Centrifugal Europe: Away from the Social Democracy

Alex Gorak, RTA / Exactly half a century has passed since unconditional triumph of mostly youth protest rallies in states with a European political tradition (France, Germany, USA, Poland, Mexico, Belgium), generally called the ‘youth revolution’. Gains of the revolutionary movements in 1968 ensured rooting of the centrist social democratic tradition and values in the European political consciousness, making them for many years the basis of programs, strategies and slogans of political parties and individual leaders. Details varied from country to country and from period to period, depending on the situation and electorate, but the overall trend has been steadily growing over the years. Obviously, 50 years ago, democratization and modernization of the political process in Europe became a natural consequence of the Western European countries neighbouring with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and states of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The model promoted at that time by the Soviet Union and its satellites had a pronounced progressive, scientifically grounded, internationalist nature at least in appearance, oriented toward development of human capital and equality between people. A significant part of the principles and slogans of a typical European social democracy, having undergone, of course, a certain transformation, in fact, were an invention or were under essential influence of the socialist and communist ideology. Being forced to make concessions to retain power, to stop revolutionary sentiments and actions of the elite of European countries, the European ‘political boat’ tilted toward democratization, expansion of social guarantees for citizens, the so-called model of the ‘welfare state’. At the same time, intensive ideological, economic and diplomatic rivalry with the USSR united the ‘common European home’, acting as a driver of the subsequent integration processes in the European space, resulting in creation and regular expansion of the European Union. The overwhelming, though not completely well-earned victory in this confrontation solidified the political and economic elites’ and European peoples’ belief that the chosen model is fair, efficient and final, which, in fact, reflected a sincere consensus between the authorities and the population. However, years later, absence of a conventional common threat, routine political process and progressive centrism did their job. Political leadership as a phenomenon of European politics began to degrade, and bureaucratic paralysis became a typical response to contemporary challenges. As a result, significant changes have taken place in agenda shaping in the modern European Union. A significant factor in the ongoing transformations was also the migration crisis, which highlighted significant contradictions between the EU member states in the field of foreign policy and security, which was planned as a demonstration of the Europe’s unity. Not every EU country has agreed to bear subsidiary responsibility for the EU’s adventurous interventions in the Middle East and their consequences. Quite frankly, Brussels itself doubted fairness and effectiveness of the interventions, but Euro-Atlantic solidarity proved to be a more weighty argument. Today we are witnessing a sudden departure from the colorless centrist paradigm to a brighter, sometimes populist policy that is based on specific goals and postulates, and also completely rejects opportunism common for centrist politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, there is a gradual re-ideologization of the internal political landscape of the EU states, combined with a turn to such traditional for European society concepts as sovereignty, autarky, nationalism. In some cases, on the contrary, the left forces strengthen their positions, but an average European voter is obviously tired of centrist views, which results into a sort of ‘centrifugal drift’. The examples are well known. On the eve of the Riksdag elections in the Kingdom of Sweden, Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigrant party, has been demonstrating tremendous growth. Germany is shaken by political crises stemming from complicated forming of a ruling coalition and disagreements on the migration issue between traditional partners (the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian-Social Union), which leads to strengthening positions of the non-system opposition. As a result, the right-wing radical party Alternative for Germany causes alarm, while the mainstream politicians in Berlin fear it like the plague, blaming it of embracing almost Nazi ideology. In neighboring Austria, the ultra-right party is already participating in the coalition agreement with the Austrian People’s Party of the current young charismatic Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. This has already resulted in a tightened strategy of Vienna with regard to illegal migrants and political Islam, as well as rationalization of approaches to dialogue with the Russian Federation, which is noticeable for a number of commentators. In the third EU economy – Italy – coalition decisions have become very bizarre and, nevertheless, extremely illustrative. The faction was formed by right-wing radical populists from the Northern League and the typically left-wing movement Five Stars, the only thing in common is that they are not moderate centrists and have a Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant attitude. The policy of the Law and Justice in the Republic of Poland and Fidesz in Hungary for several years was attacked from Brussels for its extreme right-wing orientation, Euroscepticism and negative attitude towards the all-European policy on migrants. However, today the European outskirts have ceased to be the main problem and the reason for criticism from Brussels, since the right-wing forces are gaining more and more power and influence already in the so-called ‘first-speed Europe’. It is telling that this trend concerns not only the European Union, but has a full-scale macroregional scope. A key example is the victory of the non-system candidate, businessman and showman Donald Trump, in the November 2016 election of the US President, a rather unexpected result that resulted from a certain imperfection in the electoral system of the United States and provoked an unprecedented intensity of the opposition of the incumbent US President with the establishment. Trump’s defiance of conventional ways to conduct domestic and foreign policy, the irreconcilable extravagant populism and certain nationalism in the form of primacy of US national interests over universal tasks and projects, including joint ones with the European Union, reflect a significant change in US policy. In Spain, after a long break, relatively unconventional forces from the socialist workers’ party, which is characterized by a very leftist ideology, also came to power. Having won in France and Canada centrists with ‘phoney ratings’ Emmanuelle Macron and Justin Trudeau, emerged from nowhere, do not really handle the role of the establishment’s saviors and, surprisingly being in a minority even start annoying certain European leaders and the electorate. In any case, the rise of these young politicians working within hopelessly unfashionable strategies today is more like an exception to the rule than a new rule. Of course, the crisis of the social democratic pattern can have different consequences for the overall situation in the European Union. Currently, there are two main directions of possible macro-regional changes. Firstly, the abolition of centrist momentum will lead to a revision towards a significant reduction in the expansionist strategy of the European Union. The absolute majority of right-wing parties is oriented towards such traditional values for European states as sovereignty, independence and national prosperity. In such circumstances, it is becoming increasingly difficult to strengthen pan-European institutions and formulate universal strategies for the whole EU on sectoral issues, especially those that affect sovereignty and therefore bear conflict potential. When the intensive component of the ‘EU project’ development is stalled, the extensive phase becomes almost unclaimed. The European Union will have to volens nolens redirect some of its own resources, including financial and bureaucratic resources, to maintain internal unity in key aspects. In these circumstances, a significant part of the programs, which are not so much geopolitical as bureaucratic, risk being closed. To the greatest extent, this may affect the EU policy in the Eastern European countries (the so-called Eastern Partnership) and the Maghreb (the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership). Moreover, the EU enlargement for many years has been synchronized with strengthening of the Atlantic structures in the EU border states. The notion that ‘the way to the EU lies through NATO’ has become an established concept. However, since election of Donald Trump as the US President, the Euro-Atlantic unity has been shaken, but the European Union is both unable and not motivated at the same time to carry out a real expansionist strategy without an umbrella from the United States and NATO. Secondly, a change in the internal political fashion in the European Union can lead to an aggravation of separatist tendencies in the states of the European Union. If the social-democratic ideology is traditionally internationalist in its essence, then the right political views approach the topic in a slightly different way. Long experience of state building in the USSR shows that it is much easier, despite the smoldering political and ethnic contradictions, to preserve unity of the big Union, rather than its separate parts. There is no point in fighting for independence, when the doctrine of ‘Europe of Regions’ and the principle of subsidiarity have been adopted in the European Union as almost official since signing of the Lisbon Agreement. But a completely different reality arises in the case of strengthening national states. In such a situation, traditional contradictions arise with more intense, especially, when the unity of the European Union itself is partially undermined by Brexit. Strengthening Eurosceptics in the UK has become a factor in holding a referendum on the independence of Scotland in 2014. Conflicts between the government of Spain and Catalonia have sharply escalated for the past two years. Even the success of Madrid in decreasing the level of protests (including through demonstrations in support of unity), the tough line against separatist parties and demonstrative non-interference of Brussels did not help the Spanish Government reach a consensus in the dialogue with Barcelona. The former Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, was able to achieve re-elections and formation of a new membership of the Generalitat. However, on the road to the settlement with Catalonia, he lost power, losing to the socialists, while in Catalonia parties that aimed at secession from Spain, led by Carles Puçdemon’s ally Joaquim Torra, still came to power. Government of the Italian Republic has somewhat more succeeded in interaction with its separatist movements. At the same time, the factor of the united and attractive European Union should become a basis for settling the situation in Cyprus, where one of the basic wishes of the Turkish Cypriots is the European level of welfare and social guarantees. The loss or weakness of this component can undermine the settlement that is teetering on the brink. Describing the situation as a whole, it is necessary to recognize that we are on the verge of serious changes in the EU policy, which will be an element of the system’s self-purification and its adjustment to new challenges. These changes will be large-scale and will affect the macro-regional level, including affecting relations between the EU and Russia, as well as the EU and China, which will become an important component of the global agenda and the situation around the world.