Claude Forthomme's Blog, page 6
January 28, 2019
The Logical Way to Reform Europe - Why It Could Fail
Just published on Impakter:
French President Macron speaking at the Sorbonne, 26 September 2017 Source: Elysées
Everyone agrees that to reform Europe is a priority. And there’s only one logical way to do it, as proposed by French President Macron. His plan is simply brilliant. Exactly what Europe needs now. But there are many reasons why it will not be adopted - in spite of its brilliance and evident relevance.
It should come as no surprise that the author of this reform plan is French. France has always been the country of logic since Descartes’ days. The sad thing is that logic is not a winner these days with nationalist populism reviving everywhere - including in Germany and Italy and in most of Central and Eastern Europe. There are other reasons too militating against Macron's plan: Germany’s fixation on austerity, Italy’s anti-establishment government. Italy, as I will show, is the unexpected linchpin - the country that could kill the dream of a United Europe.
First, let’s examine Macron’s plan, and then see why its chances for success are slim. Slim but not totally hopeless: There is an on-going revival on the left, especially with the Greens in Germany and some inspiring figures like Carlo Calenda in Italy.
Macron’s Plan to Reform Europe: Making it a Sustainability Champion So what is Macron’s plan? As Bloomberg put it, Macron’s goal is to make Europe “fit for a globalized world”. In a landmark speech at Paris’ Sorbonne University in September 2017, he outlined a six-pillar plan (he calls them “keys”) to reform Europe and make it “sovereign, united and democratic”:
For the video of the full speech in English translation, click here:Macron's six "keys" are:
...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
French President Macron speaking at the Sorbonne, 26 September 2017 Source: Elysées
Everyone agrees that to reform Europe is a priority. And there’s only one logical way to do it, as proposed by French President Macron. His plan is simply brilliant. Exactly what Europe needs now. But there are many reasons why it will not be adopted - in spite of its brilliance and evident relevance.
It should come as no surprise that the author of this reform plan is French. France has always been the country of logic since Descartes’ days. The sad thing is that logic is not a winner these days with nationalist populism reviving everywhere - including in Germany and Italy and in most of Central and Eastern Europe. There are other reasons too militating against Macron's plan: Germany’s fixation on austerity, Italy’s anti-establishment government. Italy, as I will show, is the unexpected linchpin - the country that could kill the dream of a United Europe.
First, let’s examine Macron’s plan, and then see why its chances for success are slim. Slim but not totally hopeless: There is an on-going revival on the left, especially with the Greens in Germany and some inspiring figures like Carlo Calenda in Italy.
Macron’s Plan to Reform Europe: Making it a Sustainability Champion So what is Macron’s plan? As Bloomberg put it, Macron’s goal is to make Europe “fit for a globalized world”. In a landmark speech at Paris’ Sorbonne University in September 2017, he outlined a six-pillar plan (he calls them “keys”) to reform Europe and make it “sovereign, united and democratic”:
For the video of the full speech in English translation, click here:Macron's six "keys" are:
...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
January 24, 2019
Populism's Broken Promises in America and Europe: Two Emblematic Cases
An article published on Impakter that I am particularly proud of: I got compliments from a great professional journalist Judy Bachrach who is also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, the author of bestselling "Glimpsing Heaven" and professor of investigative journalism at John Cabot University. Here is the first part (concerning the U.S. and Trump); the second part is about Europe (and Salvini):
Populists make empty promises. They exploit people’s discontent, raise expectations but cannot deliver solutions. They claim to represent the “will of the people”. Yet they spread lies and accuse leaders of other parties, particularly progressive ones, to be the root cause of all the problems people face. Populists thrive on divisiveness and partisanship in both America and Europe. And it is happening in the world’s oldest democracies, places that should have been inured to the populists’ siren songs.
Two recent cases are emblematic of what is going on.
Case # 1: The United StatesConsider America. Trump constantly attacks the “failing New York Times” for spreading “fake news”:
He flatly overlooks the fact that the New York Times has never been more successful, with extraordinary financial results and a fast-growing audience - Forbes estimates NYT’s online subscriber base to be its biggest value driver, and forecast this growth to pick up in the coming years and reach 4.5 million by 2022. A remarkable performance at a time of great difficulty for the industry battered by digital publications and online news.
But Trump, like all populists, has an Achilles’ heel: He can’t deliver on his promises. And he never will. Because his promises are nonsensical, none of them can resolve the problems they are meant to address.
What is happening now with his promised border wall is only the start. He incautiously caused the shutdown of government, sending home 800,000 government employees without pay. And he is doubling down on his mistake, with false accusations at the Democrats when everyone knows that the Democrats have nothing to do with it.
Trump, and he alone, is the cause of the mess. And if the shutdown lasts a year or more as Trump says he’s ready to do, don’t go ask all those employees sitting at home how happy they are with him or what they think of his MAGA policies.
But what about employment and Trump’s promise to create more blue-collar jobs to revive the rust belt? The just published employment data was fantastic, almost double what economists had predicted, shattering Wall Street forecasts of doom: 312,000 jobs were created in December, bringing total employment gains in 2018 to a three-year high of 2.64 million. The Labor Department adjusted its figures for October, raising them from 237,000 to 274,000 and for November, from 155,000 to 176,000.
Cherry on the cake: the average wage rose 11 cents, or 0.4%, to $27.48 an hour. OK, 0.4% doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s an average and it means some people did get ahead. And if the employment rate crept up to 3.9 percent from a 49 year low of 3.7 percent, that’s a small creep and it was because more people, attracted by a booming economy, entered the workforce.
So has Trump delivered on his promise? First, it’s too soon to tell. The impact of whatever Trump did will take some years to show up. No political measure is ever instantly translated into measurable economic effects.
Second, we need to remember that Trump in his first two years has only really achieved two things:
(1) deregulation of the environment, paralyzing the Environmental Protection Agency - a boon for the fuel and coal industry and steel; and(2) an unprecedented tax break for Big Business and the One Percent - at the expense of the middle class and the lower blue-collar working class.
Both measures will need time to impact the economy in full, but we already see early signs that can tell us which way things will be going.
The expected early burst due to Trump’s tax break is much like a wave of fresh funding currently translating into higher overall employment and attracting new people in the labor market. Problem: It is not going into every nook and cranny in the economy, as the Republicans expected.
There is a good reason for this shortcoming. A considerable amount of the funding freed from the tax is not going into new investment, but instead going into stock buybacks to please shareholders. For now, that makes Wall Street and the One Percent very happy. But every cent and dollar going into stock buybacks means it is not going into Main Street and jobs for blue-collar workers.
The amounts diverted into stock buybacks is extensive: By end 2018, it is estimated that of the announced 1.1 trillion in buybacks, a record amount, already $800 billion have actually been purchased. Record buybacks are usually a sign that CFOs believe their stock is undervalued. But not all buybacks have happy outcomes. Consider the case of Apple that was recently badly hit by dropping sales for its smartphones in China:
Then there’s another problem: Robotization. This had nothing to do with Trump’s policies. The trend to automation started a long time before Trump reached the White House. Except for one thing, he should have foreseen the problem.
A good leader sees farther than his voting base. He should have understood that jobs in the coal and steel/aluminum industries that existed twenty years ago are no longer there because of automation. For example, Austria boasts of an almost entirely automated steel plant: It only needs 14 people to run.
The same is true for the United States, as a Brookings article abundantly documents. The last time employment peaked in the coal industry was in the 1920s. Already, by 1980, it was plunging - from 785,000 in 1920 to 242,000. And by 2015, it had lost 59% of its workforce compared to 1980 - most of the loss due not to trade but to automation.
The change from pit mining to surface mining (using explosives and considerably less labor) accelerated the move. Capital intensive highly productive technologies are already in use everywhere and it is expected that over the next 10 to 15 years, their deployment will be ramped up.
But Trump didn’t see that coming. He is not interested in either automation or the opportunities opened up by Artificial Intelligence.
As a result of his tax cut, jobs in the steel, aluminum and coal industries have rebounded, sure, but only modestly. Not enough to change the equation in the rust belt. Moreover, Big Business hasn't changed its modus operandi, as the recent decision of General Motors to close down plants in the U.S. and send 45,000 people home shows.
Bottom line, Trump is only interested in easy-to-sell slogans, not in resolving difficult problems.
Case # 2: EuropeConsider the European Union, and take a close look at one of its best-grounded, most emblematic democracies: Italy. The country where after the disaster of World War II, a particularly representative democracy was set up with a carefully crafted Constitution, intended to avoid the dictatorship of the majority and give equal representation to all citizens, excluding none.
The rest on Impakter, click here. Let me know what you think!
Populists make empty promises. They exploit people’s discontent, raise expectations but cannot deliver solutions. They claim to represent the “will of the people”. Yet they spread lies and accuse leaders of other parties, particularly progressive ones, to be the root cause of all the problems people face. Populists thrive on divisiveness and partisanship in both America and Europe. And it is happening in the world’s oldest democracies, places that should have been inured to the populists’ siren songs.
Two recent cases are emblematic of what is going on.
Case # 1: The United StatesConsider America. Trump constantly attacks the “failing New York Times” for spreading “fake news”:
“Former @NYTimes editor Jill Abramson rips paper's ‘unmistakably anti-Trump’ bias.”Ms. Abramson is 100% correct. Horrible and totally dishonest reporting on almost everything they write. Hence the term Fake News, Enemy of the People, and Opposition Party!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2019
He flatly overlooks the fact that the New York Times has never been more successful, with extraordinary financial results and a fast-growing audience - Forbes estimates NYT’s online subscriber base to be its biggest value driver, and forecast this growth to pick up in the coming years and reach 4.5 million by 2022. A remarkable performance at a time of great difficulty for the industry battered by digital publications and online news.
But Trump, like all populists, has an Achilles’ heel: He can’t deliver on his promises. And he never will. Because his promises are nonsensical, none of them can resolve the problems they are meant to address.
What is happening now with his promised border wall is only the start. He incautiously caused the shutdown of government, sending home 800,000 government employees without pay. And he is doubling down on his mistake, with false accusations at the Democrats when everyone knows that the Democrats have nothing to do with it.
Trump, and he alone, is the cause of the mess. And if the shutdown lasts a year or more as Trump says he’s ready to do, don’t go ask all those employees sitting at home how happy they are with him or what they think of his MAGA policies.
But what about employment and Trump’s promise to create more blue-collar jobs to revive the rust belt? The just published employment data was fantastic, almost double what economists had predicted, shattering Wall Street forecasts of doom: 312,000 jobs were created in December, bringing total employment gains in 2018 to a three-year high of 2.64 million. The Labor Department adjusted its figures for October, raising them from 237,000 to 274,000 and for November, from 155,000 to 176,000.
Cherry on the cake: the average wage rose 11 cents, or 0.4%, to $27.48 an hour. OK, 0.4% doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s an average and it means some people did get ahead. And if the employment rate crept up to 3.9 percent from a 49 year low of 3.7 percent, that’s a small creep and it was because more people, attracted by a booming economy, entered the workforce.
So has Trump delivered on his promise? First, it’s too soon to tell. The impact of whatever Trump did will take some years to show up. No political measure is ever instantly translated into measurable economic effects.
Second, we need to remember that Trump in his first two years has only really achieved two things:
(1) deregulation of the environment, paralyzing the Environmental Protection Agency - a boon for the fuel and coal industry and steel; and(2) an unprecedented tax break for Big Business and the One Percent - at the expense of the middle class and the lower blue-collar working class.
Both measures will need time to impact the economy in full, but we already see early signs that can tell us which way things will be going.
The expected early burst due to Trump’s tax break is much like a wave of fresh funding currently translating into higher overall employment and attracting new people in the labor market. Problem: It is not going into every nook and cranny in the economy, as the Republicans expected.
There is a good reason for this shortcoming. A considerable amount of the funding freed from the tax is not going into new investment, but instead going into stock buybacks to please shareholders. For now, that makes Wall Street and the One Percent very happy. But every cent and dollar going into stock buybacks means it is not going into Main Street and jobs for blue-collar workers.
The amounts diverted into stock buybacks is extensive: By end 2018, it is estimated that of the announced 1.1 trillion in buybacks, a record amount, already $800 billion have actually been purchased. Record buybacks are usually a sign that CFOs believe their stock is undervalued. But not all buybacks have happy outcomes. Consider the case of Apple that was recently badly hit by dropping sales for its smartphones in China:
Then there’s another problem: Robotization. This had nothing to do with Trump’s policies. The trend to automation started a long time before Trump reached the White House. Except for one thing, he should have foreseen the problem.
A good leader sees farther than his voting base. He should have understood that jobs in the coal and steel/aluminum industries that existed twenty years ago are no longer there because of automation. For example, Austria boasts of an almost entirely automated steel plant: It only needs 14 people to run.
The same is true for the United States, as a Brookings article abundantly documents. The last time employment peaked in the coal industry was in the 1920s. Already, by 1980, it was plunging - from 785,000 in 1920 to 242,000. And by 2015, it had lost 59% of its workforce compared to 1980 - most of the loss due not to trade but to automation.
The change from pit mining to surface mining (using explosives and considerably less labor) accelerated the move. Capital intensive highly productive technologies are already in use everywhere and it is expected that over the next 10 to 15 years, their deployment will be ramped up.
But Trump didn’t see that coming. He is not interested in either automation or the opportunities opened up by Artificial Intelligence.
As a result of his tax cut, jobs in the steel, aluminum and coal industries have rebounded, sure, but only modestly. Not enough to change the equation in the rust belt. Moreover, Big Business hasn't changed its modus operandi, as the recent decision of General Motors to close down plants in the U.S. and send 45,000 people home shows.
Bottom line, Trump is only interested in easy-to-sell slogans, not in resolving difficult problems.
Case # 2: EuropeConsider the European Union, and take a close look at one of its best-grounded, most emblematic democracies: Italy. The country where after the disaster of World War II, a particularly representative democracy was set up with a carefully crafted Constitution, intended to avoid the dictatorship of the majority and give equal representation to all citizens, excluding none.
The rest on Impakter, click here. Let me know what you think!
January 21, 2019
Murderers in the Mediterranean: How to Stop Them
Just published on Impakter:
Two days ago, 117 people died in the Mediterranean. People talk of massacres whenever migrants drown. And then forget about it, overwhelmed by the relentless news cycle of our digital age. Perhaps if we called a spade a spade, people wouldn’t forget: Murderers at work in the Mediterranean is a better description of what happened.
Consider the facts. They had been 120 when they escaped from Libya in hope of a better life in Europe. Then, after about eleven hours of navigation, their overloaded rubber dinghy deflated and capsized. They tried to swim for hours, but most couldn’t make it. There were ten women among them, one was pregnant. And there were two children, one of which was a two-month baby. Most of them came from Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Sudan. Three survived to tell the story and were brought by helicopter to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
All the others could have been saved but weren’t.
With modern satellite technology, any boat crossing the Mediterranean can be spotted. For years, the Italian navy did a magnificent job of spotting them and saving lives, earning people’s gratitude and admiration across the world.
In the Photo: An over-crowded boat of refugees and migrants is rescued in the Mediterranean by the Italian Navy as part of the Mare Nostrum operation. Source: © Massimo Sestini for the Italian NavyBut with far-right populist leader Matteo Salvini in charge (he is Italy’s Interior Minister), all that has changed. Of course, we have no proof that the Italians watched as people drowned. Only one thing is certain: These people fought for hours in freezing waters before going under.
Salvini has made his policy crystal clear: He has closed Italian ports and accuses NGOs of playing the game of human traffickers, saying: “As long as European ports will remain open...sea traffickers will continue to do business and kill people.”
This causes an excruciating moral dilemma. People are killed anyway, closing ports and looking the other way is no solution. There are ways to stop "sea traffickers". For example, one could work out agreements with governments on the southern coast of the Mediterranean - especially with Libya and Turkey - to gain control and police the areas where the traffickers actually operate - and not in the open sea, when it's too late. But Salvini is doing none of this.
MAP showing where the rubber dinghy with 120 people aboard sank. Source: Mail OnlineFor now, the situation is in an ugly stall. Countries (like Italy) that should welcome refugees are not doing so. And putting themselves in the unwanted role of murderers at sea.
For example, exactly two days after 117 people were left to die, one of the ships of the NGO Sea Watch saved 47 migrants including 8 unaccompanied children. These were migrants in similar circumstances, clinging to a sinking dinghy. They were found by Sea Watch in international waters north of Zuwarah in Libya. Who will take them in?
A few days earlier, in another angle of the Mediterranean, in the western sea of Alboan, another 53 people had died in similar circumstance, with only one survivor - a fact documented by UNHCR.
This brings the total for this month to 170 deaths from drowning. A lot of deaths in just a few days.
The overall number of people who died crossing the Mediterranean in 2018 was, according to UNHCR, 2,262. Too much, even if we are far from the peak of 2015 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously opened the doors of Germany to a “million refugees”. UNHCR’s data speaks volumes:
UNHCR tweeted dismay at the latest tragedy:
The President of Italy Sergio Mattarella was also moved to issue a press release expressing his "profound sorrow for the death of over one hundred people, including women, men and children".
The only one who remained silent was Salvini.
Yet, his policy of closing borders is putting him at odds with international law, in particular, the principle of “non refoulement” ( a French term, in deference to the fact that French has been traditionally the language of international diplomacy) - as explained in this UNHCR video:
...
The rest , including UNHCR's excellent video, is on Impakter. To read, click here.
Two days ago, 117 people died in the Mediterranean. People talk of massacres whenever migrants drown. And then forget about it, overwhelmed by the relentless news cycle of our digital age. Perhaps if we called a spade a spade, people wouldn’t forget: Murderers at work in the Mediterranean is a better description of what happened.
Consider the facts. They had been 120 when they escaped from Libya in hope of a better life in Europe. Then, after about eleven hours of navigation, their overloaded rubber dinghy deflated and capsized. They tried to swim for hours, but most couldn’t make it. There were ten women among them, one was pregnant. And there were two children, one of which was a two-month baby. Most of them came from Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Sudan. Three survived to tell the story and were brought by helicopter to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
All the others could have been saved but weren’t.
With modern satellite technology, any boat crossing the Mediterranean can be spotted. For years, the Italian navy did a magnificent job of spotting them and saving lives, earning people’s gratitude and admiration across the world.
In the Photo: An over-crowded boat of refugees and migrants is rescued in the Mediterranean by the Italian Navy as part of the Mare Nostrum operation. Source: © Massimo Sestini for the Italian NavyBut with far-right populist leader Matteo Salvini in charge (he is Italy’s Interior Minister), all that has changed. Of course, we have no proof that the Italians watched as people drowned. Only one thing is certain: These people fought for hours in freezing waters before going under.
Salvini has made his policy crystal clear: He has closed Italian ports and accuses NGOs of playing the game of human traffickers, saying: “As long as European ports will remain open...sea traffickers will continue to do business and kill people.”
This causes an excruciating moral dilemma. People are killed anyway, closing ports and looking the other way is no solution. There are ways to stop "sea traffickers". For example, one could work out agreements with governments on the southern coast of the Mediterranean - especially with Libya and Turkey - to gain control and police the areas where the traffickers actually operate - and not in the open sea, when it's too late. But Salvini is doing none of this.
MAP showing where the rubber dinghy with 120 people aboard sank. Source: Mail OnlineFor now, the situation is in an ugly stall. Countries (like Italy) that should welcome refugees are not doing so. And putting themselves in the unwanted role of murderers at sea.
For example, exactly two days after 117 people were left to die, one of the ships of the NGO Sea Watch saved 47 migrants including 8 unaccompanied children. These were migrants in similar circumstances, clinging to a sinking dinghy. They were found by Sea Watch in international waters north of Zuwarah in Libya. Who will take them in?
A few days earlier, in another angle of the Mediterranean, in the western sea of Alboan, another 53 people had died in similar circumstance, with only one survivor - a fact documented by UNHCR.
This brings the total for this month to 170 deaths from drowning. A lot of deaths in just a few days.
The overall number of people who died crossing the Mediterranean in 2018 was, according to UNHCR, 2,262. Too much, even if we are far from the peak of 2015 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously opened the doors of Germany to a “million refugees”. UNHCR’s data speaks volumes:
UNHCR tweeted dismay at the latest tragedy:
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the high numbers of people dying on Europe’s doorstep.”
~ @cochetelhttps://t.co/wJ7yVHbxH6— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) January 20, 2019
The President of Italy Sergio Mattarella was also moved to issue a press release expressing his "profound sorrow for the death of over one hundred people, including women, men and children".
The only one who remained silent was Salvini.
Yet, his policy of closing borders is putting him at odds with international law, in particular, the principle of “non refoulement” ( a French term, in deference to the fact that French has been traditionally the language of international diplomacy) - as explained in this UNHCR video:
...
The rest , including UNHCR's excellent video, is on Impakter. To read, click here.
January 16, 2019
Brexit Deadlock: What Next?
I wrote about the Brexit deadlock for Impakter and here is the start of my updated article following the U.K. Parliament vote on May's "Brexit deal" she had negotiated with the EU:
Less than eleven weeks to Brexit: March 29, the date of UK’s exit from the EU, is closer than ever. But right now we are living through a “Brexit deadlock”. And it will continue despite the historic contrary vote in Parliament on 15 January that rejected Prime Minister May's controversial "Brexit deal". The margin of defeat was enormous, May lost by 230 votes.The defeat, however predictable and expected, still managed to shock many people. And EU Commission President Juncker expressed regret:
The EU Commission also released a formal statement on 15 January by President Juncker highlighting that the "process of ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement continues. Because this Withdrawal Agreement (i.e. May's "Brexit deal") is:
"a fair compromise and the best possible deal. It reduces the damage caused by Brexit for citizens and businesses across Europe. It is the only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union."
The EU won't budge on the Irish border problem. This is it - end of the road. As EU Council President Donald Tusk was quick to note , the U.K. should cancel Brexit since no better deal can be negotiated.
The government today is on the brink, with Labour Leader Corbyn calling for a non-confidence vote tonight.
The logic is to go back to the people and vote again, as suggested by Susan Wilson in her recent article on Impakter celebrating "2019: The Year We Finally Bury Brexit". That is also what the markets expect and the pound immediately rebounded.
Unfortunately, little time is left to organize a referendum. Some people argue there’s no time left at all.
Yet a no-deal Brexit was excluded by a crucial Parliament vote on 8 January that passed almost unobserved by the mainstream media. But that vote ensured, to use Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s expression, that the UK cannot "legally go crashing out” of the EU on 29 March 2019:
In the days leading to the Parliamentary vote on May's Brexit deal, panic was palpably spreading in the U.K.
The UK Guardian echoed the panic with a series of articles with dramatic titles: A no-deal Brexit will kill startups, say Eco-capsule coffee firm bosses; Brexit would be similar to 'national suicide', says leading Tory pro-European Dominic Grieve. Twitter is palpitating with the news. For example, Gillian Ford, Councillor London Borough of Havering and Deputy Chair LGA Children, immediately tweeted:
Reading posts under the hashtag #ThinkAnewActAnew that covers events at the Convention: Think Anew Act Anew, Another Vote is Possible, held in London on 11 January is an eye-opener. Organized at very short notice by activist-journalist and UK Editor of Vanity Fair Henry Porter, it shows that there is now a strong, ongoing surge of popular support for a second referendum. Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas made a notable opening speech, reported on Channel 4 News:
...
More on Impakter, click HERE to read. Let me know what you think!
Less than eleven weeks to Brexit: March 29, the date of UK’s exit from the EU, is closer than ever. But right now we are living through a “Brexit deadlock”. And it will continue despite the historic contrary vote in Parliament on 15 January that rejected Prime Minister May's controversial "Brexit deal". The margin of defeat was enormous, May lost by 230 votes.The defeat, however predictable and expected, still managed to shock many people. And EU Commission President Juncker expressed regret:
I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the @HouseofCommons this evening. I urge the #UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up #Brexit https://t.co/SMmps5kexn— Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 15, 2019
The EU Commission also released a formal statement on 15 January by President Juncker highlighting that the "process of ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement continues. Because this Withdrawal Agreement (i.e. May's "Brexit deal") is:
"a fair compromise and the best possible deal. It reduces the damage caused by Brexit for citizens and businesses across Europe. It is the only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union."
The EU won't budge on the Irish border problem. This is it - end of the road. As EU Council President Donald Tusk was quick to note , the U.K. should cancel Brexit since no better deal can be negotiated.
The government today is on the brink, with Labour Leader Corbyn calling for a non-confidence vote tonight.
The logic is to go back to the people and vote again, as suggested by Susan Wilson in her recent article on Impakter celebrating "2019: The Year We Finally Bury Brexit". That is also what the markets expect and the pound immediately rebounded.
Unfortunately, little time is left to organize a referendum. Some people argue there’s no time left at all.
Yet a no-deal Brexit was excluded by a crucial Parliament vote on 8 January that passed almost unobserved by the mainstream media. But that vote ensured, to use Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s expression, that the UK cannot "legally go crashing out” of the EU on 29 March 2019:
In the days leading to the Parliamentary vote on May's Brexit deal, panic was palpably spreading in the U.K.
The UK Guardian echoed the panic with a series of articles with dramatic titles: A no-deal Brexit will kill startups, say Eco-capsule coffee firm bosses; Brexit would be similar to 'national suicide', says leading Tory pro-European Dominic Grieve. Twitter is palpitating with the news. For example, Gillian Ford, Councillor London Borough of Havering and Deputy Chair LGA Children, immediately tweeted:
Dominic Grieve QC MP suggests the PM’s Brexit deal can satisfy no one. Views are polarised. There is only one way out, by going back to the public. A no deal Brexit is political suicide. @EA_CoR @The_Convention_ pic.twitter.com/WoYeezshaM— Cllr Gillian Ford (@CllrGillianFord) January 11, 2019
Reading posts under the hashtag #ThinkAnewActAnew that covers events at the Convention: Think Anew Act Anew, Another Vote is Possible, held in London on 11 January is an eye-opener. Organized at very short notice by activist-journalist and UK Editor of Vanity Fair Henry Porter, it shows that there is now a strong, ongoing surge of popular support for a second referendum. Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas made a notable opening speech, reported on Channel 4 News:
...
More on Impakter, click HERE to read. Let me know what you think!
January 4, 2019
2018: A Watershed Year. Will 2019 Finish the Job?
On 1 January 2019, the following article was published on Impakter. In case you haven't seen it, here it is - and a Happy New Year to all (despite everything!)
2018 was a watershed year. The geopolitical table turned: The world changed from order to disorder. True, the ordered world we had known since the end of World War II till 2016 was far from perfect. It had many problems and inequities. And it had been slow - some say too slow - in moving towards a common sustainable development agenda and a climate control agreement. By contrast, the disorder brought in by Trump’s America First agenda is fast-moving. As fast as the Internet, it travels on social media.
The World is Like A Racing Car Without a Pilot With Trump, the Monroe Doctrine is back in a lethal 21st century variant. In the 19th century, if America chose to isolate itself, it didn’t matter that much. The world had a driver (the Great Powers of Europe). Today the world is like a racing car without a pilot. Local wars and mass migration are more likely than ever before.And in July 2018, the U.S. stopped cooperation with the UN on human rights matter - sending, as the Guardian argued, a "dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world."
We’ll be lucky if we can avoid World War III and the climatic collapse of the planet.
The network of multilateral alliances created after World War II to contain the rise of Russia’s and China’s imperial ambitions is gone. Over the long run, as I have argued in a recent article, Eurasia is in our future, with a good chance that America is relegated to the sidelines.
Trump closed the year with a government shutdown. His aim? Always the same: To get the funding for the border wall he promised his fans. But one must question whether his end game is not something different and entirely personal: By raising the issue of “border security”, Trump is in fact deflecting attention from his looming problems with Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling of the presidential elections, a.k.a. “Russiagate”.
Over in Europe, there was another form of “shutdown” when British Prime Minister Theresa May kicked the can down the road asking Parliament to vote next year for the Brexit deal she had worked with the EU. Talk of a second referendum got louder though nobody seemed to agree on how to phrase the question. Also, the time left for organizing a referendum is getting squeezed, making it unlikely that the U.K. will in fact manage to reverse its decision and remain in Europe.
But it was Trump’s move - to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan - coupled with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ resignation on the same day that really shook up Europe - even though, as the Washington Post and Foreign Policy reminded their readers, he was a “deeply flawed defense secretary” with a questionable record.
Pulling out of Syria was universally viewed as a serious mistake. As French defense minister, Florence Parly said (on RTL radio) said, refering to ISIS, “the job must be finished.” And with Mathis gone, it won’t be - Mathis who was viewed by America’s allies in NATO, especially Japan, South Korea, France and Germany, as “as their most sympathetic and effective conduit to Mr. Trump” and the “adult of last resort” who could restrain an unpredictable president.
But Trump shook up Americans too - at least some of them, for example firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore admitted that this was the "the first time” he’s actually“frightened for the country":
One thing is certain: Trump made Russia very happy, opening the way to revived Russian influence in the Middle East. Vladimir Frolov, a Russian columnist and foreign affairs analyst, exclaimed: “Trump is God’s gift that keeps on giving.”
The financial world perhaps understood best what happened as 2018 wound up: the past week in the stock market - from 18 to 21 December - has been the worst week since the 2008 crisis. Adding insult to injury, Trump discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Powell after the latest interest rate hike. Whereupon the dark shadow of a looming bear market caused the White House to retract. What was unprecedented was that both shares and bonds took a hit : normally they move in opposite directions.
What made 2018 a watershed year?Politico asked American historians how History would remember 2018, asking the “smartest historians they knew” to write the paragraph about 2018 that History books in the future would include.
Some attributed a big role to Trump, others didn’t. The majority agreed on one thing: 2018 marked the end of American world leadership.
To give a sense of what they said, I will quote but one of them. Jacqueline Jones, professor of American history at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote: “The traditional narrative of the United States as a noble world leader and defender of human rights was slipping away, and by the end of Trump’s second year in office, the country was in danger of sliding into a garden-variety authoritarianism.”
Others were concerned with more pointed issues, some specifically American (and Trump-related), others worldwide:
...
The rest on Impakter, click here.
Actually, I'm not pessimistic: as the 2018 midterms showed in America, voters still have in their hands their own future - and that of our planet. A bad regime (Trump's) can be castigated.
Brexit, as of now, appears unavoidable. The U.K., barring some unexpected referendum, will fall out of Europe and become some kind of super Singapore.
But let's hope that European voters will show equal awareness and sensitivity s American Democrats did when they vote in May 2019 for the European Parliament. What we DO NOT NEED is a wave of populists taking over Europe! That would be the end of both Europe and the fight against climate change.
2018 was a watershed year. The geopolitical table turned: The world changed from order to disorder. True, the ordered world we had known since the end of World War II till 2016 was far from perfect. It had many problems and inequities. And it had been slow - some say too slow - in moving towards a common sustainable development agenda and a climate control agreement. By contrast, the disorder brought in by Trump’s America First agenda is fast-moving. As fast as the Internet, it travels on social media.
The World is Like A Racing Car Without a Pilot With Trump, the Monroe Doctrine is back in a lethal 21st century variant. In the 19th century, if America chose to isolate itself, it didn’t matter that much. The world had a driver (the Great Powers of Europe). Today the world is like a racing car without a pilot. Local wars and mass migration are more likely than ever before.And in July 2018, the U.S. stopped cooperation with the UN on human rights matter - sending, as the Guardian argued, a "dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world."
We’ll be lucky if we can avoid World War III and the climatic collapse of the planet.
The network of multilateral alliances created after World War II to contain the rise of Russia’s and China’s imperial ambitions is gone. Over the long run, as I have argued in a recent article, Eurasia is in our future, with a good chance that America is relegated to the sidelines.
Trump closed the year with a government shutdown. His aim? Always the same: To get the funding for the border wall he promised his fans. But one must question whether his end game is not something different and entirely personal: By raising the issue of “border security”, Trump is in fact deflecting attention from his looming problems with Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling of the presidential elections, a.k.a. “Russiagate”.
Over in Europe, there was another form of “shutdown” when British Prime Minister Theresa May kicked the can down the road asking Parliament to vote next year for the Brexit deal she had worked with the EU. Talk of a second referendum got louder though nobody seemed to agree on how to phrase the question. Also, the time left for organizing a referendum is getting squeezed, making it unlikely that the U.K. will in fact manage to reverse its decision and remain in Europe.
But it was Trump’s move - to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan - coupled with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ resignation on the same day that really shook up Europe - even though, as the Washington Post and Foreign Policy reminded their readers, he was a “deeply flawed defense secretary” with a questionable record.
Pulling out of Syria was universally viewed as a serious mistake. As French defense minister, Florence Parly said (on RTL radio) said, refering to ISIS, “the job must be finished.” And with Mathis gone, it won’t be - Mathis who was viewed by America’s allies in NATO, especially Japan, South Korea, France and Germany, as “as their most sympathetic and effective conduit to Mr. Trump” and the “adult of last resort” who could restrain an unpredictable president.
But Trump shook up Americans too - at least some of them, for example firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore admitted that this was the "the first time” he’s actually“frightened for the country":
One thing is certain: Trump made Russia very happy, opening the way to revived Russian influence in the Middle East. Vladimir Frolov, a Russian columnist and foreign affairs analyst, exclaimed: “Trump is God’s gift that keeps on giving.”
The financial world perhaps understood best what happened as 2018 wound up: the past week in the stock market - from 18 to 21 December - has been the worst week since the 2008 crisis. Adding insult to injury, Trump discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Powell after the latest interest rate hike. Whereupon the dark shadow of a looming bear market caused the White House to retract. What was unprecedented was that both shares and bonds took a hit : normally they move in opposite directions.
What made 2018 a watershed year?Politico asked American historians how History would remember 2018, asking the “smartest historians they knew” to write the paragraph about 2018 that History books in the future would include.
Some attributed a big role to Trump, others didn’t. The majority agreed on one thing: 2018 marked the end of American world leadership.
To give a sense of what they said, I will quote but one of them. Jacqueline Jones, professor of American history at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote: “The traditional narrative of the United States as a noble world leader and defender of human rights was slipping away, and by the end of Trump’s second year in office, the country was in danger of sliding into a garden-variety authoritarianism.”
Others were concerned with more pointed issues, some specifically American (and Trump-related), others worldwide:
...
The rest on Impakter, click here.
Actually, I'm not pessimistic: as the 2018 midterms showed in America, voters still have in their hands their own future - and that of our planet. A bad regime (Trump's) can be castigated.
Brexit, as of now, appears unavoidable. The U.K., barring some unexpected referendum, will fall out of Europe and become some kind of super Singapore.
But let's hope that European voters will show equal awareness and sensitivity s American Democrats did when they vote in May 2019 for the European Parliament. What we DO NOT NEED is a wave of populists taking over Europe! That would be the end of both Europe and the fight against climate change.
December 10, 2018
Gilets Jaunes Protests: The Roots of French Discontent
My analysis of the Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) crisis, just published on Impakter. It is far more complex than just another political crisis caused by Facebook. Here is the start of the article:
"He deserves to have his head chopped off, symbolically," said Claudio, a 47 year-old mason and father of four (last name withheld), referring to French President Macron who has been often accused of draping himself in the symbols of pre-revolutionary France. Claudio lives in the northern town of Le Mans famous for car racing. Like many “Gilets Jaunes”, he likened their protests to the 1789 French Revolution. That, of course, is wishful thinking.
But wearing “Gilets Jaunes” (the yellow roadside safety vests required by law) is a stroke of genius. It made protesters highly visible both on the road and in the media. Ever since they began three weeks ago, Saturday 17 November, that is all one sees on our screens: yellow vests.
It turns out that Macron’s tax hikes on diesel fuel was the straw that broke the camel’s back and fueled the Gilets Jaunes’ anger. For them, what is at issue is fiscal justice. They can’t stomach his decision to raise taxes on pensioners at the same time that he scrapped wealth taxes. No matter he meant them as a tax break for investors to encourage them to invest in French business (notoriously under-invested) and create jobs.
The decision was perceived as unfair by the working classes, bogged down by taxes while the rich evades them, escaping to fiscal paradises. Macron is seen as “the president of the rich”. Out to impoverish the middle class.
“The guy thinks he’s God!” exclaimed Claudio, exasperated, as he dug in at a blockade outside a fuel depot of Le Mans, fortifying barricades. Along with some 50 companions, he is preparing for a long winter of discontent.
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Find out what Facebook's role in this crisis really was. Let me know what you think!
"He deserves to have his head chopped off, symbolically," said Claudio, a 47 year-old mason and father of four (last name withheld), referring to French President Macron who has been often accused of draping himself in the symbols of pre-revolutionary France. Claudio lives in the northern town of Le Mans famous for car racing. Like many “Gilets Jaunes”, he likened their protests to the 1789 French Revolution. That, of course, is wishful thinking.
But wearing “Gilets Jaunes” (the yellow roadside safety vests required by law) is a stroke of genius. It made protesters highly visible both on the road and in the media. Ever since they began three weeks ago, Saturday 17 November, that is all one sees on our screens: yellow vests.
It turns out that Macron’s tax hikes on diesel fuel was the straw that broke the camel’s back and fueled the Gilets Jaunes’ anger. For them, what is at issue is fiscal justice. They can’t stomach his decision to raise taxes on pensioners at the same time that he scrapped wealth taxes. No matter he meant them as a tax break for investors to encourage them to invest in French business (notoriously under-invested) and create jobs.
The decision was perceived as unfair by the working classes, bogged down by taxes while the rich evades them, escaping to fiscal paradises. Macron is seen as “the president of the rich”. Out to impoverish the middle class.
“The guy thinks he’s God!” exclaimed Claudio, exasperated, as he dug in at a blockade outside a fuel depot of Le Mans, fortifying barricades. Along with some 50 companions, he is preparing for a long winter of discontent.
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Find out what Facebook's role in this crisis really was. Let me know what you think!
December 2, 2018
G20 Surprise Show: Truce wth China, Summit Shaped by Europe
Just published on Impakter:
The big news from the G20 meeting that just closed in Buenos Aires is the 90-day truce in the U.S.-China trade war that has rattled financial markets and threatened global growth. The smaller news is that Trump did not pull the rug under this meeting the way he had done at the last G7 meeting in Canada.
The prospect of a no-statement Summit similar to the G7 debacle had looked very real. As it turned out, the show was very different from what everyone expected, largely thanks to the strong action of French diplomacy, spurred by Macron who wanted a G20 summit statement on his favorite issues, climate change, globalization and growth. But the G20 meeting confirmed the previous G20 in Germany (July 2017): American isolationism is back.
To understand what happened, it helps to take a step back and consider what the G20 is really all about - just like the G7, acting at the margin of the United Nations.
The G20, born of a G7 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in 1999, is made up of the world’s 19 most important countries in terms of their GDP, plus the European Union. The two giant state members are the United States ($19.39 trillion) and China ($12.24 trillion). Since the G20 was founded, both superpowers have distanced themselves from the pack as most countries’ GDP flat-lined:
In the diagram: Evolution of G20 Member countries Gross Domestic Product since foundation of G20 (1999) Source: Data from World Bank Last updated: Jul 6, 2018 ©2014 Google
In spite of the limitations of GDP as an indicator (it doesn’t capture social progress),the diagram is a striking depiction of the varying impacts of globalization, with the U.S. and China the big winners, at the expense of the rest of the world. And it shows clearly how the U.S., contrary to what Trump says, has always been “great” with the 2008 Big Recession a mere blip on its growth rate.
And it didn’t help that Europe (as a region) showed up in disarray at the meeting: The UK struggling with Brexit and not getting the expected support from Trump; Russia embroiled in an escalating fight with Ukraine; Merkel on her way out and rumored to be aiming for the presidency of the European Council; Macron battling yellow vests protests that are now in their third week and devastated Paris last Saturday.
That leaves on the international scene the two superpowers, the US and China. Some even talk of the emergence of a G2. In a sense, when Trump dined with Xi and crafted a truce in their trade war, that was a G2 meeting.
But if one of the superpower - in this case, Trump’s America - chooses to isolate itself with trade wars and its America First agenda, then China is left free to interact with the rest of the world. Which is precisely what happened. Let's take a closer look.
The US-China 90-Day Trade Truce...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
Featured photo: G20 Gala dinner 30 November 2018 Source: Official photo G20 Secretariat
The big news from the G20 meeting that just closed in Buenos Aires is the 90-day truce in the U.S.-China trade war that has rattled financial markets and threatened global growth. The smaller news is that Trump did not pull the rug under this meeting the way he had done at the last G7 meeting in Canada.
The prospect of a no-statement Summit similar to the G7 debacle had looked very real. As it turned out, the show was very different from what everyone expected, largely thanks to the strong action of French diplomacy, spurred by Macron who wanted a G20 summit statement on his favorite issues, climate change, globalization and growth. But the G20 meeting confirmed the previous G20 in Germany (July 2017): American isolationism is back.
To understand what happened, it helps to take a step back and consider what the G20 is really all about - just like the G7, acting at the margin of the United Nations.
The G20, born of a G7 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in 1999, is made up of the world’s 19 most important countries in terms of their GDP, plus the European Union. The two giant state members are the United States ($19.39 trillion) and China ($12.24 trillion). Since the G20 was founded, both superpowers have distanced themselves from the pack as most countries’ GDP flat-lined:
In the diagram: Evolution of G20 Member countries Gross Domestic Product since foundation of G20 (1999) Source: Data from World Bank Last updated: Jul 6, 2018 ©2014 Google
In spite of the limitations of GDP as an indicator (it doesn’t capture social progress),the diagram is a striking depiction of the varying impacts of globalization, with the U.S. and China the big winners, at the expense of the rest of the world. And it shows clearly how the U.S., contrary to what Trump says, has always been “great” with the 2008 Big Recession a mere blip on its growth rate.
And it didn’t help that Europe (as a region) showed up in disarray at the meeting: The UK struggling with Brexit and not getting the expected support from Trump; Russia embroiled in an escalating fight with Ukraine; Merkel on her way out and rumored to be aiming for the presidency of the European Council; Macron battling yellow vests protests that are now in their third week and devastated Paris last Saturday.
That leaves on the international scene the two superpowers, the US and China. Some even talk of the emergence of a G2. In a sense, when Trump dined with Xi and crafted a truce in their trade war, that was a G2 meeting.
But if one of the superpower - in this case, Trump’s America - chooses to isolate itself with trade wars and its America First agenda, then China is left free to interact with the rest of the world. Which is precisely what happened. Let's take a closer look.
The US-China 90-Day Trade Truce...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
Featured photo: G20 Gala dinner 30 November 2018 Source: Official photo G20 Secretariat
November 25, 2018
Populism in Europe: Can the New Left Defeat it?
Just published on Impakter:
Trump is the face of populism in America and the midterms have shown that a Democratic “blue wave” could stop and even defeat it. How about populism in Europe? After the traditional parties on the left collapsed and the center right à la Emmanuel Macron is stalling, political winds are turning. A New Left is rising, as recent elections in Germany have shown. Can this New Left defeat populism?
The next elections for the European Parliament in May 2019 will be the first big test for the New Left, with Europe as the prize. If populists win, the European Union and the dream of a United Europe will be badly broken as a retrograde “Europe of Nations” is installed. If the New Left wins, Europe will come out strengthened but it will have to undergo deep structural reform to bring its institutions closer to the people - and away from the private corporate interests that hold it hostage now.
The full extent of the growth of populism in Europe was revealed this week in groundbreaking research conducted by the UK Guardian with inputs from leading political scientists and covering national elections in 31 European countries over two decades.
The findings are striking and show that populist votes have tripled since 1998, with one in four Europeans voting populist:
Credit: U.K. Guardian (screenshot)Twenty years ago, populists were rarely in government: Only 12.5 million Europeans lived in countries where at least one cabinet member was a populist. Today the figure has jumped to 172 million. Note, as shown in the graph above, the research counts equally populist parties on the right, left and middle, but the “irresistible rise of the far right and populism”, as many UK Guardian readers have commented, is the crux of the matter. Far right populists have nearly tripled their votes, from less than 5 percent in 1998 to some 14 percent in 2018.
The rise of extreme right populism has been accompanied by a deep crisis in center-left parties that have suffered a sharp drop in support in several countries across Europe, notably in Germany when the German Social Democrats retreated in the 2017 German federal elections; in France when the Socialist Party collapsed in the French presidential and legislative elections in 2017; likewise in Italy with the Democratic Party (PD) going to a historic minimum in Italy in 2018.
Center-left parties are currently part of only six EU governments out of the 28 member states, notably in Spain with Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE) who came to power in May 2018. However the PSOE is not the “New Left”. Founded in 1879, it is the oldest party in Spain and, historically, the one most often in power (most recently from 2004 to 2011 under Zapatero). Moreover Sanchez has a very thin margin (only 84 seats over 350) that constrains his ability to steer policies. Most analysts don’t expect him to finish his mandate (it ends in July 2020). As of now his government is “blocked” on the budget issue and new elections are probable.
Why Populism is SuccessfulThere are four reasons:
Populist politicians are able to convince their audiences that they do not belong to the hated traditional political system, that they are not part of the establishment, of the “corrupt elite”; Trump famously succeeded in convincing his fan base that he could bring his businessman’s savvy to government (“the art of the deal”) even though, as a real estate tycoon, he is clearly an oligarch, part of the “corrupt elite”; They focus on simple issues that people feel are close to them, threatening their personal well-being, like migrants taking their jobs and splurging on public services or China flooding the market with cheap goods; both are presented as sources of “unfair” competition and the cause of destruction of employment in manufacture;They are masters at stirring up emotions, a winning technique to drive voters to the polls as Trump amply demonstrated in the US midterms, cynically causing fear and anger with fake news about a supposed migrant invasion, a “caravan” threatening the southern border;They have been helped by the rise in social media over the past two decades; as noted by Claudia Alvares, professor at Lusofonia University Lisbon, “social media are very permeable to the easy spread of emotion”; they are also very permeable to cyber war techniques by the Russians and voter manipulations; the Cambridge Analytica scandal that affected millions of Americans on Facebook is proof. Populism is on the march everywhere in Europe, notably in Eastern Europe where democracies are new. What is more surprising is to see populists leaders win power in West European countries where nobody expected them to be that successful:
In Italy, right-wing and left-wing populism came to power together, in May 2018, a historical first and an unlikely alliance, built on the 17 percent won by Matteo Salvini’s extreme right League and the 33 percent won by Luigi Di Maio’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement;In Sweden, this summer when the Sweden Democrats, a populist far-right anti-immigration party founded in 1988, with Nazi roots, had its best-ever results:...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Let me know what you think, I love to hear from you!
Featured image credit: jeangui111
Trump is the face of populism in America and the midterms have shown that a Democratic “blue wave” could stop and even defeat it. How about populism in Europe? After the traditional parties on the left collapsed and the center right à la Emmanuel Macron is stalling, political winds are turning. A New Left is rising, as recent elections in Germany have shown. Can this New Left defeat populism?
The next elections for the European Parliament in May 2019 will be the first big test for the New Left, with Europe as the prize. If populists win, the European Union and the dream of a United Europe will be badly broken as a retrograde “Europe of Nations” is installed. If the New Left wins, Europe will come out strengthened but it will have to undergo deep structural reform to bring its institutions closer to the people - and away from the private corporate interests that hold it hostage now.
The full extent of the growth of populism in Europe was revealed this week in groundbreaking research conducted by the UK Guardian with inputs from leading political scientists and covering national elections in 31 European countries over two decades.
The findings are striking and show that populist votes have tripled since 1998, with one in four Europeans voting populist:
Credit: U.K. Guardian (screenshot)Twenty years ago, populists were rarely in government: Only 12.5 million Europeans lived in countries where at least one cabinet member was a populist. Today the figure has jumped to 172 million. Note, as shown in the graph above, the research counts equally populist parties on the right, left and middle, but the “irresistible rise of the far right and populism”, as many UK Guardian readers have commented, is the crux of the matter. Far right populists have nearly tripled their votes, from less than 5 percent in 1998 to some 14 percent in 2018.
The rise of extreme right populism has been accompanied by a deep crisis in center-left parties that have suffered a sharp drop in support in several countries across Europe, notably in Germany when the German Social Democrats retreated in the 2017 German federal elections; in France when the Socialist Party collapsed in the French presidential and legislative elections in 2017; likewise in Italy with the Democratic Party (PD) going to a historic minimum in Italy in 2018.
Center-left parties are currently part of only six EU governments out of the 28 member states, notably in Spain with Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE) who came to power in May 2018. However the PSOE is not the “New Left”. Founded in 1879, it is the oldest party in Spain and, historically, the one most often in power (most recently from 2004 to 2011 under Zapatero). Moreover Sanchez has a very thin margin (only 84 seats over 350) that constrains his ability to steer policies. Most analysts don’t expect him to finish his mandate (it ends in July 2020). As of now his government is “blocked” on the budget issue and new elections are probable.
Why Populism is SuccessfulThere are four reasons:
Populist politicians are able to convince their audiences that they do not belong to the hated traditional political system, that they are not part of the establishment, of the “corrupt elite”; Trump famously succeeded in convincing his fan base that he could bring his businessman’s savvy to government (“the art of the deal”) even though, as a real estate tycoon, he is clearly an oligarch, part of the “corrupt elite”; They focus on simple issues that people feel are close to them, threatening their personal well-being, like migrants taking their jobs and splurging on public services or China flooding the market with cheap goods; both are presented as sources of “unfair” competition and the cause of destruction of employment in manufacture;They are masters at stirring up emotions, a winning technique to drive voters to the polls as Trump amply demonstrated in the US midterms, cynically causing fear and anger with fake news about a supposed migrant invasion, a “caravan” threatening the southern border;They have been helped by the rise in social media over the past two decades; as noted by Claudia Alvares, professor at Lusofonia University Lisbon, “social media are very permeable to the easy spread of emotion”; they are also very permeable to cyber war techniques by the Russians and voter manipulations; the Cambridge Analytica scandal that affected millions of Americans on Facebook is proof. Populism is on the march everywhere in Europe, notably in Eastern Europe where democracies are new. What is more surprising is to see populists leaders win power in West European countries where nobody expected them to be that successful:
In Italy, right-wing and left-wing populism came to power together, in May 2018, a historical first and an unlikely alliance, built on the 17 percent won by Matteo Salvini’s extreme right League and the 33 percent won by Luigi Di Maio’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement;In Sweden, this summer when the Sweden Democrats, a populist far-right anti-immigration party founded in 1988, with Nazi roots, had its best-ever results:...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Let me know what you think, I love to hear from you!
Featured image credit: jeangui111
November 17, 2018
The Future: America vs. Eurasia
Europe and China could change the course of History as Trump moves America to the sidelines...Here's the opening of my new article, just published on Impakter:
Bosphorus Bridge (Turkey) linking Europe to Asia - PHOTO
JORGE1767
How will the future play out? Will Europe follow America’s example and sink into nationalist populism that will inevitably tear apart the European Union and open the way to Trump’s divide-and-conquer America First strategy? Will America’s trade war with China escalate in a real war that could go global as Trump’s stranglehold on world trade tightens further? I believe there is hope that neither will happen. Instead, we might witness something utterly different and much more likely: the rise of Eurasia.
Two events these days are early signs of such a shift for anyone who cares to look. One just took place in Paris at the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I organized by French President Macron. The other, thousands of miles away in Singapore, is the ASEAN Summit, from 11 to 15 November where a major new trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that for the first time included China, was on the agenda.
The trip was a diplomatic disaster for Trump. He started on the wrong foot even before leaving for Paris. On 9 November, Trump, misunderstanding a Macron statement about the formation of a “true European army”, sent an insulting tweet:
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying: ‘Our interest first. Who cares about the others?’ I do defend my country. I do believe that we have a strong identity. But I’m a strong believer in cooperation between the different peoples, and I’m a strong believer of the fact that this cooperation is good for everybody.”
From the ashes of the two World Wars came hope, he said. “This hope is called the European Union, a union freely entered into, never before seen in history, a union that has freed us of our civil wars”. Trump appeared “grim” and “clapped only tepidly” afterward. Significantly he missed the opening of a 3-day conference, the Paris Peace Forum that followed the ceremony to discuss how to strengthen multilateralism.
The next day, on 13 November, Trump took again to Twitter in a series of five aggressive tweets, astonishingly rude and misinformed, including this one:
Now that Angela Merkel is on her way out and Brexit is wobbling to its pell-mell conclusion - barring a last-minute legal reversal or a political crisis - there is no doubt that Macron is emerging as the main defender of a United States of Europe. A Europe increasingly under assault by Trump’s America First policies.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Euroasian continent, in Singapore, RCEP is the second major trade deal under discussion since Trump ditched the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017. A serious political blunder considering that the goal of the TPP in the Obama administration’s intention, had been to exclude China. In March 2018, the situation had been reversed and it was America that was isolated: the remaining TPP members (including Canada and Australia) signed the first major Pacific trade agreement, keeping the original TPP content largely intact but renaming it the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - to take effect soon, on 30 December 2018.
Brookings Institute experts see the new RCEP as something much bigger, “an optimistic answer to populist and protectionist trends around the globe”.
Massive, the new RCEP brings together 16 countries covering 3.6 billion people for a total GDP of some $25 trillion, exceeding that of the United States. The point is that it brings China in for the first time, together with India, Japan and South Korea. It builds on commitments already taken in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not without difficulty of course. Of the 21 chapters of the treaty, so far agreement was obtained on only seven.
RCEP negotiations are expected to be completed only at the next ASEAN summit in Thailand in 2019. Predictably, problems range from India’s fear of being overrun with products from China, Korea and Japan to Trump’s trade wars, making some countries anxious of “losing” the American market.
How Likely is Eurasia to Replace America as World Leader?Euroasia: A little used term for a vast continent that extends from Cape Dezhnev (Russia) in the East to the Monchique Islet (Portugal) in the West to Dana Island (Indonesia) in the South. A new geo-political entity that is not yet born. The road is rocky but if it emerges, it will be the largest ever, encompassing two-thirds of the world population.
...
Find out! Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
Bosphorus Bridge (Turkey) linking Europe to Asia - PHOTO
JORGE1767
How will the future play out? Will Europe follow America’s example and sink into nationalist populism that will inevitably tear apart the European Union and open the way to Trump’s divide-and-conquer America First strategy? Will America’s trade war with China escalate in a real war that could go global as Trump’s stranglehold on world trade tightens further? I believe there is hope that neither will happen. Instead, we might witness something utterly different and much more likely: the rise of Eurasia.
Two events these days are early signs of such a shift for anyone who cares to look. One just took place in Paris at the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I organized by French President Macron. The other, thousands of miles away in Singapore, is the ASEAN Summit, from 11 to 15 November where a major new trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that for the first time included China, was on the agenda.
The trip was a diplomatic disaster for Trump. He started on the wrong foot even before leaving for Paris. On 9 November, Trump, misunderstanding a Macron statement about the formation of a “true European army”, sent an insulting tweet:
Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2018The misunderstanding was soon clarified: Macron had referred to the announced U.S. withdrawal from the I.N.F. nuclear arms treaty with Russia as a reason for establishing an independent army, not that the U.S. was an enemy. Macron in a speech welcoming 84 world leaders to the celebration on November 11, made another statement that shook Trump who considers himself a nationalist:
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying: ‘Our interest first. Who cares about the others?’ I do defend my country. I do believe that we have a strong identity. But I’m a strong believer in cooperation between the different peoples, and I’m a strong believer of the fact that this cooperation is good for everybody.”
From the ashes of the two World Wars came hope, he said. “This hope is called the European Union, a union freely entered into, never before seen in history, a union that has freed us of our civil wars”. Trump appeared “grim” and “clapped only tepidly” afterward. Significantly he missed the opening of a 3-day conference, the Paris Peace Forum that followed the ceremony to discuss how to strengthen multilateralism.
The next day, on 13 November, Trump took again to Twitter in a series of five aggressive tweets, astonishingly rude and misinformed, including this one:
The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%. He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people-and rightfully so!........— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2018Not the way to treat the leader of an American allied country. He forgets (or doesn’t know) that his own approval rating in France is abysmal (around 9%). Macron was forced to respond. France, a historic ally, is “not a vassal state” he said in an interview on French TV: "At every moment of our history, we were allies, so between allies, respect is due. I don't think the French expect me to respond to tweets but to continue this important history."
Now that Angela Merkel is on her way out and Brexit is wobbling to its pell-mell conclusion - barring a last-minute legal reversal or a political crisis - there is no doubt that Macron is emerging as the main defender of a United States of Europe. A Europe increasingly under assault by Trump’s America First policies.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Euroasian continent, in Singapore, RCEP is the second major trade deal under discussion since Trump ditched the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017. A serious political blunder considering that the goal of the TPP in the Obama administration’s intention, had been to exclude China. In March 2018, the situation had been reversed and it was America that was isolated: the remaining TPP members (including Canada and Australia) signed the first major Pacific trade agreement, keeping the original TPP content largely intact but renaming it the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - to take effect soon, on 30 December 2018.
Brookings Institute experts see the new RCEP as something much bigger, “an optimistic answer to populist and protectionist trends around the globe”.
Massive, the new RCEP brings together 16 countries covering 3.6 billion people for a total GDP of some $25 trillion, exceeding that of the United States. The point is that it brings China in for the first time, together with India, Japan and South Korea. It builds on commitments already taken in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not without difficulty of course. Of the 21 chapters of the treaty, so far agreement was obtained on only seven.
RCEP negotiations are expected to be completed only at the next ASEAN summit in Thailand in 2019. Predictably, problems range from India’s fear of being overrun with products from China, Korea and Japan to Trump’s trade wars, making some countries anxious of “losing” the American market.
How Likely is Eurasia to Replace America as World Leader?Euroasia: A little used term for a vast continent that extends from Cape Dezhnev (Russia) in the East to the Monchique Islet (Portugal) in the West to Dana Island (Indonesia) in the South. A new geo-political entity that is not yet born. The road is rocky but if it emerges, it will be the largest ever, encompassing two-thirds of the world population.
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Find out! Read the rest on Impakter, click here.
November 10, 2018
Trump's Hold on International Trade and Finance
Just published on Impakter:
The midterms handed the House to the Democrats but not the Senate, despite receiving some 12 million votes more than Republicans in Senate races. As a result, Trump’s ability to pursue his conservative agenda is largely crippled . But where he can count on the backing of the Senate, Trump retains full power, including the ability to nominate judges and pursue foreign policy. His hold on international trade and finance, notably through sanctions and tariffs, remains intact. With potentially devastating consequences.
The trade war on China is not about to stop but that is only the most visible part of the Trumpian iceberg. There are, as this article will show, other, more discreet elements buried under the surface, such as America’s grip over SWIFT, the payments transfer system universally used by banks everywhere.
Packing the Federal Court System with Conservative JudgesWe all know how Trump packed the Supreme Court with two conservative judges, most recently with Brett Kavanaugh, a highly controversial figure. What is less well known is how Trump is also “packing” the Federal court system. As of 4 November, the Senate has confirmed 29 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 53 judges for the United States District Courts, all nominated by Trump. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, Trump has successfully appointed more federal appeals court judges at the same point in his tenure than Barack Obama and George W. Bush combined:
Source: Pew Research Center . (Screenshot; note data stops at July 12, 2018 and does not include the second Supreme Court appointment made by Trump)
Expect many more nominations over the next two years. Here however I am taking a close look at foreign policy, and in particular the area that has traditionally underpinned American “soft power”: international trade and finance.
Bending World Trade and Finance to the America First Agenda Trump has now carte blanche to reshape the rules-based world trade system to serve his America First agenda - and this is something that should deeply worry America’s allies and foes alike.
This week-end Trump is in Paris for a meeting of world leaders, invited by French President Macron to celebrate the centenary of the end of World War I. A meeting that includes Putin and that is poignantly far away from the trip taken 100 years ago by President Wilson, his idealistic predecessor, bent on rebuilding the world. The reverse of Trump’s goal which is to take it apart. And he will not stop there. Trump is scheduled to attend in November the G20 meeting (China will be there). Expect fireworks.
Will Trump change his confrontational approach to American allies, especially Europeans? Not likely. So far, he has loudly pulled out of numerous treaties (the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Asia and the equivalent treaty with Europe, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear agreement). Recently he has announced he will abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed with Russia by Reagan; he threatens sanctions against the International Criminal Court and is pulling out of an 144 year-old postal treaty as part of his fight against China. He has repeatedly cheered Brexit, attacked NATO partners and declared that the “European Union is a foe”.
At the heart of Trump’s “art of the deal” are bullying tactics, plain and simple. And in a perverse way, they make sense.
The Strategy Behind Trump’s Bullying: Divide to RuleConsider the world that we lived in until the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Do let me know what you think!
The midterms handed the House to the Democrats but not the Senate, despite receiving some 12 million votes more than Republicans in Senate races. As a result, Trump’s ability to pursue his conservative agenda is largely crippled . But where he can count on the backing of the Senate, Trump retains full power, including the ability to nominate judges and pursue foreign policy. His hold on international trade and finance, notably through sanctions and tariffs, remains intact. With potentially devastating consequences.
The trade war on China is not about to stop but that is only the most visible part of the Trumpian iceberg. There are, as this article will show, other, more discreet elements buried under the surface, such as America’s grip over SWIFT, the payments transfer system universally used by banks everywhere.
Packing the Federal Court System with Conservative JudgesWe all know how Trump packed the Supreme Court with two conservative judges, most recently with Brett Kavanaugh, a highly controversial figure. What is less well known is how Trump is also “packing” the Federal court system. As of 4 November, the Senate has confirmed 29 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 53 judges for the United States District Courts, all nominated by Trump. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, Trump has successfully appointed more federal appeals court judges at the same point in his tenure than Barack Obama and George W. Bush combined:
Source: Pew Research Center . (Screenshot; note data stops at July 12, 2018 and does not include the second Supreme Court appointment made by Trump)
Expect many more nominations over the next two years. Here however I am taking a close look at foreign policy, and in particular the area that has traditionally underpinned American “soft power”: international trade and finance.
Bending World Trade and Finance to the America First Agenda Trump has now carte blanche to reshape the rules-based world trade system to serve his America First agenda - and this is something that should deeply worry America’s allies and foes alike.
This week-end Trump is in Paris for a meeting of world leaders, invited by French President Macron to celebrate the centenary of the end of World War I. A meeting that includes Putin and that is poignantly far away from the trip taken 100 years ago by President Wilson, his idealistic predecessor, bent on rebuilding the world. The reverse of Trump’s goal which is to take it apart. And he will not stop there. Trump is scheduled to attend in November the G20 meeting (China will be there). Expect fireworks.
Will Trump change his confrontational approach to American allies, especially Europeans? Not likely. So far, he has loudly pulled out of numerous treaties (the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Asia and the equivalent treaty with Europe, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear agreement). Recently he has announced he will abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed with Russia by Reagan; he threatens sanctions against the International Criminal Court and is pulling out of an 144 year-old postal treaty as part of his fight against China. He has repeatedly cheered Brexit, attacked NATO partners and declared that the “European Union is a foe”.
At the heart of Trump’s “art of the deal” are bullying tactics, plain and simple. And in a perverse way, they make sense.
The Strategy Behind Trump’s Bullying: Divide to RuleConsider the world that we lived in until the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
...
Read the rest on Impakter, click here. Do let me know what you think!
