Austria's Choice

Today, there is to be a general election in Austria. Thanks to the actions of Angela Merkel two years ago, the conclusion of the election in this neighbouring country to Germany was clear before voting began. The overwhelming majority of Austrians agree that there are now too many Muslims in the country, that the strain they have put on the social assistance and housing and education and health systems is unacceptable; and that no further significant immigration - however desperate the plight of people claiming to be 'refugees' might be - should be permitted. The government that will emerge from the election will be a coalition with a more right-wing structure than any since the re-unification of Austria [after allied occupation] in 1956. The two stand-out policy positions that it is expected to adopt are to seal the frontiers of the EU against immigrants, and to review and restrict access to the social security and related systems.

Neigbouring Hungary has had a government with policies designed to minimise immigration from outside the EU for several years: access to that country is very heavily controlled, with high wire fences and a strong presence of border guards. To the south-west of the Hungarian frontier is Austria's border with Italy, which has already been 'strengthened' to limit the onward passage of any of the tens of thousands of economic migrants who reach Italy by sea every year. No doubt that border will further be toughened: but there will also be sympathy for the Italians in their situation of receiving the migrants, which is resulting in right-wing politicians rising through 'populist' movements there, too.

There will be resistance in Austria to any attempt by Germany to impose any quota of Muslim [or, indeed, any other category of] immigrants on any EU country. It is widely expected that Austria will adhere to, and may even join, the 'Visigrad' group of countries [Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary] that have 'ganged up' to resist pressure from Germany and France. Thus there is already the making of a very powerful subset of the EU that will simply decline to go along with aspects of the settlement that the USA imposed on 'liberated' Europe after 1945. The Liberal Consensus to which Roosevelt and Truman, Churchill and deGaulle subscribed is fading fast.

The right-wing AfD in Germany has gained seats in the Bundestag, sufficient in number to harass whatever coalition government Mrs Merkel may be able to cobble together. France has a completely unproved president; and there are huge questions as to whether his parliamentary majority and constitutional authority will be enough to overcome the inertia of the trade unions, farmers and other vested interests. It has been noted above that Italy has strong and growing right-wing parties, and the legacy of Fascism is ceasing to be seen as an embarrassment. Those countries in north and west Europe that have a couple of centuries of constitutional government [Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Luxembourg; plus non-EU-member Norway] have all seen some emergence of minority anti-migrant movements. The three Baltic States [Estonia Latvia and Lithuania] have no significant problem with Muslim immigrants; they have suffered, to varying degrees, net emigration to the more affluent west of the EU.

The Balkan EU members, and aspirants to membership, want to prove their democratic credentials; but they have limited resources to accommodate immigrants [balanced by limited means of keeping them out]. They will sympathise with [and envy] the countries to the north that have the means and the will to seal their borders to a significant extent.

Thus the European Union that is harassed by the Brexit issue is a very different political and emotional structure than it was at the beginning of 2015: the year in which Cowardy Cameron launched the Referendum as an election pledge. It is quickly becoming an entity about which any true democrat would have serious questions. Britain is so beset by a useless government that it has not yet faced up to the point: but there is a growing doubt as to whether we would wish to join, if that was the issue before us.

Sklovakia should stand firm

Slovakia has very recently been noticed by many international media ccommentators as a possible obstacle to  the quiet confirmation of the already-spent first tranche of the eurozone's bailout package for Greece.
 Now that the Bundestag has voted in favour - as was always to be expected - parliamentary approval remains to be secured from half a dozen member states: with the Slovaks likely to vote last. Their vote is expected to take place in about a month's time, and the consensus view of outsiders is that the majority of factions will accept the obligation to be 'good Europeans' in the way that the eurorats of Brussels seek to impose on all their vassals.
This will give time for a much better test of the ability of the Greek government to deliver what they have promised in terms of job cuts, salary and pension reductions, and sales of public assets [and of the appetite of markets to buy Greek assets and take on their depressed workforces]. The current Greek policy must stand the test of time - obviously a much longer timescale than the next month - but the next month might give indicative evidence of the viability of the policy.
The Slovaks had to open up their books and admit the most exhaustive checks of their acceptability for euro membership; in a way that none of the founder members were tested. There is no reason why they should feel the slightest obligation to help international fraudsters, which is what the Greeks who managed their country's entry to the euro were. The other founder members can be construed as co-conspirators with the Greeks, because the facts were transparent at the time.
So if the Slovaks delay - or even defeat - the passage of the package of eurozone aid, they must be exonerated from the original sin.
Fear of the consequences of the bailout collapsing and causing a distressed default by Greece, followed by other countries and a global depression, will probably impel the Slovak parliamentarians to allow the package to proceed, in the end. But they have a good right to decide when that decision will be taken, and to raise a warning to the whole eurozone that they cannot take for granted the support of all the members for whatever is decided in the back-corridors of Brussels.

Crisis and Perspective

Without moving from my desk in 114 Batovce I can look down the village green past the baker's shop and the news kiosk to the church, surrounded by red tiled roofs; and beyond to the hills that mark the northern limit of the Danube Plain. In a short walk I can see the manifold evidence of an improved standard of life in the EU, NATO and [latterly] the eurozone: we have improved roads, restored buildings, an up-to-date supermarket and a useful general store that occupies the old Co-op premises. The veg man still sets up his stall three times a week, good local wine is between two and three euros a bottle and a half-litre of excellent beer in the pub costs less than one euro. We have an excellent local administration, led by a sensitive and intelligent Mayor. Economic growth is strong; and while unemployment is rising jobs are still being created in modern factories in the major cities.
Slovakia was emerging from the mire of communism - and still outside the European Union - when lying became institutionalised among the EU insiders; most obviously in the late 'eighties in the matter of the ERM [exchange rate mechanism], the scheme under which the currencies of member states were meant to 'converge' as a first step towards creating a common currency. If the exchange rate of any member currency moved to more than 2.5% above or below the average value of all the member currencies, the central bank and the government of that country had to take the necessary measures to bring the exchange rate back into conformity with the rules. There was a huge amount of fudging of figures: so although the range between the most divergent country above the average and the most divergent below the average was supposed to be a maximum of 5%, much higher diversion was tacitly tolerated. Not even that fudge could accommodate Italy, so the Italians were allowed a special range up to 7.5%: making the 'official' maximum divergeance between the lira and the currency furthest from it in strength 10%. Britain was a Johnny-come-lately into the system, tried to keep the rules with gold-plated rigidity, almost bankrupted the Bank of England in the process, and withdrew in ignomony in 1992.
The core EU countries then proceeded to create the common currency, the euro, on the understanding that the 'weaker bretheren' might not always be efficient in action or honest in their reporting of it. Member governments retained their power over taxation and spending policy, which they were supposed to exercise in accordance with the 'Growth and Stability Pact' so that the economic policies of the eurozone might converge and make the currency viable. Among the first to breach the Pact were France and Germany; and thereafter hypocrisy was institutionalised alongside making false returns and empty promises.
New members continued to join the euro, presumably hoping that there was enough validity in what was said in support of the system by the leaders of the major EU member states; and Slovakia was admitted on January 1, 2009.
Now the Slovaks have become pretty well aware of the rotten state of the EU. They presented the lowest turnout of any member state in the latest European Parliament election, and their parliament has hesitated to agree to any bail-out for profligate medacious south Europeans: they may still decide to stop any drain of their resources into the black hole created by the debts of the 'pigs' [Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain]. They are probably prepared to surrender more economic sovereignty to a strong and honestly-run eurozone [one national magasine a couple of weeks ago had a front cover asking 'IS THIS THE END OF SLOVAKIA?' as a sovereign state]; but that is a far cry from continuing to accept the pack of lies on which the currency was originally floated.
David Cameron is free to demand 'action' from the euro-states: but following the news from a village in one of the healthier member economies one becames aware of the seriousness of the issues that have to be resolved before the longer term future of the euro can be defined. On the same day [22/9/11], Cameron told the United Nations that they had a duty to oppose oppressive regimes that attacked their own people; and failed to mention Zimbabwe. That is the same sort of selective blindness as that which enabled European politicians and Brussels eurorats to con seventeen nations into accepting the euro: so, as usual, we have the pot describing the kettle as smoke-tarmished.