Tag: Politics of Europe

“There are a lot of conservatives throughout Europe who have contacted me to say they are feeling there is a resurgence going on,” ambassador Richard Grenell told the far-right publication Breitbart. As Slovenia became the latest European democracy to elevate a politician espousing a populist form of conservatism, Mr Grenell said he wanted to “empower other conservatives throughout Europe”. “I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left,” Mr Grenell said. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut senator who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted that he found Mr Grenell’s Breitbart interview “awful” to read. “When I raised concerns to Grenell about politicising this post, he personally assured me that once he became Ambassador he would stay out of politics,” he said. “Ambassadors aren’t supposed to ‘empower’ any political party overseas.” An anti-establishment message intertwined with hostility to immigration helped propel Mr Trump to victory – themes that have reverberated through a string of European elections. Mr Grenell cited that precedent as helping to inform his mandate. He offered praise for Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, calling him a “rock star”. The news organisation that ran the exclusive interview with Mr Grenell has itself helped to nourish the same political forces the ambassador said he would cultivate. Breitbart became a force in American politics through its rejection of mainstream Republicans and its focus on illegal immigration.

In a historic day, the seemingly immovable survivor of the Spanish political right was ousted on Friday from office by the Socialist Party’s (PSOE) no-confidence motion, the first successful one in 40 years of democracy. Coming on the back of last week’s judgment in the Gürtel case – which saw the Partido Popular (PP) and one of its former treasurers sentenced in Spain’s largest ever probe into political corruption – the prospects of success for Pedro Sánchez’s tabled motion looked unlikely up until only two days ago. Now the reinvented Sánchez – despite not being an MP and with only 84 seats behind him – heads an interim government for a possible two years. This at once presents a potential car crash scenario, as well as an immense opportunity for the left. It may be tempting, after similarly catastrophic throws of the centre-left dice, to argue that Sánchez offers more of the same – a slick, centrist career politician making a final lunge at power while presiding over a moribund 20th-century social-democratic party. For a start, it overlooks the past year in Spanish politics. Although Sánchez has had an afflicted relationship with the more radical new left Podemos party, the question of whether they could ever work together in national institutions in some way is now being put to the test. Much of the week’s political focus in Europe has been centred on Italy, which itself saw a new coalition government finally sworn in on Friday. Sánchez is also coming in at a time of exhaustion and political apathy – altogether different from the political moment in 2015-16, when a left coalition government last appeared on the cards. But it is undoubtedly an opening of some kind.

Though the official rollout has now been postponed, Macron’s latest project remains central to his presidency and to his conception of power. Macron’s ‘La grande marche pour l’Europe’ will mimic the program that toppled France’s dominant political parties and transformed his La République En Marche ! Few are better acquainted with Macron’s thinking than French historian and philosopher François Dosse. Similarly, Macron’s vision for Europe seems to reconcile the irreconcilable: his plan is both to preserve member states’ sovereignty and deepen EU integration. Macron also hopes to reconcile opposite ideas with respect to the euro. The second Ricoeurian concept underpinning Macron’s worldview is the idea of a European ‘refoundation’. To that end, he has considered creating a Europe-wide ‘En Marche !’ movement that could nominate its own Spitzenkandidat to the European Commission presidency. Initially, the Macronistes had planned to recruit defectors from other party groups, and then ally with the left-leaning Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. But the creation of a European En Marche ! In his view, sovereignty in Europe can really be exercised only at the level of the EU.