Politecnico di Milano, Italy (April 2013).
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© 2014 CIPFA
Summit of Failure: How the EU Lost Russia
over Ukraine
By SPIEGEL Staff
November 24, 2014
One year ago, negotations over a Ukraine association agreement with the
European Union collapsed. The result has been a standoff with Russia and
war in the Donbass. It was an historical failure, and one that German
Chancellor Angela Merkel contributed to.
Only six meters separated German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych as they sat across from each other in the festively adorned
knight's hall of the former Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. In truth, though,
they were worlds apart.
Yanukovych had just spoken. In meandering sentences, he tried to explain why the
European Union's Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius was more useful than it
might have appeared at that moment, why it made sense to continue negotiating
and how he would remain engaged in efforts towards a common future, just as he
had previously been. "We need several billion euros in aid very quickly," Yanukovych
said.
Then the chancellor wanted to have her say. Merkel peered into the circle of the 28
leaders of EU member states who had gathered in Vilnius that evening. What
followed was a sentence dripping with disapproval and cool sarcasm aimed directly at
the Ukrainian president. "I feel like I'm at a wedding where the groom has suddenly
issued new, last minute stipulations."
The EU and Ukraine had spent years negotiating an association agreement. They had
signed letters of intent, obtained agreement from cabinets and parliaments,
completed countless diplomatic visits and exchanged objections. But in the end, on
the evening of Nov. 28, 2013 in the old palace in Vilnius, it became clear that it had
all been a wasted effort. It was an historical earthquake.
Everyone came to realize that efforts to deepen Ukraine's ties with the EU had failed.
But no one at the time was fully aware of the consequences the failure would have:
that it would lead to one of the world's biggest crises since the end of the Cold War;
that it would result in the redrawing of European borders; and that it would bring the
Continent to the brink of war. It was the moment Europe lost Russia.
For Ukraine, the failure in Vilnius resulted in disaster. Since its independence in
1991, Ukraine has strived to orient itself towards the EU while at the same time
taking pains to ensure that those actions don't damage its relations with Moscow.
The choice between West and East, which both Brussels and Moscow have forced
Kiev to make, has had devastating consequences for the fragile country.
But the impact of that fateful evening in Vilnius goes far beyond Ukraine's borders.
Some 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and almost 70 years after the end of
World War II, Europe is once again divided. The estrangement between the Russians
and the Europeans is growing with Moscow and the West more inimical toward each
other today than during the final phase of the Cold War. It's a reality that many in
Europe have long sought to ignore.
The story of the run-up to Vilnius is one filled with errors in judgment,
misunderstandings, failures and blind spots. It is a chronicle of foreign policy failure
foretold -- on all sides. Russia underestimated the will of Ukrainians to steer their
country toward the EU and was overly confident in its use of its political power over
Kiev as a leverage.
For its part, the EU had negotiated a nearly 1,000-page treaty, but officials in
Brussels hadn't paid close enough attention to the realities of those power politics.
Even in Berlin, officials for too long didn't take Russian concerns -- about the
encroachment of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe -- seriously enough. The idea
that Moscow might be prepared to use force to prevent a further expansion of the
Western sphere of influence didn't seem to register with anyone.
With the special role it plays and the special responsibility it has for Europe, the
meltdown also represented a failure for Germany. Foreign policy has long been
considered one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's greatest strengths, but even she
ignored the warning signs. Merkel has proven herself over the years to be a deft
mediator who can defuse tensions or work out concrete solutions. But crisis
management alone is not enough for good foreign policy. Missing in this crisis was a
wider view and the ability to recognize a conflict taking shape on the horizon.
Instead, officials in Berlin seemed to believe that because nobody wanted conflict, it
wouldn't materialize.
Merkel did say at the summit that, "The EU and Germany have to talk to Russia. The
Cold War is over." But the insight came too late.
Kiev, The Presidential Palace
Feb. 25, 2010
Viktor Yanukovych was sworn in as president of Ukraine on Feb. 25, 2010 by the
Verkhovna Rada, the country's national parliament. The first guests he would receive
as president were chief European Union diplomat Catherine Ashton and European
Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Füle.
Was it a sign?
During his inaugural address, Yanukovych had rejected the clear Western orientation
of his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko. Instead, he said Ukraine should become a
"bridge" between the East and West. He envisioned Ukraine's future as a "European
bloc-free state."
But not long later, he found himself sitting together with Ashton and Füle inside
Mariyinsky Palace in Kiev, the official presidential residence. The two had brought a
piece of paper with them, which they used to present what they called the "matrix,"
Yanukovych's choices. It was their own, very bureaucratic way, of describing
Ukraine's path to a European future. They handed him the matrix as if it were some
kind of gift.
"We have never done this before for anybody," Füle said. Both European leaders
considered the paper to be a pledge of confidence.
The "matrix" listed in detail what it would mean for Yanukovych if he engaged
himself with the EU. To the left were the conditions he had to fulfill, including things
like EU standards or the demands of the International Monetary Fund. On the right,
the money was listed that Ukraine would receive if it went down this path toward the
West.
Yanukovych was primarily interested in the right-hand column. When he needed
money, he had always been in the habit of simply taking it -- from everyone: from
his own people; from the Russian Federation; and, of course, also from the EU.
Previously, during a stint as prime minister, he had mostly used his power to secure
lucrative posts for members of his own clan. Indeed, Yanukovych had enjoyed a
dubious reputation dating back to the clan wars in his home region, the Donbass coal
basin. Even if he claimed the contrary, he never cared much about Western values.
But would Yanukovych really do anything for money?
The president thanked his guests for the "matrix," the "pledge of confidence" that he
hadn't actually earned. He had experienced the Europeans as naive do-gooders who
were constantly going on about values and human rights but who had no idea about
money. He promised both guests that the first trip he would take as Ukrainian
president would be to Brussels. They understood it to be a sign, but instead it was
but the first of many misunderstandings to come.
Kiev
Jan. 10, 2011
Enlargement Commissioner Füle traveled to Ukraine again that January to warn
Yanukovych against making any serious mistakes. Füle was genuinely alarmed.
On Dec. 20, 2010, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office had filed charges
against Yulia Tymoshenko accusing her of misuse of state funds. It appeared as
though Yanukovych was seeking to get a former political opponent out of the way.
"Don't do it," Füle implored.
Füle was then and remains now a great believer in Europe, in the grand promise of
freedom. He believes in Western values, in transparency, in the rule of law and in
the EU's soft power. It was inconceivable to Füle that someone who had the
opportunity to become a part of Europe could possibly refuse.
"Mr. President," Füle warned. "You're walking on thin ice." The president and the
commissioner were meeting alone. Füle, who is Czech, studied in the 1980s at the
Moscow State Institute of International Relations, an institution for the Soviet elite
and he speaks fluent Russian, obviating the need for an interpreter. He reminded
Yanukovych of his promise to reform the Ukrainian justice system. The EU even had
a term, "selective justice," for the arbitrariness that prevailed in the Ukrainian legal
system. Füle also reminded Yanukovych that, as expansion commissioner, it was also
his job to convince EU member states of why Ukraine should belong to Europe.
Was it absolutely necessary for the European public to see just how far removed
Ukraine still remained from the Western idea of rule of law? Tymoshenko is one of, if
not the only, Ukrainian who is recognizable to people living in the West. She was the
icon of the Orange Revolution and, despite her shortcomings as prime minister, had
lost little of the glamour the revolution had bestowed upon her. Now Tymoshenko,
with her trademark crown braid, threatened to become a martyr.
"You have to be 100 percent sure that this will not become a politically motivated
justice," Füle said at the time. Yanukovych smiled. "I promise you that our judiciary
is independent," he said.
Kiev, Presidential Palace
Dec. 12, 2011
Events then proceeded as Füle feared they would. In May, the Prosecutor General's
Office indicted Tymoshenko a second time. At this point, she had already been in
pre-trial detention for three months. It started to look as though she would get
convicted. Füle asked if he could visit her in jail.
Yanukovych went over to his desk, which had a Soviet-era desktop switchboard. He
pushed a button and the Ukrainian General Prosecutor quickly answered. "I have
here the commissioner," Yanukovych said. "He wants to see the Lady in prison."
Kharkiv, Women's Prison
Feb. 14, 2012
It was bitterly cold on the morning the gate to the Kachanivska women's prison was
opened for a bus carrying German doctors. A group of protesters stood in front of the
gate shouting, "Yulia, Yulia." The group, led by neurologist Karl Max Einhäupl, the
head of Berlin's Charité university hospital, then crowded into Tymoshenko's cell, a
room with a small barred window beneath the ceiling. Her lawyer was also present,
along with two guards. There were two doctors from Germany, three from Canada
and one from Ukraine. Tymoshenko was lying on the bed. Her hair was freshly done
as was her make-up. She turned to face her visitors, but the pain was so great that
she could hardly move.
The EU had transformed Tymoshenko into a symbol of whether Ukraine was indeed
compatible with Europe. If she were released, Kiev would be given the seal of
approval for its judiciary. If she remained imprisoned, Ukraine would continue to be
stigmatized as a country with an arbitrary legal system.
The doctors diagnosed a protracted slipped disc and stated that it wasn't possible to
treat Tymoshenko inside the prison. The diagnosis had been a medical one, but it
also served as a political verdict. "We traveled there as doctors and not politicians,"
Einhäupl would later say, "but that's only half the truth."
Brussels, L'Eccailler du Palais Royal Restaurant
May 30, 2012, 7 p.m.
On May 30 of that year, Füle invited two acquaintances for dinner at L'Ecailler du
Palais Royal, one of the better restaurants on Brussels' noble Place du Grand Sablon.
The guests included former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who had just
been named as the official negotiating Tymoshenko's release on behalf of the EU, as
well as Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. They sat upstairs on the second floor so
they could enjoy a bit more peace and quiet. Füle ordered a nice bottle of wine for
the evening so that he could toast Ukraine's future in Europe.
"To Europe," Füle said.
Two months ago, the European Union and Ukraine officially approved the Ukraine-EU
Association Agreement. Brussels had begun paving the way for the "Eastern
Partnership" four years ago. The partnership envisions tight political and economic
ties between the EU and the six former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe and the
Caucasus. The agreements had actually been envisioned as consolation prizes for
countries that were unlikely to be granted EU membership at any time in the
foreseeable future.
Like so many things in the EU, the Eastern Partnership is also a compromise. The
Eastern Europeans, particularly the Poles, would prefer to give Ukraine full EU
membership. At the very least, they want some kind of buffer placed between their
countries and Moscow. But Southern and Western Europeans are not interested in an
additional enlargement round. The result is a complicated situation for EU
bureaucrats. Sometimes they get so caught up in policy that they fail to see the
forest for the trees.
When considering the association agreement with Ukraine, EU officials clearly didn't
pay enough attention to what it might mean for Russia. And that night, although
Pinchuk didn't want to spoil the positive atmosphere, he also had the feeling that the
commissioner was underestimating the danger that Russia might not sit back
passively as Brussels sought to bring Ukraine into its sphere of influence. He warned
the commissioner.
But Füle had assumed Russia wouldn't have any objections to the treaty. "Russia had
never had a problem with the EU," said sources in Brussels familiar with the
negotiations. After all, hadn't Putin offered his backing for closer ties back in 2004?
During a visit to Spain at the time, the Russian president said, "If Ukraine wants to
join the EU and if the EU accepts Ukraine as a member, Russia, I think, would
welcome this."
But a lot of time had passed since then and relations had also deteriorated. It is no
coincidence that the turning point was an event in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution at
the end of 2004, that ensured the election of pro-European President Viktor
Yushchenko. Since then, Brussels and Moscow have been both been vying to deepen
ties with countries located in the region between Russia and the EU. The term used
for this in the West is "competition of integration." But in Moscow, it is seen as a
battle over spheres of influence.
"You will have to find a solution that is also acceptable to Putin," Pinchuk warned the
commissioner. "Things could get difficult with the Russians." But Füle believed he
knew the Russians better. "It's always difficult with the Russians," he said.
Berlin, the Chancellery
Spring 2012
That spring, German Chancellor Merkel was concerned about Tymoshenko, not
Russia. Merkel made a phone call to the Ukrainian president in Yalta in Crimea. It
was a short time before the European Cup football championships, a tournament
hosted that year by both Poland and Ukraine. In April, German President Joachim
Gauck had already declined his invitation to participate in a meeting of Central
European heads of state in Crimea because of Tymoshenko's incarceration and now
Merkel was calling in an effort to persuade Yanukovych to release her. At the
beginning of the call, the Ukrainian president tried to charm Merkel. "You speak such
good Russian, let's speak without a translator," he suggested. But Merkel blocked
him. She spoke with the Ukrainian president as if he were a child. "I want to help,"
she said, "but you have to free Yulia Tymoshenko."
Brussels, European Council headquarters
Feb. 25, 2013
At the EU-Ukraine Summit on Feb. 25, 2013, Yanukovych announced his intention to
work more closely with Putin's customs union. The Eurasian Economic Union was
Moscow's response to Brussels' growing influence, with the aim being that of creating
a single market comprised of post-Soviet states, with Ukraine at its heart.
For Putin, the Eurasion Union is the core of a foreign policy plan to defend Moscow's
traditional zone of influence and with which he wants to win back lost terrain. As is
always the case when it comes to Russian foreign policy, it is also a question of
status. Brussels did in fact offer Moscow some of the elements of an association
agreement, but Russia, a former world power, didn't want to be treated like a
second-class citizen in Brussels in the same way as other countries like Moldova or
Armenia. Moscow insisted on its status as a major power and demanded equal
footing.
The Kremlin then proposed to Brussels that negotiations be conducted between the
EU and the Eurasion Union -- directly between the two blocs of power. But European
Commission President José Manuel Barroso refused to meet with the leaders of the
Eurasion Union, a bloc he considered to be an EU competitor.
"One country cannot at the same time be a member of a customs union and be in a
deep common free-trade area with the European Union," the commission president
said on February 25. He said that Kiev had to decide which path it wanted to take.
The message was clear: Kiev had to choose either Brussels or Moscow.
Kiev, Premier Palace Hotel
July 27, 2013
His name wasn't anywhere on the official program and no one appeared to know that
he was coming. The Russian Embassy in Kiev hadn't even been informed that
Russian President Vladimir Putin would be making an appearance at a conference of
his Ukrainian supporters at the Premier Palace Hotel.
"We will respect whatever choice the Ukrainian government and people make...," he
said. "But there are facts that speak for themselves." The statements are far from
friendly. Whereas they may have sounded like a promise to those listening in the
hall, Putin's comments were both a slap in the face and a threat to the Ukrainian
government.
Prior to his speech, Putin had spoken for nearly an hour with Yanukovych in the
presidential palace, leaving the Ukrainian president vexed. The talk would
fundamentally change Russia's position towards Kiev. Previously, officials in Moscow
hadn't believed that the association agreement with Brussels could actually come to
pass. The general consensus in the Russian capital had been that the EU would insist
on Tymoshenko's release and that Yanukovych would never push through all the
uncomfortable reforms that Brussels had demanded.
But now, Putin realized that Yanukoych actually was considering signing the
agreement.
Moscow, the Interfax News Agency
July 29, 2013, 9:24 a.m.
Two days later, the Kremlin-aligned news agency Interfax issued a news alert
warning Russian consumers against consuming Ukrainian candies and chocolates.
The article quoted Gennadiy Onishchenko, Russia's chief sanitary inspector at the
time, who had just imposed a sales ban on candy by Variete, Montblanc pralines and
Ukrainian milk chocolate because of alleged quality and safety problems. The sweets
are made in factories that belonged to Petro Poroshenko (the oligarch and current
Ukrainian president) and a television station he owned had been promoting Ukraine's
pro-European policies. Shortly thereafter, Moscow imposed other measures in an
escalation between Moscow and Kiev dubbed by the international media as the
"chocolate war". Although the term may sound sweet, the realities were anything but
nice.
By then, at the very latest, officials in Berlin should have realized that Putin was
going to take off the kid gloves in the battle over Ukraine.
Berlin, the Office of the German Advisory Group
Sept. 20, 2013
Berlin economists had been doing the calculations for two weeks and now they finally
had the decisive figure that Yanukovych's government had been waiting for. Ricardo
Giucci, the head of the German Advisory Group that monitors the reform process in
Ukraine, already had several impatient emails from Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister
Serhiy Arbuzov's office when he finally hit the send button. His outgoing message
included an 18-page report with the title "Impact assessment of a possible change in
Russia's trade regime vis-a-vis Ukraine."
The question the report addressed is what it would cost Ukraine if Moscow were to
cut its facilitation of trade with Kiev. The document included tables, bar charts and
explanations about the customs union. In the end, though, only one thing interested
politicians in Ukraine. On page two, under the heading "summary," the report states
that "Ukrainian exports to Russia would decrease by 17 percent or $3 billion per
year." It provided a solid figure, from Germany, telling the Ukrainian government
what it would have a sacrifice for the sake of closer relations with the EU. Should not
Kiev be compensated for such a sacrifice?
Washington, IMF Headquarters
Oct. 14, 2013
David Lipton sat down in front of Arbuzov's delegation. He had carried the title of
deputy managing director at the IMF since 2011 and served as Christine Lagarde's
right-hand man. The Ukrainians who had traveled to Washington found him to be
friendly, at least compared to the IMF economists sitting next to Lipton with their
frozen smiles exhibiting nothing but contempt for the Ukrainians.
It was the second trip Arbuzov had made to Washington within a period of only two
weeks. By then, it had become clear in eyes of the Ukrainians that there could only
be an agreement with the EU if Ukraine were to be granted a multi-billion-dollar loan
from the IMF.
On Oct. 3, during their first visit, they had sought American support to secure better
conditions for a possible IMF loan. The IMF had named conditions during the spring
that Kiev considered to be unacceptable. They included a provision that the
subsidized price for natural gas be raised by 40 percent and for the Ukraine's
currency, the hryvnia, to be devaluated by 25 percent. For Yanukovych, who would
have to face re-election in 2015, those steps would have been political suicide. But
the Ukrainians also had the impression the IMF was ready to negotiate, not least
because Victoria Nuland, the US assistant secretary of state for European affairs, had
given her assurances that Washington backed an IMF loan for Ukraine.
Now the Ukrainians had come to present their counterproposal to Lipton, a plan that
contained far less than what the IMF had demanded. In terms of negotiations over
the EU agreement, the situation was becoming tenuous.
Berlin, Chancellery
Oct. 16, 2013
In Germany, though, nobody seemed to be aware of the situation. One month after
German parliamentary elections, Merkel spoke on the phone with the Russian
president for the first time in quite a while. Vladimir Putin congratulated her on her
party's election victory and they agreed to hold a joint cabinet meeting as soon as
possible -- a meeting that would never be held.
ANZEIGE
In addition, the chancellor communicated her concern to the Russian president "over
the arrests of the crew of the Greenpeace boat held in Russia," as it says in a press
release about the call. Ukraine wasn't mentioned in it.
Merkel did refer to the issue in the phone call, but when Putin refused to take the
bait, she let it go. Merkel had no telephone contact with Yanukovych at all at the
time.
Brussels, Office of the Enlargement Commissioner
Oct. 17, 2013
Ukraine was facing insolvency while, at the same time, Russia was busy heaping
pressure on Kiev. Although Russian sanctions had long since indicated otherwise,
Berlin and Brussels were not taking Ukrainian concerns, and the country's fear of
Russia, seriously. The Ukrainians, they seemed to think, were simply interested in
driving up the price for their ultimate signature.
Shortly after his visit to the IMF, Arbuzov headed for Brussels to present
Enlargement Commissioner Füle with the numbers calculated by the German
advisory group. He believed that the numbers spoke for themselves, but Füle didn't
take them seriously. "Did you also request calculations," he asked smugly, "about
what would happen to the Ukrainian economy in the case of a meteorite strike?"
Berlin, Foreign Ministry
Oct. 17, 2013
Ukraine's ambassador in Brussels, Konstantin Yeliseyev, embarked on a "special
mission" through the EU to what the Ukrainians referred to among themselves as
"the problematic capitals." Given the acute situation, he wanted to persuade the
Europeans to abandon their demands for Tymoshenko's release.
Yeliseyev's tour took him to The Hague, Copenhagen, Rome, Madrid, Paris and
London. But his final and most challenging stop was Berlin. First, Yeliseyev met with
Merkel's foreign policy advisor Christoph Heusgen before heading to the Foreign
Ministry for a meeting with State Secretary Emily Haber.
Haber in particular demonstrated little enthusiasm for a compromise. When the
ambassador sought to explain the Ukrainian position, Haber interrupted him saying:
"Your Excellency, we are familiar with all of your arguments," adding that it was not
necessary to discuss them for as long as Tymoshenko remained behind bars.
Yeliseyev pleaded with Haber to abandon her focus on Tymoshenko, but to no avail.
The closer the summit approached, the greater the EU pressure became on the
Germans to cease focusing so much attention on the case of Yulia Tymoshenko. The
Poles in particular insisted that the issue could not be allowed to torpedo the
association agreement. Behind closed doors, President Bronisaw Komorowski said:
"Never again do we want to have a common border with Russia." And Germany
began to revisit its position as a result, but it was much too late.
Merkel has often been praised for her pragmatism, particularly when it comes to
foreign policy. The chancellor's ability to reduce a political problem to its single
soluble element and then to focus all her energies on that element is considered to
be one of her great strengths. But her pragmatism reached its limits in this case.
Focusing too intently on the trees blinds one to the forest -- and that proved to be
Merkel's decisive error. As Berlin continued to focus its efforts on Tymoshenko, it
failed to recognize the real danger: The Russian Federation's power play.
Moscow, Military Airport
Nov. 9, 2013
It doesn't happen often that Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at a site other than the
Kremlin or his residence on the outskirts of Moscow. But on that Saturday evening in
October, he unexpectedly agreed to a confidential tête-à-tête at the military airport
not far from the Russian capital. His interlocutor? Viktor Yanukovych.
It was the second conversation between the two presidents within the space of just a
few weeks, with the first having taken place on Oct. 27 in the Black Sea resort of
Sochi.
Putin had nothing but disdain for Yanukovych, loathing the Ukrainian leader's
constant wavering. In the past, he had often left Yanukovych waiting for hours like a
supplicant and the Kremlin was convinced of Yanukovych's unreliability. Though the
man from eastern Ukraine was much less pro-European than his predecessor, he had
continued to stubbornly resist requests from Moscow.
Ever since Putin came to realize that Yanukovych was in fact considering signing the
EU association agreement, he had been regularly sending Sergey Glazyev to Ukraine
to lay out the possible Russian response. Glazyev, Putin's advisor on economic
integration in the post-Soviet regions, had been born in Ukraine. But he dutifully
issued Russian threats to eliminate benefits and spoke at length of the potentially
negative consequences for Ukraine. "The association agreement is suicide for
Ukraine," he said. In October, Glazyev visited Yanukovych three times, on one
occasion bringing along a Russian translation of the thousand-page draft association
agreement because the EU had only sent an English version of it to Kiev.
During Putin's meetings with Yanukovych in Sochi and Moscow, Putin promised
subsidies and economic benefits worth around $12 billion annually, including
discounted prices for oil and natural gas. Conversely, he also threatened to launch a
trade war that would drive an already fragile Ukrainian economy to ruin. Experts in
Brussels also believe that he may have told Yanukovych what Moscow knew about
his dealings with the EU. In Russian, such information is known as "Kompromat," a
word that comes out of KGB jargon and refers to compromising details known about
a leading figure.
Following these meetings, Yanukovych's mood changed markedly. He became
quieter and ceased holding the endless monologues for which he had become
notorious. "Viktor, what's wrong," his Brussels partners would ask. But he evaded
such questions, instead speaking in insinuations and innuendos. He proved unwilling
to say much about the Russians.
Berlin, the Bundestag Federal Parliament
Nov. 18, 2013
Ten days prior to her trip to Vilnius, Merkel delivered a government statement
focused on the approaching summit. "The countries must decide themselves on their
future direction," Merkel said, adding that she had "raised this issue many times"
with Vladimir Putin. But reality looked different, with Kiev having long since ceased
to be able to make decisions independently of Moscow. Merkel, though, continued to
focus on the symbolism of Tymoshenko case and on "democracy, the rule of law and
civil liberties."
Washington DC, IMF Headquarters
Nov. 19, 2013
The IMF finally got around to composing a reply to Arbuzov, Ukraine's first deputy
prime minister, in response to the Ukrainian proposal that Arbuzov had delivered a
month earlier.
It was written by Reza Moghadam, a native of western Iran who had been with the
IMF for 21 years. The director of IMF's European Department, Moghadam had plenty
of experience with countries that believed they could engage in marketplace-style
bartering with the IMF.
"Dear Mr. Arbuzov," Moghadam wrote with barely disguised condescension, "thank
you for sharing with us the Ukrainian authorities' latest proposals for policies that
could be supported by a possible Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF." The fund, he
wrote dismissively, was pleased that the Ukrainian government had recognized the
need for a change in course. But Moghadam required just a single sentence to
dismantle Kiev's counterproposal. "In our view, overall the proposals still fall short of
the decisive and comprehensive policy turnaround that is needed to reduce Ukraine's
macroeconomic imbalances," he wrote.
Kiev, Presidential Palace
Nov. 19, 2013
At Barroso's behest, Füle traveled to Kiev once again to meet with Yanukovych -and the Ukrainian president got straight to the point. In talks with Putin, Yanukovych
told Füle, the Russian president explained just how deeply the Russian and Ukrainian
economies are interconnected. "I was really surprised to learn about it," Yanukovych
said.
Füle couldn't believe what he was being told. "But Mr. President, you have been
governor, you have been prime minister, you have been president for a number of
years now. Certainly you are the last person who needs to be told about the level of
cooperation, interconnection and interdependence of the Ukrainian and Russian
economies. Needless to say, the association agreement does not have any negative
impact on that," Füle said.
"But there are the costs that our experts have calculated," Yanukovych replied.
"What experts?" Füle demanded to know. The Ukrainian president described to his
bewildered guest the size of the losses allegedly threatening Ukraine should it sign
the agreement with the EU.
Later, the number $160 billion found its way into the press, more than 50 times
greater than the $3 billion calculated by the German advisory group. The total came
from a study conducted by the Institute for Economics and Forecasting at the
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and it was a number that Yanukovych
would refer to from then on.
"Stefan, if we sign, will you help us?" Yanukovych asked. Füle was speechless.
"Sorry, we aren't the IMF. Where do these numbers come from?" he finally
demanded. "I am hearing them for the first time." They are secret numbers,
Yanukovych replied. "Can you imagine what would happen if our people were to
learn of these numbers, were they to find out what convergence with the EU would
cost our country?"
Brussels, Residence of the Ukrainian Ambassador to the EU
Nov. 19, 2013, 10:15 p.m.
Konstantin Yeliseyev withdrew to his residence to watch Ukraine play France in the
second leg of their qualifying battle for the World Cup in Brazil. Ukraine had won the
first leg 2:0 in Kiev and now it was Paris' turn to host. It was the 75th minute, just
after France had scored to go up 3:0, when Yeliseyev's mobile phone rang. An
enraged Füle was on the line, having just left his meeting with Yanukovych. "Listen,"
he said to Yeliseyev, "I now have the feeling that you aren't going to sign the
association agreement in Vilnius."
Paris, Stade de France, VIP Seats
Nov. 19, 2013, 10:45 p.m.
The game had come to end with a French victory, meaning Ukraine would not be
heading to Brazil. Pinchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch, was standing in the VIP section of
the stadium not far from French President François Hollande when his telephone
rang. It was Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former president of Poland. Kwasniewski
had also just come from a meeting with Yanukovych in Kiev's presidential palace and
he too was furious. "He tricked us!" Kwasniewski shouted into the phone.
"Yanukovych isn't going to sign. He is a swindler, a notorious liar!"
Kiev, Deputy Prime Minister's Residence
Nov. 20, 2013
Deputy Prime Minister Arbuzov and his advisors were examining the letter from the
IMF, unaware for the moment that negotiations were headed toward failure. Inside
the government in Kiev, Arbuzov had spent months promoting Europe against the
pro-Russian faction surrounding Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and now he looked
like a fool. Every sentence he read sounded like a personal indignity. The IMF
European Department director hadn't even addressed Ukraine's deputy prime
minister with his correct title. Arbuzov was fully aware that his opponents would
jump all over him at the next cabinet meeting.
Kiev, On the Way To the Airport
Nov. 21, 2013
Yanukovych was on the way to the government terminal of Kiev's Boryspil
International Airport ahead of a state visit to Vienna when he finally found the time
to deal with legal ordinance Nr. 905-r. The ordinance contained instructions to his
government to cease working towards the association agreement with the EU for
"reasons of Ukrainian national security." Andriy Klyuyev, secretary of Ukraine's
national security council, was sitting next to him in the government Mercedes.
Yanukovych undertook a few minor changes to the ordinance focused on his wish to
establish a trilateral commission made up of representatives from Ukraine, Russia
and the EU to determine the economic damages an EU association agreement might
cause. At the airport, he handed the document to Klyuyev, ordering him to hurry
back to the cabinet to change the day's agenda. It would spell the end of the
negotiations aimed at signing an EU association agreement in Vilnius. It would be the
final rebuff of the EU.
Vienna, Presidential Suite in Hotel Sacher
Nov. 21, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Yanukovych was sitting at a Rococo table waiting for the glasses to be filled. "Mr.
President," Yanukovych said, "I am grateful that you took the time. I didn't want to
tell you about what happened today in passing."
The president he was speaking to was Heinz Fischer, Austria's head of state. Fischer
was still reeling from an incident that had taken place a few hours earlier, when the
two were sitting across from one another at lunch in the Hofburg, the president's
official residence and one-time home of Austro-Hungarian royalty. They had just
been served coffee with their dessert when each was simultaneously handed a slip of
paper by their aides. Fischer's slip read: "Ukraine stops preparations for agreement
with the EU." It was a news alert from the Austrian news agency APA.
Fischer was genuinely flabbergasted; the news invalidated everything they had been
discussing up to that point. He leaned over to Yanukovych and said: "Now I really
don't know what is going on anymore. Has this happened with your knowledge?"
"It was an unavoidable decision," Yanukovych said later that evening in the Sacher
Hotel. The two of them were now alone with an interpreter in the best suite that the
Austrian president's office had been able to book that afternoon on such short notice.
It was a last, desperate effort to establish a sense of proximity that had long since
vanished.
"Please understand me. I simply can't sign it now," Yanukovych said. "I had to
urgently turn towards Moscow, but I want to keep the doors to Europe open. Please
don't see this as a rejection of Europe."
The two presidents spoke until just before midnight, with Yanukovych doing most of
the talking in the over four-hour-long meeting. An official notice on the meeting
compiled later by Fischer's office mentioned the verbose explanations offered by
Yanukovych: "His remarks were repeatedly complemented or interrupted by very
long and elaborate comments on the historical and political developments of the last
20 years," the note read.
Vilnius, European Union Representation
Nov. 28, 2013, Midday
For a brief moment, Serhiy Arbuzov thought there might still be hope. Yanukovych's
negotiator had headed to Lithuania's EU representation to launch one last attempt to
reach agreement with Füle and his aides. "Today, we are going to make a bold chess
move," one of Füle's people said, refusing to elaborate. Were the Europeans going to
offer Ukraine financial assistance after all?
Vilnius, Kempinski Hotel
Nov. 28, 2013, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
They were all waiting for Yanukovych. It was the last chance they had to meet with
the Ukrainian president to try and convince him to sign the agreement despite all
that had happened. Though it was essentially a hopeless attempt, Barroso and
European Council President Van Rompuy had resolved to try the impossible. Van
Rompuy had brought two copies of the association agreement with him to Vilnius,
ready to be signed.
After a few minutes, Yanukovych showed up with his interpreter, the Ukrainian
ambassador to the EU and a handful of aides. That was unusual; in the past,
Yanukovych had always conducted the most important talks on his own. The greeting
was brief and the roles were reversed. This time around it was the EU that wanted
something: Yanukovych's signature.
Barroso was visibly nervous. Ukraine's economy, he said, would profit considerably in
the long term from closer ties with the EU. "Poland and Ukraine had roughly the
same gross domestic product when the Berlin Wall fell. Now, Poland's is roughly
three times as large," he said. And then came the "bold chess move" that had
previously been hinted at. Barroso said that Brussels would be willing to abandon its
demand that Tymoshenko be released.
Yanukovych was dumbfounded. Didn't Brussels understand that other issues had
long since become more important? The talks became heated and Van Rompuy, not
exactly known for his quick temper, lost his cool. "You are acting short-sightedly," he
growled at Yanukovych. "Ukraine has been negotiating for seven years because it
thought that it was advantageous. Why should that no longer be the case?"
Outside, the reception for the heads of state and government had long since gotten
underway and EU negotiators understood that Yanukovych could no longer be
budged. After two hours, Barroso said: "We have to go." He and Van Rompuy briefly
shook Yanukovych's hand and shut the door behind them.
When the German delegation, under Merkel's leadership, met with Yanukovych the
next morning for one final meeting, everything had already been decided. They
exchanged their well-known positions one last time, but the meeting was nothing
more than a farce. In one of the most important questions facing European foreign
policy, Germany had failed.
But Putin, too, had miscalculated. That same night, thousands of demonstrators
collected on the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kiev. Three months later,
Yanukovych would be forced to flee the country and Putin would annex the Crimean
Peninsula. Thus far, the conflict has claimed the lives of 4,000 people and eastern
Ukraine remains gripped by war.
In his speech in Berlin last December marking the beginning of his term as foreign
minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "We should ask ourselves ... whether we
have overlooked the fact that it is too much for this country to have to choose
between Europe and Russia." Füle is likewise convinced that the EU confronted
Ukraine with an impossible choice. "We were actually telling Ukraine …: 'You know
guys, sorry for your geographic location, but you cannot go east and you cannot go
west,'" he says.
More than anything, though, the Europeans underestimated Moscow and its
determination to prevent a clear bond between Ukraine and the West. They either
failed to take Russian concerns and Ukrainian warnings seriously or they ignored
them altogether because they didn't fit into their own worldview. Berlin pursued a
principles-driven foreign policy that made it a virtual taboo to speak with Russia
about Ukraine. "Our ambitious and consensual policy of the eastern partnership has
not been followed with ambitious and consensual policy on Russia," Füle says. "We
were unable to find and agree on an appropriate engagement policy towards Russia."
Russia and Europe talked past each other and misunderstood one another. It was a
clash of two different foreign policy cultures: A Western approach that focused on
treaties and the precise wording of the paragraphs therein; and the Eastern
approach in which status and symbols are more important.
Four months after the Vilnius summit, the political portion of the association
agreement between Brussels and Kiev was finally signed with the economic section
following three months after that. But the price Ukraine paid for the delay has been
enormous. And this time, Russia has a voice in the matter. There are 2,370
questions that must be resolved with Moscow before the agreement can come into
force. It will almost certainly take years -- and it is the last joint issue about which
Moscow and the EU are still speaking.
By Christiane Hoffmann, Marc Hujer, Ralf Neukirch, Matthias Schepp, Gregor
Peter Schmitz and Christoph Schult
The Economist
Pope Francis’s first year
Faith, hope—and how much change?
How a modest but canny man is approaching the complex task of leading the Roman
Catholic church
IN THE 12 months since he appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s to begin his papacy with a
disarmingly unaffected “Good evening” to the crowd below, Pope Francis has won a
following far beyond the Roman Catholic church. He has softened the image of an institution
that had seemed forbidding during the reign of his predecessor, Benedict, and shown that a
pope can hold thoroughly modern views on atheism (“The issue for those who do not believe
in God is to obey their conscience”), homosexuality (“If a person is gay and seeks God and
has goodwill, who am I to judge?”) and single mothers (he has accused priests who refuse to
baptise their children of having a “sick mentality”).
More than anything, Francis has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to communicate his
ideas, and those of his faith, purely by gesture. Every recent pope has spoken of the need to
treasure human life, even in its most tragic and painful manifestations. But Francis achieved
more than any of them when he embraced a sufferer of neurofibromatosis, a disfiguring
genetic disease. Though all popes pay lip service to the need for humility and simplicity,
Benedict departed from the Apostolic Palace after his unexpected resignation in February
2013 in a Mercedes limousine. Francis drives a 1984 Renault of the sort owned by many
French farm labourers.
A poll published by the Pew Research Centre on March 6th found that, in America, two-thirds
of Catholics and half of non-Catholics regard the new pope as a change for the better. But
whether he is attracting lapsed Catholics to return to regular observance is unclear. In a poll of
Italian priests last year, more than half reported increases in church attendance. But Pew
found no significant change in how often American Catholics said they went to Mass.
The task ahead is daunting. High birth rates in the developing world mean the number of
baptised Catholics, around 1.2 billion, continues to grow. But there is an ever-widening gap
between the doctrines of the church with regard to sex and marriage and what Catholics,
particularly in the developed world, think and do. Clerical sex-abuse scandals, and the
church’s complacent response, have also seen many Catholics in western Europe and North
America turn away in disgust. A fear sometimes voiced privately in the Vatican is that
Catholicism risks one day becoming a religion largely for Africans and Asians, confined
elsewhere to a self-consciously reactionary fringe. Much therefore depends on this frugal,
likeable man.
As the first Latin American pope, Francis has a political and economic perspective quite
unlike that of his predecessors—in particular the two most recent, Benedict XVI and John
Paul II, both Europeans whose attitudes and thinking were shaped by the cold war. Diplomats
listening to his annual “state of the world” address in January noted with interest, even
astonishment, that Europe was barely mentioned beyond its role as a destination for poor
migrants.
Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical De Rerum Novarum (“The Rights and Duties of Capital and
Labour”), which first set out Catholic social teaching in 1891, was as critical of the excesses
of capitalism as it was of socialism. “To misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit
of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers—that is truly shameful and
inhuman,” he wrote. But since then Catholic leaders have become more tolerant of capitalism.
One reason was their perception that Marxism, which is inherently atheistic, was the greater
Satan. Another was the dominance of Italians within the hierarchy: tempered by Christian
Democracy, which ostensibly advocated Catholic social teachings, capitalism had created
Italy’s post-war “economic miracle”. Right-wingers also supported the church on matters
such as abortion. Perhaps most important, from a European viewpoint capitalism was the only
feasible alternative to communism.
By contrast, says Jimmy Burns, a former correspondent in Argentina who is writing a
biography of Francis, the pope “tends to see capitalism in terms of its effects on the third
world”. The form of capitalism he knows from Latin America is, for the most part, not liberal,
but corrupt and crony-ridden. His disdain for it radiates from his first Apostolic
Exhortation,Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”): “Today everything comes under
the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the
powerless.”
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis supported the city’s cartoneros (wastepickers) as they
fought for better working conditions. Last year he arranged for an organiser of thecartoneros,
Juan Grabois, to attend a Vatican-sponsored workshop on the “Emergency of the Socially
Excluded”. Mr Grabois, who describes himself as a “social militant against the havoc the
neoliberal model caused in the 1990s”, told the meeting how impressive he found the
“radicalism” of Evangelii Gaudium. During Benedict’s reign it is unlikely that anyone like
him would have been let inside the Vatican’s gates.
Francis’s views pose difficulties for conservatives inside and outside the church. One passage
in Evangelii Gaudium appalled many: “Just as the commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ sets a
clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘Thou shalt
not,’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality.” Even more radically, he quoted St John
Chrysostom, an early church father: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from
them.”
Rush Limbaugh, a conservative American radio talk-show host, called Evangelii
Gaudium“just pure Marxism”. Francis brushed that claim aside, but in a way that did little to
mollify his critics. “The Marxist ideology is mistaken,” he said in an interview with La
Stampa, an Italian daily. “But I have known many Marxists in my life [who have been] good
as people and because of that I do not feel offended.”
The Peronist pope?
The political landscape of Francis’s homeland, however, offers a more accurate, and nuanced,
understanding of his views. For most of his life Argentina has plotted a kind of third way
between Marxism and liberalism—albeit one with disastrous political and economic results.
“[Francis] only knows one style of politics,” says a diplomat accredited to the Holy See. “And
that is Peronism.”
The creed bequeathed by Argentina’s former dictator, General Juan Perón, with its “three
flags” of social justice, economic independence and political sovereignty, has been endlessly
reinterpreted since. Conservatives and revolutionaries alike have been proud to call
themselves Peronist. But at its heart it is corporatist, assigning to the state the job of resolving
conflicts between interest groups, including workers and employers. In that respect it
resembles fascism and Nazism—and also Catholic social doctrine.
The pope’s Peronist side shows in his use of a classic populist technique: going over the heads
of the elite to the people with headline-grabbing gestures and comments. And it is visible in
his view of political economy, which also has much in common with post-Marxist protest
movements such as Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish indignados and Italy’s Five Star
Movement. “While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap
separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by the happy few,” he has written. “This
imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace
and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance
for the common good, to exercise any form of control.”
Francis was elected after a clash in the General Congregations, the discussions before a
conclave in which the cardinals debate the issues that will face the new pope. A faction
composed largely of English- and German-speaking pastoral cardinals made clear their
exasperation with what they depicted as the arrogance, secretiveness and mismanagement of
the “Italians”, a group of insiders, most of them Italian by birth or officials in the Roman
Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy, which is steeped in a very Italian ethos of reciprocal favours,
patronage and conspiracy. Though his spirituality and managerial talent counted, Francis, an
archdiocesan cardinal and the son of Italian emigrant parents, was also the embodiment of a
compromise between the two factions.
His first, and possibly most important, decision after taking office was to shun the papal
apartments in the Apostolic Palace overlooking St Peter’s Square for simpler accommodation:
Room 201 of Casa Santa Marta, a sort of hotel within the Vatican for visiting clerics and
others. He has explained this decision in terms of his need as a member of a religious
community, the Jesuits, not to live in isolation. But it was also a shrewd political move. It
expressed his desire to eschew ostentation and to seek counsel from outside the church’s
traditional power structures: living in Casa Santa Marta gives him the freedom to buttonhole
all and sundry as they pass through Rome. As he told Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit periodical, the
Apostolic Palace is “like an inverted funnel. It is big and spacious, but the entrance is really
tight.”
The move signalled the start of what Massimo Franco, a columnist at Corriere della Sera, an
Italian daily, called “an inexorable transition that has caught many of the ‘Italians’ off-guard.”
Since then the pope has bypassed the Vatican hierarchy and placed advisers from the
periphery at the centre of his decision-making. A month after his election he created a group
of eight cardinals to “advise him on the government of the universal church” and to draw up a
project for the reform of the Curia. Only one is a Vatican official. He has also named clerics
and laypeople from outside Rome to several other new consultative bodies. Asked to identify
Francis’s most salient characteristic, one diplomat replied: “His hardness”.
Last month Francis announced a new Secretariat of the Economy to oversee the Vatican’s
financial affairs. This may be the most important change to the Curia since a restructuring
ordered by Pope Paul VI in 1967. Its first head will be the archbishop of Sydney, George Pell,
whose reputation for ruthlessness has earned him the nickname “Pell Pot” in Australia.
Among his many difficult tasks will be to clean up the Institute for the Works of Religion,
often known as the Vatican Bank.
Such reforms are essential to the success of Francis’s papacy: the Vatican Bank has been at
the centre of several financial scandals that have embarrassed recent popes. But they are also
dangerous: many in Rome believe that a Curial plot forced Benedict’s resignation. When, on
January 26th, a crow attacked doves of peace released by children standing beside Francis,
some Romans took it as a warning that he risked a similar fate. The insiders whose leaks
alleging corrupt favouritism in the Vatican undermined Benedict’s papacy were
branded corvi (“crows”) in many Italian media outlets. Francis is aware of these risks. The
founder of La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, who had a long conversation with him last year,
quoted him afterwards as describing the court that forms around a pontiff as a “leprosy of the
papacy”.
A misstep in his handling of the long-running scandal of clerical sex abuse poses other,
perhaps greater, dangers. On this, critics accuse the pope of moving too slowly. He has set up
a special commission for the protection of minors, but its role is merely advisory. Though he
suspended Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, a German bishop, for his opulent lifestyle, he has so
far done nothing about Robert Finn, an American bishop convicted in 2012 for failing to tell
the authorities about a priest suspected of sexually abusing children.
“He has changed the topic from abuse without doing anything about it,” says Anne Barrett
Doyle of the American watchdog group bishopaccountability.org. “I would never have
predicted that a whole year would go by without the new pope reaching out in a meaningful
way to the victims.” In his most recent interview, with Corriere della Sera, Francis appeared
to suggest that the church was the true victim: it was “perhaps the only public institution to
have acted with transparency and responsibility...And yet the church is the only one to have
been attacked.”
The flock and the fold
Though structural and organisational reforms mattered, Francis insisted in his wide-ranging
interview with Civiltà Cattolica, they could only come after what he termed a “reform of
attitude”. The ministers of the gospel “must be people who can warm the hearts of the
people,” he said. It was a reminder that the pope is not only the head of a giant multinational,
but also a man of faith, who spends two hours every morning in prayer and one every evening
in adoration of the Eucharist.
Francis’s priority will be, as Benedict’s was, to reverse the galloping secularisation of the
world’s Catholics. This is spreading from western Europe and North America to Latin
America, and is, in many cases, rooted in disagreement with the church’s teaching on sex.
Here, too, he has turned to outsiders for counsel, arranging a global poll of deaneries and
parishes to find out how they deal with the family.
“[Francis] is not a dogmatic scholar who would just like to affirm everything as it was in the
textbooks,” says Hans Küng, a liberal Swiss theologian who has clashed with successive
popes over doctrine. And on occasion Francis has hinted at a readiness for change. “Let us
think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem,”
he said to Civiltà Cattolica. “Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature in her own
judgment.”
But it is not yet clear just how far Francis is prepared to go to adapt church teaching to
modern life. The gulf that has opened up between the beliefs and attitudes of the Vatican, and
those of the faithful, was highlighted by a recent poll in selected countries commissioned by
Univision, an American Spanish-language television network. On a wide range of issues, the
only continents on which most Catholics agreed with the Vatican’s line were Africa and Asia.
On the subject of artificial contraception, lay sentiment was heavily in favour of change, even
in the otherwise dutiful Philippines. A majority supported an end to priestly celibacy in three
of the four Latin American countries surveyed, and the ordination of women in two.
Throughout Latin America and in Europe clear majorities favoured allowing the termination
of pregnancies in some circumstances. And gay marriage, though widely opposed by
Catholics in most of the world, was supported by most of the respondents in the United States.
The issue where the well-informed see greatest hope for change is the church’s ban on
communion for divorced, remarried Catholics. Univision’s survey found overwhelming
majorities in favour of ending it, not only in Europe and North America, but in Latin America,
too. Conservatives raise two objections: one theological and one pragmatic. How can
someone in what the church sees as an invalid marriage be a worthy recipient of the Eucharist,
which Catholics believe is the body of Christ? And how can the Vatican appear to undermine
marriage at a time when the church is engaged in what it sees as a desperate battle to defend
the institution against same-sex marriage in many countries, and rising divorce and
cohabitation rates almost everywhere?
In recent weeks Pope Francis has nevertheless appeared to be edging towards a shift. Last
month he chose Cardinal Walter Kasper, a liberal who has argued against the ban, to address
cardinals meeting to discuss questions about the family. And on February 28th, during his
daily mass in Casa Santa Marta, he called on priests to “accompany” those whose marriages
had failed. “Do not condemn,” he said. “Walk with them and don’t practise casuistry on their
situation.”
Liberal Catholics are also hoping that the pope will reconsider the role of women in the
church. “For me, this is the litmus test,” says a former senior Vatican official. “If he does not
do something radical for women, then I think we can assume he will not make any substantial
reforms.” One possibility is that he might place a woman, perhaps the head of a religious
order, in charge of a Vatican department. Some theologians have argued that only the
ordained can exercise power in the name of the pope. But on March 3rd Cardinal Kasper,
perhaps acting as a stalking horse, said there was no reason why women could not run some
of the Pontifical Councils, second-class Vatican “ministries”, which have briefs that include
the laity, the family, culture and the media.
Almost no one familiar with the church expects Francis to change doctrine on abortion,
divorce or artificial contraception. Many of his non-Catholic admirers seem unaware of his
doctrinal limitations. But Mr Küng warns against underestimating the role of style and
gestures. His latest book is called, “Can we Save the Catholic Church?” and he answers his
own question by noting that Francis has already started to save the church. “It is not only that
he has plans,” Mr Küng says. “I think that the simple clothing, the change in protocol and the
completely different tone of voice are not superficial things. He has, in fact, introduced a
paradigm shift. That is the beginning of saving, not the end. But that is already a lot.” Perhaps
the greatest risk for this unpretentious, popular pope is of raising false expectations.
povinný článek (dole):
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/05/coalition-minority-government-oroblivion-may-2015-general-election
bonusové (jen odkazy):
http://may2015.com/parties/the-disillusionment-index-detailing-the-demise-of-the-big-twopolitical-parties/
 pěkné shrnutí rozporu voličské preference versus volební system
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/11/what-ed-miliband-needs
 hlavní problémy Eda Milibanda
Coalition, minority government – or
oblivion? How British politics could shake
down in May 2015
Labour and the Tories have long been used to dominating British politics. But could there be
surprises in store at the next general election?
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act became law in September 2011. For the first time in Britain’s
history, the date of the next general election became universal knowledge. Barring either the
House of Commons passing a no-confidence vote in the government (and given the
coalition’s majority, this would require the government in effect to admit: “You know what?
We have been a bit rubbish”) or for two-thirds of all MPs to demand an early election (about
as likely as them asking for their expenses to be re-audited, just in case they had overclaimed) then the next election will be held on 7 May 2015.
Under the previous rules, the government was free to call a general election at any time during
the course of a five-year parliament. In practice, the only governments that delayed calling an
election until they were statutorily obliged to do so were those who knew they were dead
ducks and were just hanging on for a miracle – a spontaneous eruption of billions of tonnes of
oil in the Thames estuary would be handy – and to get the most out of the ministerial limos.
Almost any result is possible in May 2015. The Tories have closed the gap on Labour a little –
as much due to Ed Miliband’s parody of a conference speech as the conviction of the
Conservative message – while the Liberal Democrats are still bumping along on 7%, but no
party has landed a killer blow on the others. Add in the Ukip factor, and the old hegemony of
two-party politics looks as if it is well and truly over. At least for the foreseeable future.
It still seems likely that Labour will win the most seats – as much due to the fortunes of
electoral geography as to the coherence of its message – but nothing can be taken for granted.
The extent to which Ukip has made inroads into Labour’s traditional white working-class vote
in the north of England, and how permanent those inroads will be, is still unquantifiable.
As is the Scottish Labour vote. Many Labour supporters in Scotland were in favour of
independence, are still angry that the party campaigned so strongly in favour of maintaining
the union and might vote SNP next time. The irony that Labour might have fought so hard to
keep the union and its 40 MPs only to lose them anyway is inescapable.
Even if Labour does get the most seats, it is unlikely to have enough to form a majority
government. This will mean it either has to form a coalition or go it alone as a minority
government. It won’t be a straightforward choice. The most obvious party with which Labour
might form a coalition is the Lib Dems, as they are ideologically closer than any of the other
parties. There are several problems with this. First is that the Labour and Lib Dem leaderships
dislike one another intensely; finding a negotiating team that can remain civil and find
common ground might be tough. Labour also might play hardball and demand Nick Clegg’s
removal as party leader as a blood sacrifice to satisfy its grassroots supporters, who hate the
Lib Dems. Just how much of a sticking point this will be for the Lib Dems is unknown; more
of one for Clegg than for Danny Alexander or Tim Farron, you would imagine.
The trouble doesn’t end there. The maths of the constituency boundaries mean that Labour
will probably poll a smaller percentage of the overall vote than the Conservatives, with the
Lib Dems winning a smaller number of overall votes than Ukip, despite winning many more
seats.
This will, in effect, mean that the second and fourth most popular parties in the country will
be forming the government; it would be unprecedented in British political history and there is
every likelihood it would be considered undemocratic by many sections of the population.
Even with the support of the Lib Dems, there is no certainty that Labour will be able to form a
majority coalition anyway, as the Lib Dem campaign team’s most optimistic prediction is that
it will win 32 seats. As a deal with either the Conservatives or Ukip is unthinkable and –
given the Westminster clamour of “English votes for English laws” following the Scottish
referendum – one with the SNP unpalatable, the most practical outcome of a Labour victory is
that it will go it alone.
Minority government has the attraction of allowing Labour not to have to make compromises
with parties it doesn’t like; nor would it be forced into making promises it can’t keep. But it is
still a minefield. Every new law it tries to initiate will be at risk of defeat; every detail will
become a matter of negotiation and the process could grind to a halt, resulting in legislation
that satisfies no one. A public already sceptical about the ability of Westminster politicians to
tackle the country’s problems would become more so, and Labour, as the governing party,
would get most of the blame. After a year of this, it would be relatively simple for the
opposition parties to block Labour at every turn and force a vote of no confidence. At the
subsequent general election, Labour would inevitably lose seats.
The Conservatives would be in no more comfortable a position if they win the most seats but
fail to secure an overall majority. If Ukip win around 10 seats, they will be too small a party
for the Conservatives to contain and neutralise within a coalition, as they will still not have
enough MPs to form a majority, which means that the Lib Dems will once again be their most
likely partner. This will have the advantage of familiarity if not harmony, as the Lib Dems
will be caught between a rock and a hard place.
Without a coalition, the Lib Dems will be condemned to political irrelevance for a generation
and yet, at a time when its bargaining position and influence is at its weakest with its number
of MPs substantially reduced, it will be under pressure from its grassroots not to negotiate
away its principles as it did five years earlier. This will be just as problematic for the
Conservatives as for the Lib Dems. With the Lib Dems committed Europhiles and the Tories
desperate to avoid losing any more MPs to Ukip, the fault lines in any coalition are all too
predictable. Finding a common ground to keep everyone happy will be almost impossible, and
this time round the Lib Dems will be much more likely to walk away from a coalition midparliament rather than hang on and watch their support erode still further as they did last time.
Any coalition the Tories do form will be inherently less stable than the one of five years ago.
Nor will the public be so tolerant of it. The novelty of coalition will have worn off; voters will
remember how the Tories and Lib Dems were at each other’s throats in the election campaign
and be wary of any reconciliation that appears to be too conveniently contrived. There is a
thin line between political pragmatism and doing anything to grab a share of power, and the
electorate is getting much more savvy to it. For all these reasons, the Conservatives’ best
option might, like Labour’s, be to form a minority government. Yet that would come with just
the same risks.
There are no easy answers and, in private, some MPs on both sides are presumably thinking
that the 2015 election might be a good one to lose. Let the other side take the inevitable hits
and then capitalise on their unpopularity to win an overall majority in 2020. The only two
politicians definitely not thinking that way are David Cameron and Ed Miliband, because
their jobs depend on the outcome. Only the one who becomes prime minister will be certain to
be still in his job at the next party conference in September 2015; even then, the winner might
be buying himself only an extra couple of years.
The closer the election gets, the greater becomes the sense of indecision and paralysis within
the main political parties. The opinion polls offer little help or comfort. Within a week of the
party conferences ending, one gave Labour a seven-point lead over the Conservatives, another
put them both neck and neck, and a third indicated that Ukip had the support of 25% of the
electorate and is on course to win up to 100 seats in May 2015 – mainly at the expense of the
Tories in the south of the UK. It seems barely credible, but an increasing number of sitting
Tory MPs have begun to wonder if their best chance of re-election is to defect to Ukip. The
party leaders seem to have little idea how to calm the nerves of their supporters or what
message to give the electorate to head off the Ukip threat. What could be going through their
minds?
Cameron: Vote Ukip, get Labour.
Miliband: Vote Ukip, get the Tories.
Farage: Don’t vote Conservative, don’t vote Labour.
Clegg: Vote Lib Dem, get anyone else.
Cameron: We need to make our message clearer.
Miliband: So do we.
Cameron: What’s yours?
Miliband: That we can actually be quite tough on immigration.
Cameron: How odd. That’s ours too. We’re also looking at turning the clocks back to 1940.
Miliband: That’s not a bad idea.
Farage: You’re still getting it all wrong, chaps. The idea is to have no real message at all.
I’ve reversed my policies on the NHS several times and no one either cares or notices. I’ve no
chance of coming up with anything on which disaffected Tories and Labour voters will agree
in the long term other than that they dislike things the way they are. All that matters is that I
look like an ordinary bloke who drinks in pubs and that I’m not you. You need to be more like
me.
Cameron: Vote Ukip.
Miliband: Vote Ukip.
Farage: Vote Ukip.
Clegg: Vote Lib Dem.
Everyone: Don’t be silly.
For the British public, though, these are both the most uncertain and fascinating of times. Will
two-party politics be finished for good, or will the old order eventually reassert itself? Will
Ukip prove to be a shooting star that burned out, or will it become a permanent part of the
political landscape? Will three-party politics become four-party politics? Will Britain remain
in the EU? Will Scotland force another independence referendum within a matter of years?
What about Wales, Northern Ireland and the large British cities? What powers will they have?
The answers to all these questions will ultimately lie with the public and all the signs are that
many people still haven’t made up their minds about what they want. Over the next few
months the politicians of all parties will be out selling their ideas and making promises they
don’t know if they could keep. Who to believe? The choice is yours. Use it.
May 2015: the post-election options
Labour are the largest party, no overall majority
Option a): Form minority government
Upside: No obligation to deal with other parties.
Downside: A quick vote of no confidence and out of office within a year.
Who benefits in the long term? The Conservatives, for whom this might be the best hope of
getting back in power with an overall majority. Any Labour MP who wants Ed Miliband’s
job.
Option b): Form a coalition
Upside: Get to stay in power for five years.
Downside: Who with?
With Labour facing a meltdown in Scotland, Labour might be stuck with doing a deal with the
SNP. If Alex Salmond stands (as he has hinted he might) as a candidate, he could end up
sitting alongside Ed Miliband as deputy prime minister. The Tories would choke on that.
The Lib Dems could also find themselves back in government – albeit in much reduced
numbers – claiming that they always had been more of a centre-left party. Nick Clegg would
have to be sacrificed as party leader to prove their sincerity.
Both possibilities are a match made in hell.
The Conservatives are the largest party, no overall majority
Option a): Form minority government
Upside: No obligation to deal with other parties.
Downside: A quick vote of no confidence and out of office within a year.
Who benefits in the long term? Labour, for whom this might be the best hope of getting back
in power with an overall majority. Any Conservative MP who wants David Cameron’s job.
Option b): Form a coalition
Upside: Get to stay in power for five years.
Downside: Who with?
The Lib Dems have shown they are willing punchbags and would accept five more years of
punishment in preference to political oblivion. They would, though, have even less influence
than five years ago as they will have far fewer MPs and even less goodwill.
No one knows quite how many MPs Ukip will have – anywhere between 10 and 25 is a
possibility – but they will have to be represented in any coalition to prevent any more Tory
MPs defecting. Nigel Farage will then get a key cabinet role and sit next to Cameron at
PMQs. A sketch-writer’s dream, but the country’s nightmare.
The knives are out: key rivalries in the parties
Conservatives: Cameron’s job is hanging by a thread. He is desperately trying to reinvent
himself as a posher Farage to prevent more defections to Ukip, and if he doesn’t win the
election he will be gone. Many Tories still blame him for not winning an outright majority in
2010 and forcing the Tories into a coalition. Theresa May and George Osborne are favourites
to replace him.
Labour: Many Labour MPs would be secretly relieved if their party lost the next election.
The two Eds – Miliband and Balls – are felt to be a losing team that could put Labour out of
office for more than a decade if given a chance at government. But they know they are rather
stuck with them because it is too late to do anything about it.
Lib Dems: It’s dog eat dog. The Lib Dems have long since given up on any party unity and
every MP is now fighting for survival in their own constituencies. Hence this week’s
resignations of Norman Baker and Jenny Willott. What’s left of the party will reassess their
allegiances after next May’s wreckage.
Ukip: The party has just one MP at present – Douglas Carswell. And he hates himself. Quite
how Ukip will operate, if and when it gets more MPs, is anyone’s guess. Farage hates sharing
the limelight with anyone and many potential Ukip candidates have nothing in common with
one another except their dislike of Europe. JC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30280363
Le Pen's French National Front eyes rou
to power
By Lucy WilliamsonBBC News, Paris
Marine Le Pen was uncontested by any other candidate at the party's congress
It was a result the leaders of France's other political parties could only
dream of.
Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front (FN) party, was re-elected
on Sunday with 100% of her party's vote.
After leading the Front to a string of electoral gains over the past three years,
she stood for re-election uncontested by any other candidate.
But what does her leadership mean for the party, and for the country, as it
heads towards a presidential race in 2017?
Sometimes in politics it is the medium that counts.
'Devil's cloak'
The core message from the National Front - for greater nationalism and an
end to immigration - has not really changed for decades, but the messenger
has.
And she has one overriding goal: to make the National Front electable as a
party of government in France.
For a party widely seen as a political pariah a few years ago, and which has
struggled to top 20% of the popular vote in previous presidential elections, it is
an ambitious goal.
But Marine Le Pen, who succeeded her father as party leader three years ago,
has already propelled her party to power in 11 French towns (12 if you include
the FN-backed independent mayor in Beziers), two seats in the Senate, and
top position in the European Parliament elections this year.
Jean-Marie Le Pen led the National Front until 2011
The number of seats controlled by the National Front here in France may still
be small, but the sudden burst of new support for the party signals a deep shift
in French politics - partly down to a shift in the party's own strategy.
In the past three years, Marine Le Pen has put a lot of effort into "detoxifying"
her party - ridding it of the racist stigma and neo-Nazi links it attracted under
her father's leadership.
"The devil's cloak that we were forced to wear has been removed," she told
me last week as she prepared for the party congress.
"The French are beginning to see us as we really are. Our party was never
racist. None of our proposals are based on race or religion. We are patriots:
we welcome and work with all who are French."
So worried is party headquarters about personal remarks undermining their
electoral gains, it has issued a handbook to every newly elected official, with
helpful reminders to "remain polite" during debates - along with warnings not to
subsidise "political" anti-racism groups, or events such as Muslim celebrations.
The southern coastal town of Frejus, an hour's drive from Nice, is something of
a showcase for this new, more tolerant face of the National Front.
Its mayor, 26-year-old David Rachline, was elected here six months ago - the
son of a Jewish man and one of the party's rising stars.
At the town's small weekly market, piles of rich saucisson lie with bright
vegetables and cheaply-made clothes under the palm trees at the edge of
town.
Mayor David Rachline divides voters in Frejus with some people unhappy about social welfare cuts
Many locals milling around the stalls are positive about Mr Rachline's strong
policing, free parking, and support for local shopkeepers.
Others point to his cuts to social welfare programmes and the removal of the
European Union flag from the town hall as signs that the party does not intend
to protect the interests of everyone.
'Traditional beliefs'
A short distance away, Driss Maaroufi is preparing for prayers at the local
mosque.
Or rather, the local prayer tent.
As the temperature dips towards freezing, Muslims in Frejus gather each week
under the greying canvas, while a brand new mosque stands empty and
unpainted, on the plot next door.
Mayor Rachline has promised voters here a referendum on whether the new
mosque can go ahead.
"The National Front isn't for everyone," Imam Marroufi tells me.
"It's not for the Muslims. We're citizens in this town too, but it doesn't represent
us. That party hasn't changed at all - not one bit. It's got worse."
Islam has become something of a focus for the National Front, which labels it
as one of the biggest challenges to France, alongside the European Union,
and globalisation.
Ms Le Pen is opposed to providing pork-free school meals for students, and to
the wearing of any Muslim headscarf in public.
But she says her objections are based solely on the need to protect France's
national identity.
"It's not for us to say whether Islam is compatible with the French Republic,"
she told me, "it's for the Muslims. Those who say it's contrary to their religion
can leave. It's not the Republic that has to adapt to their demands. Our
traditions come from Christianity; why should we have to change?"
Russian money
Jean-Yves Camus, an expert in far-right politics at the Institute of International
Relations in Paris, says the party's preoccupations now mark a shift with its
past.
"The previous (party) president, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was very much focused
on the old traditional beliefs of the extreme right like the Second World War
and the Jewish community," he says.
"And this made it impossible for the conservative right to reach any kind of
agreement with the National Front. So when Marine Le Pen came, she
decided that the party was going to change and do whatever was necessary to
be a partner in a coalition with the mainstream conservative right."
Getting elected, though, takes money and French banks have been unwilling
to lend to the National Front.
Instead, according to an investigation by current affairs website Mediapart, the
party has reportedly secured €9m (£7m; $11m) in loans from a Russian bank.
The National Front is supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin
At a time when the French president has suspended the delivery of a high-tech
warship to the Russian navy because of Russia's involvement in the conflict in
Ukraine, the National Front's pro-Putin stance - and the presence of the
deputy-head of the Russian parliament at its Congress this weekend - have
refocused attention on how different its policies are to France's main political
parties.
But part of Ms Le Pen's success is down to the very fact that her party is
perceived as different.
French voters are increasingly disillusioned with France's two main parties.
Socialist President Francois Hollande is now the most unpopular president of
the Fifth Republic, and the opposition UMP is riven by scandal and internal
conflict.
The man who hopes to unite the centre-right and beat back the rise of the
National Front is former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who won his own party
election at the weekend, with a mere 65% of his party's support.
Mr Sarkozy had hoped to get more than 70% of the vote as he pushes to be the UMP's presidential
candidate
Polls suggest that he would still win a run-off vote against Marine Le Pen
(though the current president would not), but Ms Le Pen says she is ready to
play a longer game.
"Nationwide electoral success is like building a house," she told me.
"You don't start with the roof, with the presidential election. You start with the
foundations - the local networks, the regional polls."
"You ask if the National Front has changed," she said. "Of course we have: we
used to be an opposition party, a party of protest. Now, we're on the threshold
of power."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgpldGzumnk&feature=youtu.be
EU pressed to rethink immigration policy
after Lampedusa tragedy
European commissioner calls for EU rescue mission for migrants spanning entire Mediterranean from Spain to
Cyprus
Italian soldiers carry the body of a victim from the ship that sank on 3 October off Lampedusa. Photograph:
Roberto Salomone/AFP/Getty Images
The European Union has come under pressure to revamp its immigration policies in the wake
of the Lampedusa tragedy that led to the deaths of 274 people in Italian waters last week.
The European commission told a meeting of interior ministers in Luxembourg that more had
to be done at the EU level to control mass immigration, legal and illegal.
Reacting specifically to the Lampedusa boat sinking in Italian waters between Tunisia and
Malta, Cecilia Malmström, the commissioner for interior affairs, called for an EU rescue
mission spanning the entire Mediterranean.
The project would be entrusted to Frontex, the EU's borders agency, with the aim of tracking,
identifying and if need be rescuing boatloads of migrants leaving north Africa for southern
Europe. Malmström said the project should stretch from Spain to Cyprus.
It was not stated if the proposed patrols would also be used to chase boats back to where they
came from.
"I am going to propose to the member states to organise a Frontex operation covering the
whole Mediterranean, from Cyprus to Spain, for a big save-rescue operation in the
Mediterranean, and I am going to ask for the necessary support and resources to do that,"
Malmström said.
But interior ministers from the 28 governments showed little inclination to respond to the
Lampedusa tragedy or to the Syrian refugee crisis by agreeing a more open or generous
policy.
National governments jealously guard their sovereign authority over immigration issues and
are unlikely to surrender powers to Brussels or pool decision-taking in the foreseeable future,
despite the shame of the Lampedusa tragedy, which is the biggest single loss of life involving
Mediterranean "boat people".
Italy is clamouring for greater solidarity from other EU states in trying to cope with the
number of migrants coming across the Mediterranean. "Municipalities like ours cannot be left
alone on the frontline," wrote the mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, in an open appeal.
"What hurts the most is that Europe is a bystander."
"The Mediterranean represents the Africa-Europe border, not the Africa-Italy border,"
Angelino Alfano, the Italian interior minister, told parliament in Rome in the wake of the
disaster.
But the German interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, signalled on Tuesday that Berlin was
in no mood to relax the rules on immigration. Germany recently agreed to take 5,000
temporary refugees from Syria, criticised widely as a paltry figure.
But the Germans point out that they had more than four times the number of asylum-seekers
that Italy had last year.
According to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, Germany had more than 77,000 asylum
seekers last year while Italy had under 16,000.
Echoing the debate in Britain about asylum seekers and immigrants as "benefit scroungers",
Friedrich said that most of those trying to cross the Mediterranean were "economic" migrants
rather than political refugees and that they were seeking better social security than they would
receive at home.
The emphasis of the meeting in Luxembourg was on stemming the flow rather than
liberalising entry rules, by discussing further aid to, for example, Lebanon or Turkey, which
are struggling under the burden of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria.
Meanwhile, a 35-year old Tunisian man was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of piloting the
migrant boat that caught fire and sank within sight of Lampedusa last Thursday.
Khaled Ben Salem was identified by survivors as one of the "white men" who escorted the
500 passengers, most of them Eritrean, from a warehouse in Libya to a beach at Misrata,
where they were packed on to the boat for the two-day crossing.
He was previously deported in April after piloting another migrant boat to Italy. He now risks
being charged with multiple homicide, with some passengers claiming he started the fire on
board the boat, Italian media reports said.
On Tuesday, Italian deep sea divers continued emptying the interior of the sunken ship of the
dozens of corpses still packed into it. The number of bodies recovered rose to 274, including
81 women, while only six women were among the survivors.
A Vatican spokesman said Pope Francis had decided to donate an unspecified sum of money
to each of the 155 survivors of the disaster, who are slowly being moved from a migrant
holding centre on Lampedusa.
Migrants still held on the island protested on Tuesday about conditions at the camp, throwing
mattresses over the fence of the centre and trying to block departing buses.
"The extreme situation at the centre has deteriorated, with entire families forced into the open
for three days in the rain in a row. It is absolutely unacceptable," said Lauren Jolles, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Italy.
Why Lampedusa remains an island of hope
for migrants
Despite the death toll, boatloads of migrants still pour into Lampedusa – where the islanders' compassionate
welcome is at odds with Italy's harsh immigration laws
Migrants dock at Lampedusa … 13,000 have arrived there so far this year. Photograph: Antonio
Parinello/Reuters
In the early morning half light, Ajad Miccoli stops his scooter on his way to work and
contemplates the scene unfolding across the scruffy, shuttered-up bay. What he sees is both
familiar and eerily disturbing. At the quayside, beside a hut advertising seafood treats and
boats offering "sunset aperitivi", a ship with dozens of people on board has docked to unload
its exhausted cargo. Altogether there are 210 new arrivals – mostly Syrians, with some
Eritreans and Nigerians. Thirty-seven are children. Miraculously, after a perilous journey
thought to have begun on the Libyan coast, they are in relatively good condition. One man
waves to reporters from the window of a bus sent to drive them away from the port. "These
people have probably known death," says Miccoli, a local musician. "Here, maybe, they have
a hope."
"Here" is Lampedusa, the not-quite eight square miles of Italian territory in the Mediterranean
that has become known the world over not for hope, but for tragedy. For years, its sparkling
waters and postcard-pretty beaches have provided a jarring backdrop for migrant boat
landings; the island is conveniently closer to Africa than Europe – around 70 miles from the
Tunisian coast and further south than Malta. But even for a place well-acquainted with human
suffering, the horror brought to its coastline in the past fortnight has been a shock. "It's
awful," says Pietro Riso, a fisherman watching Tuesday morning's first arrival. (Soon after
there was another boat at the dock – this time carrying 90, including four pregnant women.)
"These landings have been going on for about 20 years. But these last disasters have upset the
balance. You get up in the morning and you don't know what to expect."
In the early hours of 3 October, near a beach once declared the "world's best" by users of
TripAdvisor, a boat packed with more than 500 Eritrean men, women and children caught fire
and capsized. Only 155 people survived, and 364 bodies have since been recovered. It was
one of the worst disasters to occur in the Mediterranean in recent years. Absolutes are hard to
establish when many victims, in the grip of an illicit people-smuggling trade, are never
recovered. As the images of tiny white coffins and vivid testimony from survivors went
around the world, tragedy struck again. On Friday night, Maltese and Italian rescuers raced to
the site of another stricken vessel, this time carrying mostly Syrians fleeing their war-torn
country. More than 200 people were saved, but at least 38 died.
The double tragedy has prompted outrage from prime ministers, presidents and the pope, who
had chosen Lampedusa for his first papal visit outside Rome in July. But, on the ground,
locals are not setting much store by their words. When José Manuel Barroso, the European
Commission president, and Enrico Letta, the Italian premier, visited the island, they were
greeted with heckles by people who feel abandoned by both Rome and Brussels. "I hope that
they have finally understood something," says Riso. "This is a political task. We are
fisherman and workers, and we do workers' work. Now the politicians must do their bit.
Because we can't tolerate so many deaths."
A survivor of the 3
October shipwreck looks out over the water at Lampedusa. Photograph: Tullio M Puglia/Getty Images
Up and down the main street of Lampedusa's town centre, a pleasant promenade dotted with
pavement cafes and tourist shops, the stories of those deaths – and people who survived – are
everywhere. There are more mundane realities that follow in the wake of a disaster. Three
Eritrean women who have come from Sweden to identify their dead relatives struggle through
red-tape to replace a missing passport. A couple of Syrians, smoking and drinking black
coffee out of plastic cups, wonder how to celebrate Eid al-Adha.
Sitting on a bench, Sium Mulugeta waits for money from a friend to buy new clothes and a
phone. He was on the boat that went down on 3 October with his best friend, Tewelde
Bereket. The pair had been at university together in Eritrea, Mulugeta studying chemical
engineering, Tewelde applied geography. They had left their home country and been in
Ethiopia and Uganda together. And they had the same dream: of reaching Europe and
building better lives for themselves and their families.
But after their boat from Libya ran into trouble, Mulugeta survived and his friend did not. "He
didn't know how to swim. That was the problem," he says. "When the fire happened,
I immediately jumped into the water … I swam for four to five hours. I was near, almost to
the coast, when help came." Now Mulugeta, like many of the Eritrean survivors and victims'
relatives, is determined to return his friend's body to his homeland. At the moment, it is
among the coffins buried in a cemetery on the mainland of Sicily. Mulugeta knows, because it
was up to him to identify the corpse.
Coffins of some of the
victims of the 3 October disaster in a hangar at Lampedusa airport. Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP
Like the majority of the migrants who have arrived in Lampedusa this year – a total of 13,078
so far, according to the Italian interior ministry – the polite, quietly-spoken 26-year-old comes
from a country that, due to internal conflict and repression, is deemed "refugee-producing".
According to figures from the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, more people have
arrived on Italian shores from Syria and Eritrea this year than any other country. Somalia,
another nation in turmoil, is the third biggest country of provenance. Between them, these
nations account for more than 18,000 people. There is clearly no shortage of people for whom
the huge risks of the sea crossing outweigh those of staying at home. "We knew it was very
dangerous. Everybody knows," says Mulugeta. "There are 10-year-old children who know
that. But we don't have any option."
Almost exactly the same words come from Nisar Salam Aish, a 41-year-old husband and
father from Damascus whose family has fled to Jordan and who hopes that, once he has
established himself in Europe, he will be able to bring them to join him. "It was very
difficult," he says of the journey from Zuwarah in Libya – for which he says he paid
smugglers $2,000. "There were about 300 men and women, many children. I can't believe I
am in Italy, alive. But there is not any choice for us."
Under the still-hot October sun, the Syrian breaks down in tears as he recounts his brother's
fatal shooting earlier this year in the civil war. His wife and two children, aged five and 11,
first fled to Daraa, near the border with Jordan. But because of the ongoing violence, they left
the country altogether. He, meanwhile, decided he could no longer stay in Damascus, so left
for Egypt for two months, then Libya for three months – all to get to Lampedusa, where he
does not want to be at all. "If I stay in Italy I am better off going back to Syria to be under the
bombs of Assad," he says. "We are coming to Europe to change our lives."
The Syrian is not alone in his reluctance to stay in Italy, although, according to EU rules, he
must apply for asylum in his first point of entry into the bloc. "Most of the [migrants] tell us
they moved on to improve their living conditions and they don't believe that if they stay in
Italy this will happen," says Carlotta Bellini, head of child protection at Save the Children
Italy, one of a cluster of NGOs with a permanent presence at the reception centre in
Lampedusa. "They say the [Italian] protection and reception system is not appropriate for
their needs. They believe that other EU countries, for example Sweden, can instead guarantee
the right to study, the right to work, the right to have an appropriate house." Another big
issue, she says, is that newly arrived people often want to go where there are already
established communities and support networks.
If the boat passengers are unsure about Italy before they arrived in Lampedusa, the facilities
on the island are not, at the moment, likely to change their minds. Surrounded by sloping
shrubland outside the town, the reception centre to which the migrants are taken is currently
hugely overcrowded. The numbers fluctuate daily, but on Tuesday afternoon it had 905
registered migrants, including 142 minors, both with families and without. The centre – an
entire wing of which lies burned out after a fire several years ago – has space for 250,
maximum 300, people.
"The centre is in a critical condition. We want people to be transferred [to other centres on the
Italian mainland] as soon as possible," says Maurizio Molina, senior protection associate at
UNHCR Italy and one of the team working at the centre in the aftermath of this month's
disasters. "Many people are sleeping rough because in the centre there are not enough places."
Molina admits to feeling tired. He is trying to connect families who were separated in the joint
Maltese-Italian rescue mission on Friday. As a first-level reception centre, the Lampedusa
facility is not supposed to house people for "more than 48 hours, 76 at the very most" before
transferring them to the mainland for more sophisticated asylum screening, says Viviana
Valastro of Save the Children Italy. But in recent weeks this has gone out of the window.
NGO workers say there simply is not enough give in the system – not only in Lampedusa, but
in Italy as a whole.
Most worryingly for Valastro is the situation of the children. "This is not an environment for
[them]," she says, standing at the gates.
Behind her, as dusk falls, families ready makeshift camps for the night, a Syrian flag can be
seen hanging amid the trees, and children play with balls in the very limited space. Sicilian
regional authorities have declared a state of emergency on the island, a move that should free
up funds for aid workers. Valastro is also pleased that they have at last won permission to let
minors out to play in a special child-friendly area for two hours every morning and two hours
every afternoon. "We had to fight the police for it," she says.
Surveying the camp from on high, above the hillsides strung with washing lines and studded
with groups of potential refugees, Emanuele Billardello, a genial taxi driver born and bred in
Lampedusa, says he feels great sadness. He remembers when the island was a place known
not for migrant deaths and institutional failures, but cheap and cheerful tourism. Now it is
different – even if the tourist industry, decimated in 2011 during the Arab Spring when huge
numbers of migrants paralysed the island, picked up this year due to continued violence in
Egypt, the visit of the pope, and – of course – the TripAdvisor fame of spiaggia dei conigli –
literally, "rabbits' beach".
But, in its own way, Lampedusa is building itself a new identity – one of collective
compassion and solidarity with those most marginalised. Last week, there were even
suggestions it should win the Nobel prize for peace. That might be going a bit far, but there is
a growing sense that the island is, in its opposition to reactionary immigration laws, leading
the way for the rest of the country.
This can, of course, come at a price. Posters in shop and bar windows advertise the
counselling services of psychologists from the Order of Malta's Italian Relief Corps
(CISOM), on hand not only to help victims' relatives and rescuers, but also the locals
themselves. "This is a welcoming population, maybe the most welcoming there is, because
they do not make a distinction between Italians and foreigners," says Giovanni Matera. "It's a
population which has always been a place of transit. So the migrants are perfectly integrated
with the Italians, and for this reason they experience the same pain."
For many, the person who has come to symbolise the locals' mixture of political anger and
human compassion is the island's mayor, Giusi Nicolini, of whom Billardello says succinctly:
"She's a woman who is trying to do the right thing." It is Nicolini who has led Lampedusa's
fight against Italy's harsh immigration laws that, among other things, treat illegal immigration
as a crime punishable by a hefty fine, dissuade people from helping vessels in trouble for fear
of being accused of aiding illegal immigration, and mean prosecutors are expected to place
newly arrived migrants – even the survivors of the 3 October disaster – under investigation.
Letta has said he feels ashamed of these laws, brought in when the rightwing, xenophobic
Northern League was in government with Silvio Berlusconi, and would abolish them if it was
up to him. But problems in his grand coalition – which he shares with the centre-right – may
make that difficult. In Lampedusa, however, the message from Nicolini is clear. "The law
should be abolished immediately," she said earlier this month. "Immediately."
The government in Rome has launched its own "military-humanitarian" mission in the
Mediterranean around Lampedusa that will increase sea patrols, while at the same time urging
the EU to take a greater share of the burden. NGOs, meanwhile, are keen for the authorities to
move beyond crisis management of the arrivals – who have been coming in huge numbers
since the early 2000s – and to improve what they say is the creaking and inadequate reception
system for asylum-seekers in Italy.
Nowhere will the political players be watched more closely than from Lampedusa, where the
coffins of the 3 October victims have gone, but the memories linger. "It seems almost
impossible that things like this still happen," says Miccoli, watching the early morning
arrivals from the port. "But certainly it's been happening for years. Now, we hope, the
politicians might finally be listening."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/lampedusa-island-of-hope
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/08/eu-immigration-policy-lampedusa-tragedy
POLITICS: 2011 VOL 31(3), 179–189
Research and Analysis
Classifying Wilders: The Ideological
Development of Geert Wilders and His
Party for Freedom
ponl_1417
179..189
Koen Vossen
University of Leiden
This article deals with the ideological development of Geert Wilders, one of the most important
politicians of the Netherlands and one of the figureheads of contemporary populism. In this
overview his development will be characterised as a transition from a conservative liberalism to an
American-inspired neoconservatism and finally to his own unique version of national populism. A
closer study of this ideological development is relevant as Wilders’s specific version of national
populism, with its strong emphasis on the need to protect Western liberal values against Islam,
seems to have the potential to become a new ideological master frame for national populist parties
and movements in Europe and the United States.
In the last decade Dutch politics has stopped being dull. Once a haven of stability
and tranquillity, the Netherlands witnessed two political murders – Pim Fortuyn, a
political maverick in 2002, and the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 – an
unexpected rejection of the European treaty in a referendum in 2005 and the
emergence of various new parties. In the national elections of 2010 the big three:
the social democrat PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid), the Christian democrat CDA
(Christen-Democratisch Appèl) and the liberal VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en
Democratie) – which during the twentieth century continuously received between
75 per cent and 90 per cent of the vote – together attained a mere 55.5 per cent of
the ballots. The party that benefited most from the elections was the Party for
Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) – increasing its base from 5.9 per cent to 15.5
per cent. After the last elections the Party for Freedom also emerged as an important
player in the formation of a new coalition government. After rather complicated
deliberations, a minority government was formed between the liberals and Christian democrats, which was ‘tolerated’ by the PVV in parliament in exchange for
influence on governmental policy.
In many respects the PVV is an exceptional party. Founded in 2006 the party
currently has 24 members in the national parliament, various members in municipal and provincial councils and four members in the European Parliament. Still, the
Party for Freedom seems to lack a solid organisation, as it in fact has only one
official member, Geert Wilders, the leader of the parliamentary group and founder
of the party.1 Putting his confidence only in one or two close collaborators, Wilders
dominates the PVV in terms of selection and training of candidates, planning
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KOEN VOSSEN
political strategy and articulating the party’s programme and ideology. The attempt
to classify the PVV in ideological terms has also puzzled many observers both in the
Netherlands and abroad. For instance, should the party be considered as a populist,
a nationalist or possibly a fascist one? Or is Wilders merely a conservative liberal
mugged by the reality of multiculturalism and the advance of Islam? In the Netherlands the attempts to put Wilders in an ideological category have even become
something of a national debate, in which journalists, politicians, intellectuals and
even television celebrities readily engage.
Considering this lively debate and the growing influence of the PVV it is remarkable
how little attention on the part of political scientists has been given to the ideological classification of Wilders. Whereas another Dutch maverick politician, Pim
Fortuyn, has been the subject of various books and articles (Akkermans, 2005; Pels,
2003; Lucardie, Voerman, 2002), Wilders has until now barely been mentioned in
various recent articles on European Islamophobia, identity politics or populism
(Betz, 2007; Carr, 2006; Zúquete, 2008). In Cas Mudde’s standard book Populist
Radical Right Parties in Europe (Mudde, 2007) Wilders is not yet mentioned. Moreover, in a more recent short article in Open Democracy, Mudde (2010) tends to
exclude Wilders from this family. According to Mudde, Wilders not only lacks the
ethnic nationalism of the populist radical right parties, but is on the whole much
more ‘a mainstream politician almost exclusively interested in parliamentary power
and very willing to enter coalition politics’. Paul Lucardie (2007) however is less
reluctant to place the PVV in the same (national populist) party family as Vlaams
Belang, Front National and the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, though he admits
that the PVV is an eccentric member of this group. On the basis of a study of party
documents and manifestos between 2005 and 2006 Lucardie has concluded that
Wilders and his followers can best be labelled as ‘right-wing halfhearted-liberal
nationalists and populists’ (Lucardie, 2007, p. 181). Meindert Fennema’s biography
of Wilders is more recent but here a clear ideological classification is lacking
(Fennema, 2010).
This article aims to classify the PVV by giving a broader overview of Wilders’s
ideological development since 1990. As will be shown, the difficulties in classifying
Wilders as a populist radical right politician are the result of his specific ideological
development. In this overview his development will be characterised as a transition
from a conservative liberalism influenced by Frits Bolkestein to an Americaninspired neoconservatism and finally to his own unique version of national populism or populist radical right. A closer study of this ideological development is
relevant as Wilders’s specific version of national populism, with its strong emphasis
on the need to protect Western liberal values against Islam, seems to have the
potential to become a new ideological master frame for national populist parties and
movements in Europe and the United States. As such, it may replace the old master
frame for national populist parties, which according to Jens Rydgren was developed
in France and was based on the doctrine of ethno-pluralism (Rydgren, 2005b,
pp. 413–415).
Conservative liberal phase, 1963–2002
Although nowadays Wilders often presents himself as an outsider in Dutch politics,
he might better be characterised as a professional politician, who has worked in the
© 2011 The Author. Politics © 2011 Political Studies Association
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Dutch House of Parliament most of his adult life. In 1990, at the age of 27, he
started as a speechwriter and assistant for the parliamentary group of the Liberal
party, the VVD. After eight years of hard work in which he learned all the parliamentary procedures and informal networks, Wilders became a member of the VVD
parliamentary group in 1998. Within the VVD Wilders was regarded as one of the
pupils of Frits Bolkestein, the leader of the VVD between 1990 and 1998. The
anglophile Bolkestein introduced a new more confrontational political style in
the Netherlands and a more offensive conservative liberal ideology. This ideology
was a mixture of neoliberal viewpoints on economic affairs and realist ideas on
foreign policy, and was marked by a distrust of great ideals and blueprints and more
conservative viewpoints on social-cultural affairs. Bolkestein also made pleas for the
restoration of old communal values as the moral foundation of society, such as a
civilised nationalism, a more traditional educational system, cultural and moral
leadership by the elite and a stronger distinction between high and low culture
(Maas, Marlet and Zwart, 1997; Van Weezel, Ornstein, 1999). Moreover, Bolkestein
was one of the first in the Netherlands to criticise the multiculturalism and progressive cultural relativism of the Dutch minority policy. On the one hand he urged
the Dutch elite to stress the superiority of Western values, and on the other hand
he argued that they should also take the complaints of Dutch citizens about the new
immigrants seriously. According to Baukje Prins (2003, pp. 363–366), in stylistic
terms Bolkestein introduced a new style of speaking about multicultural society,
which was characterised by the self-presentation of the messenger as someone who
has the nerve to break taboos and who is willing to face facts that among the
population were already well known.
A close study of his interviews and speeches indicates that Wilders could be
regarded as a studious pupil of Bolkestein both in ideological and in stylistic terms.
Wilders showed his ‘nerve to break taboos’ and face unpleasant facts in debates
about the abuse of the social security system, something that was according to him
‘commonly known’ among the population. Employers’ organisations and trade
unions used the flexible regulations for people who were mentally unable to work
to get rid of redundant employees, making the Netherlands according to Wilders the
‘village idiot of Europe’ and the Dutch social security system ‘a supertanker adrift,
heading for a sandbank’ (De Jong, 1999; Wilders, 2001; Wilders, 2005, pp. 16–17).
At the same time Wilders presented himself as a whistle-blower with regard to
another danger. In December 1999 he presented to parliament a large report on
Islamic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. His interest
in these ‘fringe issues’ was clearly the result of his strong affinity with the state of
Israel. According to his autobiography he has visited the country ‘30 or 40 times’
since a one-year stay in a kibbutz as a Catholic teenager and he has maintained
many relationships with various Israeli politicians (De Hoog, 2005; Wilders, 2005,
pp. 13–17). His comprehensive report, which was based on elaborate research and
various interviews with experts such as Donald Rumsfeld and Max van der Stoel,
was however for the greater part ignored. In an interview Wilders warned:
‘The extremism in the Middle East is a threat to the stability of Europe and the
Netherlands. It will even be the most urgent problem of the next ten years since
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this extremism will also come to the Netherlands as a result of the immigration.
This is already happening but everybody is silent about this’ (Lammers, 1999,
p. 3).
The neoconservative phase, 2002–2006
By the turn of the century many commentators regarded Wilders as a future leader
of the VVD. Five years later, however, Wilders left the VVD and became an
independent Member of Parliament. Living at a secret address because of numerous
death threats, he frantically began to form a new right-wing party. For that reason
he had made contact with Bart Jan Spruyt, chairman of the Edmund Burke
Foundation, a relatively new think-tank which is devoted to spreading conservative
ideology in the progressive Netherlands. Wilders made a study tour in Israel and the
United States with Spruyt, where they visited conservative think-tanks such as the
American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation and spoke with rightwing politicians such as Richard Perle, former adviser of Ronald Reagan and Grover
Norquist, chairman of an anti-tax lobby and the author of a book called Leave Us
Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives (Chavannes,
2005).
Wilders’s new political position as an outsider was the direct result of some
changes in his political viewpoints, which are already noticeable around 2002.
One could classify this development as a steady transfer from the conservative
liberalism of Bolkestein to an American-inspired neoconservatism. Neoconservatism is of course a contested concept. Some use it solely to describe the unipolar
aggressive foreign policy of the second Bush administration, others regard the new
course of Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s as its beginning, whereas political
philosophers apply the term to thinkers such as Leo Strauss, Irving Kristoll and
Norman Podhoretz and various American think-tanks who attempt to spread their
viewpoints (Heilbrunn, 2009; Heywood, 2007). In the Netherlands the term is also
used for the rise of a new, right-wing perspective in politics, pioneered by Pim
Fortuyn, and found in the opinion pages of Dutch newspapers (De Beus, 2006, pp.
221–237). The main themes of this New Right are a criticism of the progressive
hegemony in Dutch politics and in public debate, scepticism regarding the welfare
state, permissive society, environmental policy and the consultation economy plus
a growing concern with regard to the nature of Islam and the position of Muslims
in Dutch society. Of course, much is being thrown together here, which makes
neoconservatism a slippery concept. Here the term is used in its broad sense for a
creed that is characterised by a preference for a free market and a small government, the preservation and restoration of old communal values, and in opposition
to palaeo-conservatism’s stronger belief in political and social engineering and
a strong Feindmarkierung, that is, the construction of a morally evil enemy,
which may be countered by all means (Heywood, 2007, pp. 88–95; Vincent, 2010,
pp. 66–68).
Of course, some of these elements were present in Wilders’s world-view in the
1990s, such as his preference for neoliberalism, his stress on community values and
an antagonist style of politics. This shows that the borderline between a Bolkesteinschool conservative liberalism and neoconservatism is permeable. However, after
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2001–2002 there were a few key changes in Wilders’s performance and viewpoints
which indicate that there is a border between the two ideologies.
First, after 2001 Wilders became a fierce supporter of the American war on terror
and all its policy measures, such as the opening of Guantánamo Bay and the
military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Wilders the Americans
should also deal with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran in order to stop terrorism.
Together with fellow liberal MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who after 2002
became one of the most well-known critics of Islam, Wilders argued that the
European Union should take an active role in democratising the Middle East (Hirsi
Ali and Wilders, 2003). With his support for American neoconservative foreign
policy, Wilders broke with the more sceptical realpolitik of Bolkestein, who
regarded the American invasion of Iraq and American attempts to democratise the
Middle East as naïve and reckless (Van der List, 2005).
Second, Wilders increasingly began advocating all kinds of radical measures against
those who (could) threaten Dutch security, often inspired by American and Israeli
examples. Such measures included, for instance, declaring a state of emergency,
preventive arrests, administrative detentions (such as in Israel) and the possible
denaturalisation and deportation of suspects (Niemöller, 2005; Van Deijl, 2004). In
the beginning Wilders considered such measures only suitable for real terrorists,
but gradually he also included radical imams and even Moroccan criminals. But
for most liberals, even within his own VVD, these measures were a clear break
with the constitutional heart of Dutch liberalism (Schulte and Soetenhorst, 2007,
pp. 113–123).
Third, though Wilders was already an outspoken critic of Dutch progressive politics,
his criticism became much fiercer. Following the neoconservative ‘new class
theory’, Wilders now identified the whole Dutch elite as one homogeneous and
self-serving progressive caste which had hijacked democracy through a policy of
subsidising progressive indoctrination (e.g. by the state broadcasting media) and
demonising all dissenters. Consequently, many real problems were overlooked
while the Dutch population had become inert, vulgar and soft (Wilders, 2006).
Fourth, the most significant change in Wilders’s views was a fiercer animosity
against Islam and Muslims. Following neoconservatives such as Daniel Pipes and
Norman Podhoretz and his Dutch fellow MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wilders began identifying Islam as a totalitarian ideology, which after communism and fascism posed
the third greatest threat to Western modernity. Together with Hirsi Ali he called for
a ‘liberal Jihad’ against this advancing ideology, for which a fundamental change in
the pacifist Dutch political culture was necessary. Going beyond Hirsi Ali, Wilders
also started to identify Islam as the main cause of all kinds of problems, such as
Moroccan youth criminality, the high percentage of unemployed and drop-out
rates among Muslims, honour killings and the riots in the French banlieues in 2005.
Dutch minority policy should therefore be focused on a complete assimilation of
Muslims and a cultural elimination of Islam in the Netherlands (Van der Kaaij and
Lammers, 2004; Wilders, 2005, pp. 65–85). With such views Wilders in many ways
went beyond his tutor Bolkestein, who despite his stress on the superiority of
Western values advocated freedom of religion and a dialogue based on mutual
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respect. Typical of the difference between the tutor and his pupil is that Bolkestein
in the end accepted a possible Turkish membership of the European Union whereas
for Wilders this decision was the impetus to leave the VVD in August 2004.
The national populist phase, 2006 to the present
On 22 February 2006 Wilders established the PVV, followed by the publication of an
ambitious ideological document, which was heavily influenced by Wilders’s collaborator Bart Jan Spruyt (Wilders, 2006). Characteristic of Spruyt’s interpretation
of neoconservatism was a concern about the drawbacks of too much freedom and
a need for a new moral and cultural foundation and a conservative cultural
offensive in order to liberate the country from its lack of decency, ambition and
discipline.
Although the document was initially meant to provide the ideological underpinning of the PVV, it was soon to become irrelevant as Wilders after 2006 increasingly
evolved in another direction. Wilders withdrew some of his neoconservative viewpoints and added new ones, which brought him close to another party family,
which is usually called national populist, populist radical right or radical right-wing
populist. Of course, there has been much academic debate on the use of these terms
(e.g. the special issue of Political Studies Review, 2009). However, all theorists consider the essence of this family (which will be referred to as national populist here)
to be on the one hand a strong resistance against immigration and supranational
co-operation because both would threaten national identity and on the other hand
a populist framing of politics as a moral conflict between the corrupt elite and the
virtuous people and the aspiration to build a polity in which the voice of the
virtuous people would prevail (Mudde, 2007, pp. 11–31; Rydgren, 2005a; Taguieff,
2002, pp. 39–54). More peripheral characteristics are a belief in a strict hierarchical
society, in which law and order prevails, resistance against economic and cultural
globalisation, a preference for traditional family values, an inclination to conspiracy
theories and a certain opportunism regarding social-economic affairs and foreign
policy, which are both of secondary importance (Mudde, 2007, pp. 119–137; Schori
Liang, 2007, pp. 1–33). According to Mudde the stance on economic affairs marks
the sometimes blurry distinction between this party family and the more hard-line
neoconservatives as for the latter economy is a core value.
The following developments show that Wilders after 2006 was moving away from
neoconservatism towards national populism. First, in his speeches and interviews
Wilders increasingly showed a more radical form of Islamophobia, based on apocalyptic conspiracy theories on the coming Islamification of Europe. Following Bat
Ye’or’s infamous Eurabia theory and Solomon and Al Mahdiqi’s Al Hijra theory,
Wilders more than once ‘unmasked’ the immigration of Muslims as an integral part
of a deliberate strategy of Islamification, an old strategy supposedly known in Islam
as ‘al Hijra’, according to Wilders (Bat Ye’or, 2005; Solomon and Al Maqdisi, 2009).
Hoping to gain a new, loyal constituency after the loss of their old constituency, the
left-wing parties had allowed this mass immigration. Referring to the Islamic dogma
Taqqia, which would give Muslims living in non-Muslim countries the right to hide
their true beliefs, Wilders began to question the sincerity of Muslims who seemed
willing to assimilate (Bosma, 2010; Niemöller, 2007, pp. 169–176; Wilders, 2009).
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The strict assimilationism of his neoconservative years was now evolving into a
crude rejectionism, namely a complete marginalising of Muslims, who relying on
the Taqqia doctrine are by definition untrustworthy. Examples of this rejectionism
are his plea for banning the Koran, his proposal for a ‘head-rag tax’ but also his
infamous remark that millions of European Muslims who do not adhere to Western
values should be expelled from Europe.
Second, though Islam remains the main enemy, Wilders and his fellow MPs are also
increasingly aiming their attacks at other groups of immigrants, such as Polish,
Bulgarian and Romanian workers and immigrants from the Dutch Antilles. Proposals to close the labour market to Eastern Europeans, to calculate the total costs
of immigration and to ‘sell’ the Dutch Antilles could be seen as examples of this turn
in his thinking (PVV Program, 2010). However, it is hard to classify the PVV as racist
or even nativist as Wilders has not aimed his barrage at relatively well-integrated
ethnic minorities such as the Surinamese, Moluccans, Chinese or Indo-Dutch (the
last group being a minority Wilders knew all too well because his mother had an
Indo-Dutch background). It is for that matter not without significance that between
2006 and 2010 four out of the nine members of the PVV parliamentary group had
a non-Dutch partner, including Wilders who is married to a Hungarian woman.
Third, after 2006 one could notice a stronger nationalism in Wilders’s views, that is,
greater emphasis on national interests and national values and an increasing dislike
for supranational co-operation. In 2005 Wilders had already launched a successful
‘No’ campaign in the referendum on the proposed EU treaty. After 2006, Wilders
also rejected Dutch participation in international peace operations, such as in
Afghanistan. The former neoconservative argued that other countries should now
play their part in the war on terror. Other signs of an increasing nationalism were
pleas for promoting national pride in schools (e.g. flag ceremonies, national history)
and also a rather optional proposal to integrate the Flemish part of Belgium into the
Dutch nation (PVV Program, 2010; Wilders and Bosma, 2008).
Fourth, from 2006 onwards Wilders showed both in style and content an increasing
populism. Increasingly, he referred to the common people who are fed up with
criminality, Islamisation and politics in general and who demand immediate action
(Vossen, 2010, pp. 26–30). While in his neoconservative phase Wilders advocated a
re-education of the softened Dutch people, he now proclaimed measures to take the
voice of hard-working people more seriously. Whereas in 2004 he still opposed
institutional reforms, he now advocated a more direct democracy with referendums
and direct elections of mayors, police commissioners and even judges. ‘Not the
political elite, but the people should have the opportunity to express more often
their will, because together the people know better than that left-wing clique’ (PVV
Vision, 2010).
Furthermore, as linguists have noted, his speech has become blunter and more
vulgar, in particular after 2007, especially when placed within the context of the
serene and conciliatory parliamentary culture of the Netherlands. While his speech
used to be firm but also loaded with political jargon, he now began to accuse the
government of straightforward lies and deceit and ministers of being ‘bonkers’ or
having a ‘spine of whipped cream’. Young Moroccan criminals were repeatedly
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referred to as ‘street terrorists’ or ‘Muslim colonists’ and the Dutch Antilles were
called a ‘crooks’ nest’, which should be ‘sold on eBay’ (Van Leeuwen, 2009).
Fifth, probably the most remarkable change has been in Wilders’s viewpoints on
social-economic affairs. Whereas Wilders used to be a fervent believer in neoliberal
values such as a small state, low taxes and the blessings of the free market, he now
advocates measures that at least in the Netherlands have been associated more with
left-wing interventionism. He opposes the raising of the retirement age and cuts on
minimum wages and reforms that would make it easier for employers to dismiss
staff, while advocating more investments in health care and facilities for the elderly.
Whether this sudden transformation is mere opportunism, as some have argued, is
of course difficult to judge. From an ideological point of view, for the greater part
new social-economic viewpoints signal Wilders’s willingness to modify some key
values of neoconservatism. To be sure, Wilders has also stuck to more harsh
economy measures such as cuts on development aid, culture and arts, the public
broadcasting service, environmental policy and the asylum and immigration policy
(PVV Program, 2010).
Classifying Wilders
The ideological development of Wilders appears to have brought him close to the
political family of national populists. Still, there are some remarkable programmatic
differences between the PVV and other national populist parties in Europe, which
makes classifying the PVV still difficult. First of all, Wilders himself openly keeps
aloof from most other parties in this family, such as the Front National, the British
National party, Vlaams Belang and the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. The only
European parties for which Wilders has shown some sympathy are according to
most scholars borderline cases, such as the Dansk Folkeparti, the United Kingdom
Independence party and the Schweizerische Volkspartei (Mudde, 2007; Nieuwenhuis, 2009). Wilders seeks his main political allies not in Europe but in Israel and
the United States. In Israel he feels connected to both Avigdor Lieberman and his
Israel Beiteinu party and Ariyeh Eldad’s Ha Tikvah party, which oppose a two-state
solution (Lipshiz, 2009). Wilders’s strong affinity with Israel may be considered as
one of the continuities in his ideological development, though his position has
certainly radicalised, culminating in his advocacy of a complete expulsion of Palestinians to Jordan (Wilders, 2010). In the United States Wilders has an expanding
network of fellow Islam fighters with their own small organisations and blogs, such
as Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugged, Stop Islamisation of America), Robert Spencer
(Jihad Watch), David Horowitz (Freedom Center) and Daniel Pipes (Middle East
Forum and Campus Watch). Like Wilders they all fear for the destruction of Israel
and for the Islamisation of Europe and even the United States (Brouwer, 2009;
Fennema, 2010; Vuijst, 2009, pp. 206–221). This strong focus on the United States
and Israel is quite unusual within the European national populist family, which is
not known for its love for either of these countries. In general, as a result of
Wilders’s own fascination, foreign policy seems much more important for the PVV
than for most other national populist parties.
Another remarkable aberration, from a national populist perspective (but also from
a neoconservative one) is Wilders’s libertarian opinions on ethical issues. The PVV
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advocates the right to abortion, euthanasia and embryo selection, while the party
presents itself as a fierce defender of women and gay emancipation in the face of the
advance of an ‘intolerant and backward Islam’ (Agema, 2008; Bosma, 2008; PVV
Program, 2010). It is hard to imagine another national populist party offering
a resolution in parliament to allow gay soldiers to wear their military outfit in a
gay parade.
Both these aberrations are indeed remarkable, but they are outweighed by the
many similarities between the PVV and other national populist parties, such as the
anti-immigration stance, the populist framing of politics and the aversion to supranational organisations. One could consider both peculiarities – the ethical libertarian aspect and the orientation towards the USA and Israel – necessary ingredients
to make a national populist programme in the Netherlands acceptable. The focus on
the United States and Israel refutes associations with fascism, the Holocaust and the
Second World War, which proved fatal for former Dutch national populist parties.
By championing women and gay rights, Wilders has managed to dissociate himself
from mere narrow-minded xenophobia and resentment, which in the Netherlands
were also linked to former national populist parties. At the same time, by stressing
his role as the protector of Dutch modernity against Islam and progressive naïvety,
Wilders has presented himself as the main heir of Pim Fortuyn. Although Wilders
and Fortuyn have never actually met, they are often considered to be fellow
thinkers, since both opposed the self-serving political elite and progressive political
and cultural hegemony and criticised the Dutch consultation system and immigration policy. Like Wilders, Fortuyn did not adhere to nativism but advocated a civic
nationalism, stressing the importance of the principles of the Enlightenment
(Akkermans, 2005). However, with regard to Islam, Wilders certainly has gone a
few steps further than Fortuyn, as demonstrated by his proposals to ban the Koran,
to introduce a ‘head-rag tax’ and to expel non-integrated Muslims.
Wilders is certainly not the first one to champion a strident and conspiracist
Islamophobia: other national populist parties such as the Front National, the Lega
Nord and Vlaams Belang preceded the PVV (Betz, 2007; Carr, 2006). Without
mentioning Wilders, José Pedro Zúquete already noticed that ‘visions of a Muslim
settlement and “take-over” of Europe have the potential to create a cross-national
reconfiguration of extreme-right ideology’ (Zúquete, 2008, p. 321). The question
will be whether Wilders’s particular brand of Islamophobia, based on his wish to
protect modern Western values against a ‘backward, totalitarian Islam’, will have
the potential to be a new international master frame. In recent years Wilders seems
to have outflanked the old national populist parties as the main figurehead of
international Islamophobia, inspiring other parties and organisations such as the
Sweden Democrats, the newly formed Bürgerpartei Die Freiheit in Germany,
Vlaams Belang and American organisations such as Stop Islamisation of America,
David Horowitz Freedom Center and Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch. Since 2008
Wilders has paid numerous visits to related parties and organisations in Europe,
Israel and the United States, showing his movie Fitna and being honoured as a
heroic defender of freedom (Fennema, 2010, pp. 206–221). His attempt to establish
an international umbrella organisation ‘for individuals and groups who are fighting
for freedom and against Islam’ has not been very successful to date (De Telegraaf,
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2010). However, in the years to come, Wilders will probably be a relevant actor not
only on the national but also on the international political stage.
Author contact details
Koen Vossen, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Pieter de la Court Gebouw,
Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK Leiden, Kamernummer 5B11, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]
Note
1 Legally, the PVV is the name under which the Foundation Geert Wilders operates. To avoid the internal
quarrels that are common in new political parties, Wilders has decided to restrict membership of the
foundation to only one person. A few proposals to ‘democratise’ the PVV have so far been rejected.
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