Austria’s Grand Coalition collapses after EU referendum row
We always struggled to remember his name – Alfred Gusenbauer, Austria’s chancellor. Now we may as well safely forget him, as his Grand Coalition has collapsed after he allowed himself to be bullied by his own party to propose the ultimate in anti-European populism: to hold a referendum for each new EU Treaty. There probably will not be that many treaties after Lisbon, but the referendum promise served as a suitable excuse for the Austrian People’s Party, led by outgoing finance minister Walter Molterer, to quit the coalition with the Social Democrats, and force new elections in September, according to Der Standard. Gusenbauer himself will no longer be candidate, making way for SPO leader Werner Faymann, a populist who recently ousted Gusenbauer as party leader. In an editorial Der Standard writes that the Grand Coalition had been a failure throughout its one year and a half in power, failing to attempt any large reforms, not even a reform of the federal system. But, given the current state of the polls, and both parties refusal to enter into a coalition with the far-right freedom party, the statistical probability of another Grand Coalition is very high, which Der Standard finds a very depressing prospect. Molterer, who succeeded former chancellor Wolfgang Schussel as party leader, said he will campaign on mostly economic issues, including inflation.
A G8 climate breakthrough
The FT has a story about a breakthrough at the G8 summit over a binding target of a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. This was announced in Tokyo at the summit. The offer will be taken to India and China, whose co-operation will be necessary. In an earlier development, after Angela Merkel expressed some optimism about the pre-summit talks. She held a bilateral with George W. Bush on this issue, who said that Merkel was a force for good in this debate, while she said that there had been an intense exchange of views, and serious progress on climate change, food and oil.
In a separate editorial, the FT said the outlines of a climate deal with newly industrialised nations should be clear: the industrialised nations recognise their own special responsibility by offering cash or investments, while China and India and others sign up to those goals, and take on a rising burden over time.
Sarkozy’s first EU presidency defeat
Le Monde reported this as a French victory, the German news organisations as a French defeat. Sarkozy failed to get approval by EU interior minister for contigents of immigration. Ministers, however, did agree a European immigration to attract more qualified labour and to seal off the borders against illegal immigration, with better border control and easier deportation.
Germany agrees to partial opening of labour market
From next year, highly qualified people from central and eastern Europe will have full access to the German labour market, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine. So far, Germany has operated a system, where a job was opened to eastern EU immigrants if the position could not be filled by a German employee. The new rules will apply to people with academic degrees. The old system will continue to be applied to non-academics, and to non-EU citizens.
In an editorial, FT Deutschland is sharply critical of this decision, saying that Germany should have open up its labour market. This measure will not have the desired effect as highly qualified people go to place where they have been welcome for much longer. By keep the labour market shut until the 2011 deadline, Germany has also put itself into a difficult diplomatic position, which partially explains the political tensions at EU level.
German industrial production falls sharply
The FT has a story that German industrial production was down 2.2% in May, by much more than predicted, raising fears that the performance of Germany may not be as robust as some forecasters believe. The article quotes Julian Callow of Barclays bank predicting a recession for Italy, Spain, and now also for France, but not for Germany.
German Grand Coalition quarrels over nuclear energy
The debate over nuclear energy has quite possibly been the most emotional and controversial in post-war politics. As Germany is isolated during the G8 summit on this issue, and as polls suggest that nuclear power is becoming more popular, Angela Merkel’s CDU is now considering campaigning on this issue, while the Social Democrats are now so desperate that they are calling for a change in the constitution to make nuclear power anti-constitutional (it’s a ploy, it won’t happen of course). Angela Merkel herself is an uneasy position. She personally favours nuclear energy. But as leader of a Grand Coalition has accept not to challenge the 2000 compromise negotiated by the previous government to phase out nuclear energy by 2021, and not to build new nuclear power stations. Frankfurter Allgemeine also quotes George W. Bush in Tokyo as saying that anyone who cared about global warming would have to accept that nuclear energy plays an important role. Merkel tried to play down the significance, saying that the future of climate change will not be decided by nuclear energy alone.
Reinventing Europe after the Irish No
Writing in Telos, Vivien Schmidt argues that after the Irish No the EU will in the long run have to abandon two principles – of unanimity and uniformity. She argues effectively in favour of a an avantguarde Europe with different overlapping cycles of integrations, just as Schengen includes most but not all EU members, plus a couple of non-members, the euro area only includes 15 out of 27 members. She argues that further enlargement should not be of the all-or-nothing type, but that new member states should enlarge on a policy area by policy area basis. This is not exactly Europe a la carte, what used to be the integrationists biggest fear, but certainly a menu-based type of integration.
Back to the seventies
Frankfurter Allgemeine has a short editorial about the return of the 1970s, debates over inflation, oil and nuclear energy stand out, or the Club of Rome debate about the limits of economic growth. The editorial says the main difference is that every debate then was highly ideological, which is fortunately different today.
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