EUROPEAN AUSTERITY WITHOUT GROWTH? EUROPEAN GROWTH WITHOUT EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY?

Abstract

The European project is facing a crisis. Citizens no longer understand what the EU is about. Young people and the new ruling class have forgotten the clear message of the European project launched just after the Second World War "No wars ever again among Europeans." The founding fathers of the European Union are mentioned in history textbooks, but today Europe is felt as an irritating bureaucracy. In Europe, peace and economic stability are considered as a natural state, a gift from above. Why keep a useless EU alive? The state of the European Union is swiftly degenerating. In almost all the member states, the anti-European forces are gaining ground. Populism is not a new ideology and is not necessarily European: let's recall Peronism. In today's Europe populism is the new manifestation of nationalism. In Italy the Lega Nord is in Berlusconi's eurosceptic government. In France, the National Front is endangering UMP's hegemony. In Belgium the rows between the Flemish and the Walloons threatens the state's unity. In the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria and Finland, populist forces are either in the government or strongly influencing the government. National-populism is different from the nationalism of the past. De Gaulle's nationalism was an ideology founded on the "grandeur" of France's history and on a certain idea of Europe, which was "l'Europe de patrie", a kind of European unity accepting French leadership in world politics. Today national-populism is a form of micro-nationalism: it opposes the European project but without having a serious alternative. This is why populism is dangerous. Its real goal is not only the breaking down of the European Union but also the disintegration of the old nation states into micro-ethnic states, as what happened in former Yugoslavia.

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