Cardiac Weekend in the Euro Zone

Cardiac Weekend in the Euro Zone

By: Erreh Svaia

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.

...live in the question.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

It was a weekend of ups and downs in the Old Continent, democracy and moderation are still in great danger at the strong advances of the far right nationalists movements who have been able to capture smartly the social anger that has been generated after the 2008 crisis, with a left wing that looks disconnected of the present with no working class to empower and a lack of empathy with the middle class, two important events happened in the heart of Europe these days, elections and referendums, while Austria gave the European Union a deep breath of fresh air with the second triumph (after a discarded election) of Alexander Van der Bellen form the Green Party, over the far right candidate Norbert Hofer form the Freedom Party of Austria, just a few hours later, Italy brought back the nervousness to us, as the “NO” won the referendum detonated by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and as a consequence the European Union finds itself again in danger, Italian society interpreted the referendum pushed by Renzi, that intended to reinforce reforms in order to get a more leaner and dynamic government, as a reinforcement of the status quo, so the “NO” won easily, leaving Italy again as an unstable, near sclerotic economy with an astonish 63 governments elected in 7 decades (1 per year!), a situation that proved Italy again as a very dysfunctional economy which hasn’t been able to move as quickly as required to the volatile agenda of the world. 

Renzi, Italy's prime minister choose to play the populist's game named referendum and he lost, he failed in his attempt to inform Italy about the advantages of his proposals, the referendum which he pretended to use as a demand for constitutional reform, was used as another protest against globalization, against European Union and against moderation, Renzi kept his promise and reaffirmed his vow to resign as PM as soon as possible, opening the door for elections in February, more instability for Italy, for the EU and for the world, which will give a way to the populist advances of the strange mutation called the Five Star Movement with its leader, the razor sharp Beppe Grillo, and the original neopopulist master, Silvio Berlusconi himself and his Forza Italia party who along the Northern League seem to be slowly but steadily becoming forces to be reckoned in the Italian political landscape, this was a weekend in which the western world went again on a challenging trip thru the universe of hard edged politics social anger and the increasing populist puzzle, Renzi's challenge to the Italian society came with a risk, just like in David Cameron's case, in the Brexit events, of Renzi's losing his job, and put Italy and the whole Euro Zone in Eurosceptic danger, it seems that next year, with elections in Italy, Germany and France, will be a decisive year for the future of the European Union, finally, 2017 seems to be the definitive win or bust year for this whole big experiment called the EU. 

In Austria, Norbert Hofer and his Freedom Party put us again in a difficult situation by successfully winning a protest against las elections results, “too close” was the verdict, so the elections were set to be done again, and in a surprising way, Alexander Van der Bellen managed to repeated his feat, this time for a larger difference, preventing Austria from becoming the first European country with a far right representative since the Second World War, although a Green Party candidate, Van der Bellen is closer to the progressive left wing, in a country in which the traditional forces form the left and right seem to be surpassed by these “outsider” parties, in events that seem to depict a situation in which society ask for a change, but not an extreme one yet, so there is still time to mend the cathartic and self-destructive advance of nationalist populism in the world.