Brace
yourself, Europe: Politics is back
As
politicians take the gloves off and citizens re-engage with parties,
one casualty could be the transatlantic partnership.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 1/12/17, 5:23 AM CET Updated 1/13/17, 8:44 PM CET
BERLIN — Old
Europe is witnessing the return of a long-dormant force in its civic
discourse — politics.
The barrage of
Brexit, the rise of populism and the election of Donald Trump has
charged Europe’s political atmosphere, galvanizing the public and
politicians across the region.
From the well of the
European Parliament in Brussels to the salons of Berlin, the
consensus-driven, sleep-inducing debate is giving way to a rawer,
nastier, no-holds-barred exchange long absent in Western European
democracy.
Old alliances are
cracking under the stress of growing voter frustration, and
politicians are abandoning the center as the battle of ideas moves
from the mainstream to the fringes. Voters, depending on passport and
political persuasion, are demanding action on a range of intractable
issues, from refugees to Russia to austerity.
With Europe heading
into an election year that could redraw the political map from France
to Germany, the pistols-at-dawn atmosphere threatens to leave behind
a scorched landscape and an even more divided EU — not to mention a
tattered transatlantic alliance.
“It’s a much
more political landscape than it was a few years ago,” said Jan
Techau, director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum for the Study of
Diplomacy and Governance at the American Academy in Berlin. “People
are fed up.”
Mainstream
politicians are increasingly reaching into the populist toolbox by
mischaracterizing facts and resorting to personal attacks.
The collapse of the
gentleman’s agreement between Europe’s largest parties over the
European Parliament’s presidency is just the latest sign the
affable, one-hand-washes-the-other approach to European politics is
dying as the political elite sees its future at stake.
For better or worse,
mainstream politicians are increasingly reaching into the populist
toolbox by mischaracterizing facts and resorting to personal attacks.
While such tactics
have been a mainstay of Eastern Europe’s rough-and-tumble politics,
they’re less prevalent in countries with more staid political
cultures, such as Germany.
Dropping the
doublespeak
Just this week, a
top aide to Angela Merkel raised eyebrows by saying that the head of
the liberal Free Democrats, long the preferred partner of the
chancellor’s conservatives, was no different than a leader of the
far-right Alternative for Germany party. The takedown appeared to be
payback for the Free Democrat leader’s criticism of Merkel.
German Vice
Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the Social Democrats and
Merkel’s likely challenger in upcoming elections, also went on the
attack. Gabriel, who has governed alongside Merkel for nearly four
years, blamed her for the rise of the far right, accusing her of
trying to “put voters to sleep.”
As populists try to
exploit public fears regarding immigrants and security, establishment
politicians have been forced to retreat from the center, drop their
doublespeak and take a stand. That’s upending the political status
quo in countries like Germany and Austria, where years of grand
coalitions have left the mainstream parties almost indistinguishable.
Even Merkel, widely
viewed as a lonely voice of reason in Europe, hasn’t been immune.
Seeking to quell a backlash in her party over her open-arms refugee
policy, she came out in favor of banning burqas last month. Her party
base cheered the move, but still wants more.
Unnerved by a surge
in support for the right-wing AfD, some members of her conservative
alliance are demanding a tougher line on asylum, a repeal of
Germany’s dual-citizenship law and steps to ensure, in the words of
a recent declaration, that “Germany remains Germany.”
In France, former
Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls is running for president,
promising he is a “changed” man. When in office, he advocated
reforming France’s labor system by doing away with the 35-hour work
week. Now, he says, the Socialists have “yielded too much” to the
“forces of money.”
“I’ve matured,”
Valls told an interviewer this week.
The leading
conservative candidate, François Fillon, is moving in the opposite
direction, offering a prescription of economic liberalism — long
unthinkable in France — to address the country’s woes.
What’s striking
about these moves is the candidates have avoided trying to outrun the
populist National Front, promising instead a return to their parties’
founding principles.
That’s because, in
the past, when mainstream parties have tried to co-opt populist
positions, voters stuck with the original. That was the case in
Austria, for example, where both the center-right Austrian People’s
Party and the Social Democrats have struggled for years to halt the
rise of the right-wing Freedom Party.
Bye-bye Americanism
Some observers are
encouraged by Europe’s new political winds. For one, Europe’s
citizens, whether out of fear or hope, are becoming more politically
engaged.
In Germany, where a
couple of years ago the most controversial issue on the political
agenda was a proposed highway toll, the political atmosphere has
erupted in the wake of the refugee influx and the U.S. elections.
Trump’s surprise
victory caused a surge in membership applications to left-leaning
parties, for example. Some 1,900 people asked to join the Social
Democratic Party in November, more than twice as many as the month
before. Most of these new party members were young, with 1,000 of
them aged 35 or less.
“All of a sudden,
issues like geopolitics are on the political agenda again. With
Trump, you have populism in the heart chamber of the Western world
and that’s having an impact” — Jan Techau
It’s not just the
left that’s benefiting: Across the political spectrum, parties are
seeing more engagement from citizens.
“All of a sudden,
issues like geopolitics are on the political agenda again,” Techau
said. “With Trump, you have populism in the heart chamber of the
Western world and that’s having an impact.”
The question is
where this new spirit of debate leads. Some see a more worrying side.
Wolfgang Ischinger,
the head of the Munich Security Conference and a former German
ambassador to Washington, predicts “serious difficulty” for the
transatlantic alliance in the years ahead.
“We will have a
new wave of anti-Americanism in this country,” Ischinger predicted.
He noted that
leading German commentators have begun to question Europe’s strong
ties to America, the cornerstone of the postwar order.
“The hour has come
to say goodbye to Americanism, to naïve Atlanticism,” Bernd
Ulrich, a one-time aide to former German Foreign Minister and Green
leader Joschka Fischer, recently wrote in the weekly Die Zeit.
Naïve or not, such
sentiments suggest Europe may soon be pining for the boring politics
of old.
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