Is Europe Coming Undone?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

 

Until recently, liberal democracy reigned triumphant. For all its shortcomings, most citizens seemed deeply committed to their form of government.

But now, norms and institutions are faltering and authoritarian populists are on the rise, as many people have become fed up with liberal democracy itself.

Ever since the 2016 Brexit vote in Britain to leave the European Union, European elites have been in a panic. They fear that the once seemingly-inevitable unification of the continent is coming undone. 

Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian, in his 2017 book After Europe, gets to the heart of the matter.  The chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Krastev speaks of “the inability and unwillingness of liberal elites to discuss migration and contend with its consequences.”

No right-wing ideologue, Krastev warns that the risk of disintegration should force us to recognize that the refugee crisis has dramatically changed the nature of democratic politics.

What we are witnessing in Europe is not simply a populist riot against the establishment but a voters’ rebellion against the meritocratic elites. The bureaucrats in Brussels are out of touch with the societies they are supposed to serve.

“Fear of Islamic terrorism and a general anxiety over the unfamiliar are at the core of Europe’s moral panic,” he warns. 

This is even manifesting itself in Germany, where only a few years ago Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed more than a million migrants. After last year’s German election, she is barely hanging on, leading a governing “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats. 

At the government’s official inauguration, Merkel entered her fourth term as chancellor with only nine more votes than the required minimum. Names for possible replacements are already being bandied about within her Christian Democratic Union (CDU). And remember, Germany is the lynchpin of the EU.

Founded in March 2017, the Werteunion, or Union of Values, recently met in Schwetzingen to adopt what its members called the “conservative manifesto.” Their mission: taking back the CDU from Merkel and redirecting it to its conservative roots.

Alexander Mitsch, one of the Werteunion’s founders, told the New York Times he felt that the state was failing, and that he needed to act.

He feels that European culture needs to be defended and demands a full stop of immigration until the country can process the pile of open asylum cases. Such people see the issue as an existential threat to Germany’s national identity.

Aother group of conservative intellectuals have published a declaration of solidarity, expressing concern over “Germany being damaged by illegal mass immigration.” It now has more than 100,000 signatories.

Alexander Dobrindt, who heads the parliamentary caucus of the Bavarian-based Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, thinks such sentiments are underrepresented in public debate. It is time, he maintains, for a “conservative revolution.”

Taking advantage of this popular mood is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the far-right party that entered parliament for the first time in the elections last September. They see Merkel’s grand coalition with the Social Democrats as an opening for them to continue to grow.

In recent months, the AfD has introduced legislation to make German the country’s “national language” and to alter the laws governing dual citizenship.

Now that these and other anti-immigrant views are being expressed by a parliamentary party, not individuals, members of government cannot criticize them as racist because, by law, ministers are required to be neutral in their treatment of political parties.

In any case, on the issue of immigration, however, the centrist parties have themselves shifted their tone.

The 2013 coalition agreement had talked about Germany as a “cosmopolitan country” that saw “immigration as an opportunity.” 

The picture presented in the most recent agreement is much darker: “We’re continuing our efforts to mitigate migration to Germany and Europe appropriate with regard to the ability of society to integrate, so that a situation like 2015 is not repeated,” it stated.

In mid-March, CSU chair Horst Seehofer, the new minister of the Interior, Development and Heimat, declared that “Islam does not belong to Germany.”

For the first time, a cap has been set for the number of asylum-seekers who can come to Germany: 180,000-200,000 a year.

In December 2017 in nearby Austria, a government that includes the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), one that advocates anti-immigration policies, took power. Merkel has to be worried.