Arnon Grunberg

Crazy

Think tank

Der Spiegel on the European elections and rightwing political parties:

'Right-wing populists have become a feature in the political landscape of almost every European Union member state, while in Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Denmark and Finland, they are either part of the government or support the government. They are no longer merely a fringe phenomenon or a passing anomaly. Rather, they are a movement that could continue to grow -- and they are doing all they can to position themselves as such.

Despite all of their differences, the target of their ire is the same: the cosmopolitan elite, liberal opinion leaders in the media and EU bureaucrats in Brussels. Their best enemies? German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, the latter having proven to be a tireless promoter of deeper European integration.'

(...)

'That lack of discipline shows that despite all the demonstrations of unity, the basis for real cooperation is narrow at best. The differences in the parties' interests are rather substantial in places. Salvini, for example, wants to see refugees -- if migration can't be stopped altogether -- distributed more fairly across Europe, including to Eastern European countries. That is something to which the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which heads up the government in Poland, is adamantly opposed, as is Orbán in Hungary.

The European right wing is also divided when it comes to relations with Russia. For historical reasons, the Poles want nothing to do with Putin, but Orbán and Le Pen have both turned to the Russian president for cheap loans in the past.

The German nationalists in the AfD are also broadly viewed with suspicion, likewise a product of 20th century history. That makes it virtually impossible for right-wing populists from Poland to consider working together with the right-wing populists from Germany. After all, the new Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, launched in 2017 as the AfD's right-wing populist think tank, is led by Erika Steinbach, a woman who was once head of the Federation of Expellees, which represents those Germans expelled from present-day Polish territory following World War II. In the 1990s, Steinbach even questioned the legitimacy of the current German-Polish border. She is, in short, enemy No. 1 for Polish nationalists.

There is also little agreement when it comes to budgetary issues. Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD in the German parliament, issued a press statement recently in which she was sharply critical of the Italian budget: "Germany cannot become Italy's paymaster!" she wrote, and reminded Salvini that without EU support, Italy "would have been broke long ago." The statement ended with a quote from the Asterix comic series: "These Romans are crazy!"'

Read the article here.

Merkel and Macron, the favorite enemies of the extreme-right, and of the extreme-left.

And yes, the extreme-right remains strong and will probably get around 20% of the EU wide vote, but a majority of the Europeans are in no mood for another Brexit or adventures like that. Not the status quo is the enemy, but the forces who are out there to destroy the status quo. Despite everything, I'm confident that enough voters will realize this.

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