Left Out in the Cold: The Problematic Partial Inclusion of Europe’s East

Europe will always be unfinished, because it is an idea as much as a geographic expression, and a rather idealistic one at that.

The European Union and a few countries which opted not to join, like Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland, have their problems – structural economic imbalances in the EU which threaten its sustainability, nationalism on the rise, democratic regression in countries like Hungary and Romania – but overall these countries are still among the wealthiest and the freest in the world.

The geographical dilemmas of completing a Europe “whole, free, and at peace” remain, however. The peninsulas and islands jutting into the northeastern Atlantic can be pretty sure they’re part of Europe, as can anyone living anywhere near the Alps. But the seas and straits between Gibraltar and the Caucasus and the Ural Mountains are a pretty arbitrary divide. The problem of only partial inclusion in Europe has been particularly damaging for the more than 260 million citizens of the Russian Federation, Turkey, and Ukraine.

The EU has its reasons to consolidate its troubled project rather than continue to expand to new countries. However, Western Europe has a record of sending contradictory messages to the countries in the continent’s east. These include extending candidate status to Turkey in 2005, then electing Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy with their “privileged partnership” and non for Ankara; refusing to confirm the potential of future membership for Ukraine and Moldova, despite the EU treaties opening such potential to “any European State” which respects European values; expanding visa-free travel to all the Christian countries in the Balkans before any of the Muslim countries; and rhetoric from European Council President Herman Van Rompuy about European unification’s roots in Middle Ages Latin Christianity, which dismayed Bulgaria. 

With Catholic Croatia now safely in the EU, 23 years after Germany unilaterally recognized its declaration of independence, and the four Eastern Christian countries in the bloc (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Romania) in not particularly good standing in the eyes of the older member states, many EU citizens would be happy to keep these borders. These are the realities of how a union of 28 disparate democracies handles the prospect of extending pooled sovereignty to some of more than a dozen countries further east. These nations are seen as less culturally similar to the older member states. Some are quite large, some quite small. They are fragile democracies at best, many fractured, several with breakaway enclaves. All are relatively poor. But ambivalence in EU capitals and mixed messages sent by Western European leaders imposes real costs and dilemmas on the democrats of Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other countries.

Extending the hugely successful European integration project to the east was always going to be a huge challenge. There are many reasons to call Europe’s eastern neighborhood policy a great success – the EU has absorbed 11 former communist countries (12 when you include East Germany), with over 100 million people. But some clear failings are seen with the three big countries in Europe’s eastern reaches. Although Russia and Turkey have had a good 21st century in many respects, with incomes and international influence steadily rising since the year 2000, it is not surprising that both of them as well as Ukraine have seen massive protests by pro-democracy / pro-Western citizens in the last three years, which autocratic leaders attempted to crush.

Russia, with 142 million people, was always too big and proud to join the EU. But Russia is clearly a part of modern Europe in many ways – economically integrated, if mostly as a source of energy sent through pipelines and oligarch’s cash spent in London and Switzerland, a member of political groupings such as the Council of Europe and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a participant in Eurovision and UEFA soccer tournaments. However, democracy failed in Russia, damaged by the chaos of the wild 90s and then smothered in the Putin era by an elite prioritizing its personal short-term interests and willing to ignore a clear long-term downward trajectory masked by high energy prices. European companies and many leaders – above all in Germany and the City of London – tried to look past Russia’s democratic failings and corruption. But if Berlin’s “Annäherung durch Verflechtung” (rapprochement through interdependence) worked, “Wandel durch Handel” (change through trade) failed. Vladimir Putin watched as NATO expanded to Russia’s borders (as was the right thing to do – the Baltics had very good cause to want NATO membership), watched the Western intervention in Kosovo (again, the right thing to do in the face of ethnic cleansing), watched the U.S. invade Iraq (a grievous mistake in which the U.S. ignored some of Putin’s better advice), and suffered a major political defeat in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Putin’s anti-Western side was stoked and he transformed from a awkward partner of the West to an adversary. Russia took actions to destabilize its neighbors whenever they tried to move closer to the EU and the United States. Those who claim that the Obama Administration’s “reset” policy was wrongheaded are unrealistic or ideologues – it was necessary to try to mend ties with Russia and progress was made on nuclear reductions, Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, cooperation on Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya. Dmitry Medvedev was not completely a puppet as president. But in 2011 Putin announced he had decided to return to the presidency – a historic mistake for Russia – and responded to subsequent protests with greater repression. At the same time, Russia backed the Assad regime in Syria to the hilt as its killed tens of thousands of its citizens and radicalized the opposition. Washington – and importantly Berlin – have rightly responded with more vocal criticism of Putin and his regime.

Turkey, with a fast-growing population of 80 million, is about to surpass Germany on the population table. Many Europeans see it as too big, too poor, and too Muslim to join the family. Turkish membership would change the EU, and for EU citizens and leaders who follow the polls, the negatives of such a change outweighed the positives – greater diversity, stronger demographics, etc. – which required greater imagination to see. The arguments of those who saw the benefits were drowned out. Turkey’s candidacy has effectively been dead for years, buried by the hard opposition of several member states and ultimately by the subsequent actions of the increasingly dictatorial Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. For many years, Erdoğan advanced democracy in Turkey by pursuing European integration and civilian control of the military. But his uglier side has been unavoidable in the last year, as his response to the Gezi Park protestors made clear to the world that he had a purely majoritarian view of democracy and did not respect those of his countrymen who disagreed with him. Challenged by a corruption scandal, Erdoğan has responded with purges in the criminal justice system and banning Twitter. He may have substantial support, as the most recent elections again confirmed, but at this point he is clearly damaging Turkey’s democracy.

Ukraine, with 44 million people, is where the autocrats – Putin as well as Viktor Yanukovych – failed. Corruption is even worse in Ukraine than in Russia or Turkey and the country has been consistently misgoverned. Persistent Russian interference, often using its energy monopoly as weapon, has not helped. Critically, the EU has also refused to make clear whether or not Ukraine could ever become a member, limiting politicians’ appetite for reform. President Viktor Yushchenko made a mad dash for NATO membership, despite such a move (and his government) being unpopular within the country, but at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, Germany and France stopped a Bush Administration push to give Ukraine – and Georgia – a Membership Action Plan. Ukraine’s diversity gave it a more competitive and indeed chaotic political space than many of its fellow post-Soviet states, while it remained a fragile economy with terrible government finances and was walloped by the global economic crisis in 2008. In 2010, Yanukovych, rejected in the Orange Revolution, won a fair presidential election, then surprised many in the West with the aggressiveness of his monopolization of the levers of power. He also made moves which pleased Russia, like unconstitutionally extending the lease on the Black Sea Fleet’s base by 25 years. But with the EU offering an Association Agreement including a comprehensive free trade deal, Yanukovych balanced Brussels and Moscow for his own gain as long as he could. In November 2013, his time ran out, and he chose Moscow and gave impetus to the EuroMaidan protests. If he hadn’t used violence against the protests when they were relatively small and imposed draconian “dictatorship laws” in January 2014, Yanukovych might still be in power. Instead, he ended up fleeing in February after several bloody days in Kyiv and an abortive deal brokered by the EU. Ukraine swung west and an incensed Putin invaded and annexed Crimea. Now Ukraine faces major difficulties in maintaining control of its territory even without Crimea, given the activities of secessionists in the east directed and/or inspired by Moscow, while its economy remains on the brink of collapse, elections must be helped, and difficult economic reforms must be implemented.

So all three countries are severely troubled. Russia and Turkey look more autocratic than they have in decades, while Ukraine reached that point earlier in 2014 and currently remains at acute risk of state failure. All three are divided countries, their places in today’s Europe – which for people many means the EU, NATO, or both – are vexed. The reasons for this are manifold, the products of geography, history, economics, and domestic politics and foreign policy in dozens of countries. China’s economic performance over the past three decades has given autocracy a good name, while Putin’s model of so-called “sovereign democracy” has inspired imitators. The United States, leader of the free world, allowed its financial system to blow up the world economy, setting some countries back by a decade, and characteristically did nothing to deal with the root causes of the problem. Both the U.S. and the EU are distracted by internal problems, some very serious, and fatigued with foreign policy and enlargement. But Russia and Turkey heading fast in the wrong direction and Ukraine in chaos are very dangerous indeed for Europe and its allies across the Atlantic.

It is in the enlightened self-interest of Europe and the United States to help Ukraine stabilize and succeed as a less corrupt democracy in which citizens can meet their aspirations and to incentivize democratic development and European integration in Russia and Turkey. But success will require more creativity and generosity than has been in evidence in recent years. 

Croatia Joins the European Union

99 years ago today, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Austrian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. The killing in Sarajevo didn't really start the war in the Balkans, which had been going on for some years as Ottoman control over its over-extended empire collapsed, but it managed to spark a much larger fight across Europe and gave birth to the "short 20th Century." After that ended in 1989-1991, Yugoslavia collapsed for the second time into five and then six and seven countries, hundreds of thousands of people died, and towns were ethnically cleansed before NATO operations brought a tenuous peace. Since then, the countries of the Western Balkans have watched as their neighbors to the north, including former Yugoslav Slovenia, joined the European Union, with all the economic advantages it brings, in 2004, followed by Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.

A few years ago, some optimists in Serbia were hoping to join the EU on the centenary of the assassination. That won't happen, but on Monday, Croatia will become the Union's 28th member in the first enlargement since 2007, before I started my serious study of European political affairs. Enlargement has been Brussels' most effective foreign policy and the accession process is hugely helpful for the European countries still outside the Union. But the policy has looked moribund for a few years, between well-known blockages of candidates Turkey and Macedonia, the EU's extremely serious problems, and the lack of progress on reforms across the region. Today, things are looking up. The EU has just agreed to open accession talks with Serbia, a candidate country since 2011-12, in December or January. It will finally open talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Kosovo, a first step. Even more significantly (since those decisions were based on prior progress) Albania just had a breakthrough election with a peaceful transfer of power to former Tirana mayor Edi Rama and his Socialist Party, a needed solidification of Tirana's democratic credentials which should lead to candidate status.

Croatia will be the last new member for several years, but it must not be the last. During the break-up of Yugoslavia, newly reunified Germany made its first bold unilateral and slightly alarming foreign policy move in recognizing the Western Christian breakaway republics, Slovenia and Croatia, ahead of the rest of the EU and international community. The EU has four Orthodox countries as members, but its signalling about who can belong to Europe has often been daft, for example when it granted visa free travel to everyone in the Balkans except Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo, the three countries with Muslim pluralities. Turkey has been granted candidate status and indeed Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus are granted at least potential candidacy by the Treaty of Rome, which states "Any European State may apply to become a member of the Community." Particularly in a multi-speed European Union, which appears to be destined by developments in the euro crisis response and the Europhobia of the British public, there should be room for any geographically European country which meets the political and economic accession criteria. A revival of the accession process for Turkey is the most effective way outsiders can check the autocratic tendencies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and support the aspirations of Turks for a democracy that goes deeper than elections. An accession prospect for Ukraine is the only way in the long term to keep Kyiv from slipping into the Eurasian Union which Vladimir Putin is constructing.

Meanwhile in the Western Balkans, tiny Montenegro should lead the pack and Albania is also a relatively straightforward case, both simply need to follow the path to readiness that Croatia took, toughened after many thought Bulgaria and Romania were let in too early. Albania is already a member of NATO (which for the moment also has 28 member states, 22 in common with the EU), which has traditionally come first, Montenegro is likeliest to become NATO's 29th member. Macedonia has been stuck at the starting gate since 2005 over its stupid name dispute with Greece, and it has become more of a basket case, bingeing on the construction of monuments summoning a glorious past rather than reforming for a future in the EU; the name problem must be solved for the country to have a future that is anything but dim. Bosnia and Herzegovina has serious constitutional problems and must transform politically into a more unified state at some point, hopefully peacefully; it will not get into the EU with the present state of affairs. Serbia is the most attractive member in the Western Balkans after Croatia for the EU because of its size and transport opportunities along the Danube Valley and it is also in many ways the most ready in terms of reform; it is also the most repulsive because of its crimes in the 1990s, the persistence of an ugly nationalism, and the Kosovo problem, which has not yet been solved despite progress. Kosovo itself, hobbled by a limbo status of recognition by only half the world, is years behind Serbia in readiness, but they should only join the EU together, with Belgrade along with Madrid, Athens, Bucharest, Bratislava and Nicosia recognizing the full sovereignty of Prishtina. The Germans, thankfully, seem to understand this and they also seem to be leading Brussels' Balkan policy and doing it more responsibly these days. When all six countries have joined the EU, it will be a great accomplishment for the peoples of the region and for Europe as a whole. Until then, congratulations to Croatia.

Oh, and out in the north Atlantic, candidate country Iceland isn't going to join. The euro looks less attractive to them these days and Beijing, interested in increasing its footholds in the Arctic, is waving too much money around.

The EU's Nobel

The European Union won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize a few days ago, and the mockery and anger that followed were as vehement as they were predictable. For what it's worth, I'm not a big fan of giving such awards to institutions rather than individuals. But does the EU deserve such an honor as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), the International Atomic Energy Agency (2005), or the United Nations (2001)? Sure.

Yes, the United States and NATO and the Cold War framework helped prevent war in Europe. But they did not guarantee the productive cooperation between former enemies and rivals which has changed the continent and made war in Western Europe unthinkable. The founding fathers of the European Community were far-sighted men, and their project of European integration helped create an enormously prosperous continent for hundreds of millions of people. Earlier hold-outs like the Sweden, Finland and Austria joined in the 1990s precisely because the European Union was a roaring success, and Europe and the EU were starting to mean the same thing in the eyes of many. For Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and then for the 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe that joined in 2004 and 2007, and for those in the Western Balkans and further east who continue to look to the EU, it means something even more important - an anchoring in a community of democratic values for people who had lived under dictatorships in the decades after World War II, and feared its return.

So why the moaning? Yes, European governments and the bureaucrats who make the EU run don't seem as heroic as activists facing authoritarian governments or fighting for development and rights for the world's poorest. And yes, there are hordes of British and American commentators who have always hated the EU, and those keen to further debase the prize to further embarrass the controversial 2009 winner, President of-then-less-than-a-year Barack Obama. But much of the complaints are because of the timing. The committee of Norweigans have given the EU the prize when it looks like it might be in its dying throes. Or else in the birth pangs of a more integrated polity which would be constructed against the will of a Euroskeptic movement that has never been larger or noisier. The EU has utterly failed to handle its crisis of confidence, with Angela Merkel's Germany imposing austerity on the troubled states at a level that is self-defeating in terms of calming the crisis. Elections cannot fundamentally change policy in countries like Greece. Even if a "Grexit" looks less likely in the short term than it recently did, a Spanish bailout looks in the cards. Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble poo-poo any talk of a fundamental change in their policy. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi helps, but makes clear he can't save the euro by himself. Europe lives in a state of permanent economic crisis. The European Union's future is, bluntly, bleak. And the Nobel Committee is obviously hoping to spur greater Brussels and European capitals to save their union, whatever it takes.

The late Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. I see her as among the more interesting and more deserving of the recent award winners, and there is no doubt at all in my mind that she was morally superior to the likes of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder and Tony Blair. But on some level I wish the EU had received this award in October 2004.

In 2004, membership of the European Union increased from 15 to 25, as the countries of Central Europe "returned to Europe." That was an accomplishment worth awarding in and of itself, on top of all that the EU had done over the decades to cement Franco-German friendship and southern European democracy and to spread prosperity across the continent. The EU was also wrapped up in its constitutional debate - before it had become a constitutional crisis which was only put on ice in 2009, only to be reopened months later by the Greek debt crisis. Would such an elite recognition of an elite project have helped the "Yes" vote in France and the Netherlands in 2005? Maybe not, but one could hope. Would a European Union that had moved forward with deepening as well as widening as its shapers had always intended, currency union before true political union but ultimately requiring that as it was, have been able to avert the crisis before the wave of Euroskepticism left it half-finished? Maybe not, but one could hope.

In 2012, though, the euro looks like a half-baked idea and the European Union's consensus-based decision-making combined with angry publics and scared governments have turned the common currency into an infernal machine to undo the political gains of European integration. Thomas Risse, in his book A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres, notes that bad news about the European Union in public spheres is bad for the construction of European identity. That doesn't bode well for today's EU of headlines about bailouts and anarchy in Athens. If there's a counter-balancing "we're all in the same boat" feeling, as I believe there is, it still weaker than the feeling many appear to have that this whole European integration thing might have been a dreadful mistake.

Barack Obama actually did a great job with his Nobel acceptance speech. Selected for peace, but elected by the American people as commander in chief, he laid out an eloquent case for just war. That the troop surge in Afghanistan might have been a mistake (though not unjust) does not invalidate the correctness of Obama's argument. The European Union also needs to take this opportunity and use it to build momentum towards a solution of the crisis. The sight of Herman Van Rompuy, Jose Manuel Barroso, and Martin Schulz, of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament, squabbling over who gets to accept the award will not make the EU look good. Everyone can go to Oslo, but there should be one speaker and one damn good speech. Out of those three, Van Rompuy, as representative of the member states, who are indeed the actors which actually created the European Union, has the best case for primacy. He is the President of Europe that everyone was talking about before the quiet Belgian was actually selected. But you might find a better speaker, or a louder voice. Would Angela Merkel be appropriate? She would be if she laid out a serious, doable path forward that actually stabilizes the European Union, which she would then take to the German people in her re-election campaign over the following year. If not, maybe Schulz. He's German, and he represents both the most democratic of the European institutions, the Parliament, as well as the Social Democrats, the political party that could change Merkel's counterproductive policies if she won't change them herself.

Socialism in One Country (At Least)

Yesterday's election results are quite troubling, in Greece. The extreme austerity program imposed by the euro zone and IMF is painful and may not be working, but the seven-way split of seats is going to make it very difficult to form a functional government at all. A racist fascist party that makes European far-right figures like Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders look good made it into parliament. The old-school Communist Party is still there. Many analysts expect the divided result to lead to new elections in weeks, after no one gets paid next month. The chance of a Greek exit from the euro zone, and all that entails, just went up.

France, on the other hand, had a result to welcome. I have never been a hater of Nicolas Sarkozy, but his strong points (a good partner to the United States, Germany, Britain and others, indisputable energy, a reform agenda) were matched by serious negatives (implacable opposition to Turkey's integration into Europe, anti-immigrant populist posturing, continued failure to follow through, political tone-deafness which led to his deep unpopularity in France). Not long ago, on some level, I worried that his impending defeat at the hands of Socialist Francois Holland would upset the markets, reignite the euro crisis, and damage Barack Obama's chances of re-election - the most important of a host of significant elections. But ultimately, I concluded that a jolt to the austerity mantra of Angela Merkel, the ECB and the IMF was exactly what Europe needed, and that was most important at the moment.


Though the European social welfare state needs reform, it does not deserve the blame for an economic crisis that was caused by deregulation and the irresponsible behavior of the financial sector. But with Greece launching a succession of sovereign debt crises two years ago, a crisis of globalized free market capitalism became a crisis of what was left of the state in Europe. Neoliberalism, a cause of the crisis, was triumphing in continental Europe, that bastion of social democracy. Germany is largely to blame. As her mentor Helmut Kohl complained, Merkel is destroying Europe. There is no political leadership on positive further European integration such as Eurobonds and ECB purchases of government debt coming from Berlin, despite this being the only way out of the euro crisis other than at least partially breaking up the euro zone. Just strict fiscal discipline, with no room for "crass Keynesianism." And Sarkozy was not providing a counterbalance. He was the junior partner of Merkozy. As society suffers under austerity, you get results like in the Greek elections yesterday. Or the 6.4 million French voting for Le Pen in April. And desperate center-right politicians accommodating the far right to stay in power.

Francois Hollande has changed the conversation, even before his victory yesterday. Merkel and Mario Draghi are talking about the importance of growth, even if they have different ideas. The way forward will be difficult. President Hollande's agenda is even more intimidating than President Obama's was in January 2009, given the weaknesses of the French economy compared with the power of Germany and the markets. But his election is a good thing.

But that's enough of the economics - I was in France for the election yesterday as the Socialists celebrated their first presidential victory since 1988, in the left-leaning northern city of Lille (where Parti Socialiste chief Martine Aubry is mayor), a 35-minute TGV ride from Brussels. The city was fairly quiet during the day, except for the lively Wazemmes market, near which we discovered a polling station. We stood in line checking out the scene until someone told us we needed our blue cards to vote, then left the election to explore an art museum, the book market in the old bourse, the citadel, and the zoo (I mused that if the zoo had been somewhere in America, two weeks prior, I might well have run into a Campaigning Newt).

Around 5, we stopped for a drink at a bar with a TV and watched commentary about a good turnout. At 8, we were walking by another bar when I spotted Hollande's picture flashed on the screen and heard cheers. We entered and caught Sarkozy's concession speech, where his raucous crowd of supporters reminded me of those at John McCain's concession four years ago. After a nasty final stretch of campaign, both Sarkozy and Hollande were very gracious once the result was announced.

On the Place du General de Gaulle, the party had started. A crowd of a few hundred people gathered, waving posters of Hollande and flags - of France, of the Parti Socialiste, of the Hollande campaign, of Algeria. A congo line weaved through the crowd as dance music pumped out of a balcony above. I caught the scent of weed. Socialism is back, in one leading European country at least, and if it's hardly going to be a party over the next months and years at least it could be one on Sunday night.

Germany's Charm Offensive

As it were, I've returned to Brussels after six weeks in the United States and its Caribbean possessions. I'm still a sort-of super intern, with some more responsibility, a slight raise, and a different living situation. I will be here until the end of June. It's good to be back in Europe, living here for the fifth time now if you count it as separate from last year. I'll get to see some new places like Switzerland and maybe Russia, and hope to make it to Ypres's cat-throwing festival and a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo.

I return to a Europe still on the brink of calamity due to the euro crisis, though it feels calm and the EU decisions of last December make muddling through more likely than apocalypse. Belgium actually has a government, which is novel. Today the country has been shut down by a general strike, with a dusting of snow thrown in for good measure. And Germany is still making people mad.

Extra supervision of member state budgets is probably one of the inevitable measures for getting over the euro crisis. But Germany has been particularly tone-deaf in suggesting an EU budget commissioner take over Greek fiscal policy. I can't say I'm optimistic about Greece improving its finances - default seems inevitable, perhaps even in March when a 14.4 million euro bond comes due, and a new government in April could well lead Greece out of the eurozone and even the European Union. But with technocratic governments in place in both Greece and Italy due a combination of market and northern European political forces, and with Germany's history, a little more respect for Greek sovereignty and democracy is due. This crisis has seen Germany's emergence as the political leader as well as the economic leader of the European Union, and so far it is doing an even worse job diplomatically than it is in solving the crisis.

I write this as someone who loves Germany, speaks the language, and knows the history, hardly a Germanophobe. But Angela Merkel is not doing a very good job these days, nor any of the parties in her coalition. I'll object to the Bavarian conservatives simply on principle, they're far too conservative. The Free Democrats have been inept in government under the leadership of Guido Westerwelle, also an inept foreign minister, and haven't improved noticeably under Philipp Roesler. And Merkel's Christian Democratic Union has lost virtually all of its leaders capable of challenging Merkel to various scandals as she has dragged through a disappointing second term. Its parliamentary leader, Volker Kauder, proudly claimed that "now all of Europe is speaking German" a few months ago. Perhaps the Social Democrats would do better.

One prominent European who is now speaking German is none other than the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. In a TV interview last night he profusely praised Germany as a fiscal model for France. Merkel and Sarkozy have always had an awkward partnership, despite general ideological compatibility, so it was a bit surprising when Merkel announced that she'd not only tacitly endorse Sarkozy's reelection - which she would be expected to do as a fellow leader of the European People's Party - but actually campaign for him. She is obviously afraid that Socialist Francoise Hollande would demand the renegotiation of some of the deals stitching together the euro crisis response. But such blatant intervention in French internal affairs does not strike me as a good thing. The only time I can remember the leader of one country campaigning for his or her preferred candidate in the election of a close partner country, with joint appearances on the campaign trail, was when Vladimir Putin tried to assist Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2004. That resulted in the Orange Revolution. Which brings me to a second point - Merkel campaigning for Sarkozy is probably counterproductive. France and Germany have a strong partnership, but they also have a long history - and the French are as proud a nation as I can think of. If Germany says vote for Sarkozy, I can see more voters persuaded to vote for Hollande - or Marine Le Pen.

Tony Judt as Nostradamus

One of the wisest commentators on post-war Europe, Tony Judt, passed last summer, and his piercing analysis is missed as Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Herman van Rompuy, Jose Manuel Barroso, Mario Draghi and others struggle to prevent the Eurozone from falling apart while credit ratings agencies and Tory backbenchers sharpen their knives and Barack Obama breaks a sweat. But a short book by Mr. Judt has reappeared on the bookshelves of Brussels. A Grand Illusion? is a Euro-pessimist essay based on lectures given in spring 1995 at my alma mater, Johns Hopkins University's Bologna Center. Judt appreciates the EU's accomplishment but doesn't see "Europe" expanding on equal terms or defeating nationalism. While the integration of Poland and other eastern states has been far more successful than Judt predicts, he's got plenty of salient points, and the book is well worth a read. To be honest, very little seems out of date. For example:

"The recently touted German idea of a small inner core of European states moving at full speed toward integration and setting demanding macro-economic criteria for membership in their club is merely the latest evidence that the future of Europe will be on German terms or not at all. It is unlikely that Italy, Spain, or even Britain will ever qualify for such an exclusive club, and even more absurd to envisage Poland or Slovakia doing so. Actually, no one except Luxembourg really qualifies according to the criteria set out in various position papers from the Christian Democrats, but to make the idea even semi-plausibly 'European,' Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have to be in, rules or no rules."

And that's your probable core of a new two-speed or three-speed or four-speed EU, with the possible additions of Austria, Finland, and top pupil Estonia... and just maybe, in a few years, Padania.

Armistice

In several days, I will depart a Europe that is on the brink of falling to pieces. It is nearly impossible to predict the specifics of the break-up of the Eurozone and the effect that will have on the European Union and the social cohesion of Europe's countries. But we are headed towards a disaster. Germany and the European Central Bank may still have the power to come to the rescue (Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski gave a great, impassioned speech addressed to Germany on Monday), but it appears it may be a matter of days before something snaps. It's a scary and depressing situation. The failure of the euro was not assured from the start, despite the EU not being an optimum currency area, etc. This could have been avoided, even as late as the last few weeks. I pray it still can.

Some talk of war. I worry about resurgent nationalism, I have worried about that for years. Does a major economic crisis make the election of a radical like Newt Gingrich or Marine Le Pen more likely? Yes. Is actual violence in Europe likely? Europe's suicide in 1914 and the carnage of the two world wars have probably extinguished the likelihood that western Europe will erupt into violence between states anytime soon. Also, most countries are embedded in NATO and have sold most of their tanks and planes. More likely is riots along the lines of what we saw in London this year.

But things can change quickly in times of upheaval. And even without violence, politics in a crisis could rip Europe apart. And that would be an unspeakable tragedy. 93 years ago, the armistice ending the Great War came into effect between the Allies and Germany. November 11 is a holiday across the European continent. It fell on a Friday this year, and I happened to be in Paris for a long weekend.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, by the Arc de Triomphe, surrounded by troops, tanks and dignitaries, President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped out of his vehicle to the pomp of "La Marseillaise," comically short next to a tall general in uniform. But the ceremony was completely somber. The head of state acknowledged a series of different groups of veterans, represented by guards with flags. He stood with the mothers, widows, and children of fallen soldiers from the past year, as an announcer read the names one by one, each punctuated by "Mort pour la France." The head of state laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc and gave a solemn speech. Only when the ceremony was over and he had walked past my vantage point on Av. Hoche did he reach out and shake the hands of his people, the politician rather than the national patriarch.

Two weeks later I visited Ypres, the Flemish cloth town resembling Bruges and Ghent which was absolutely demolished during the war, as it lay just on the Allied side of the front line for years. I lived this year with a former captain in the British Army's Royal Irish Regiment, Patrick Bury, and we had been planning a visit for months (he and my other roommates made it to another blood-soaked piece of Belgian soil, Bastogne, in Belgium's southeast corner where the German counter-offensive in early 1945 struck hard, for Armistice when I was in France). The supposedly can't-miss In Flanders Field Museum is unfortunately closed until June 2012, but the town was gorgeously restored, the huge and beautiful Cloth Hall looks much older than it really is.

We visited the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Messines, unveiled in 1998, months after the Good Friday Agreement, in tribute to all the Irish who died in the Great War. The German Soldier's Cemetery in Langemark, a few miles north, was the most haunting site. Small square stones are laid in the ground in a plot surrounded by a short wall and trees, each has a few names on it, many also say "10 [or 15 or 20] unknown German soldiers." We arriving in the dying light of the sun. I stood in front of a mass grave where another 24,917 German soldiers are buried. This is the site where I found my own surname among the names of the dead.

At 8 p.m., we came to Menin Gate, an imposing white marble arch at the eastern entry into town honoring the dead who have no known grave, who vanished into the muddy hell of the Ypres Salient. Churchill wanted to buy the entire town of Ypres; the Belgians declined, but they gave Britain the town gate. By the end of the 1920s the gate was constructed with about 55,000 names inscribed. The remaining 35,000 Commonwealth missing are honored at another nearby memorial, as they had run out of room on the gate. Every night at 8, buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post to a gathered crowd. We looked at the names for a while, finding the Irish on the outside of the arch, then drove back to Brussels.

Decades of European integration have brought peace to the continent, along with prosperity and made most of its countries firmly democratic (there are always exceptions: Russia, Belarus, Liechtenstein, and the Vatican are not democracies and some of the democracies are pretty flawed). Western Europe in the past several decades has had about the highest standard of living of any place ever.

At the center of the European project stands the bilateral relationship between Germany and France. As I said, if the Eurozone and European Union fall to pieces in the next months over this crisis, instead of moving forward into deeper integration, it is very difficult to predict how it will happen and into what they will transform. But one scenario that seems likely it a more tightly integrated core Europe. Germany does not want to stand alone, and I would be shocked were it to give up on France. France will lose its AAA credit rating soon, but I expect it to retain a joint currency with Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and others. And though its debts are among the worst, Belgium will not leave the core either. Brussels is the capital of Europe, Belgium is economically healthy enough to grow. In a silver lining, the worsening euro crisis has led to a Belgian government after a world record 535 days - everything was agreed yesterday, and the new government will be sworn in on Monday.

The places where the fall of Europe will be most catastrophic, if it occurs, are on the periphery. Italy, one of the original six member states of the European Community, risks plunging out and into economic and political chaos. Greece's misery will continue. Portugal and Spain could be taken out by contagion. Further east, the EU's newer member states will have their economies damaged; Austria and Germany have already restricted lending to the east. Germany's other key bilateral relationship is indeed with Poland, and it would be devastated if the EU shrinks and excludes members who have done nothing wrong. The treatment of the Central and Eastern European member states is one of the real unpredictables of the crisis. And with a shrunken, inward-looking EU, the European dream could die in places like Belgrade, Sarajevo, Skopje, Pristina, Chisinau and Kyiv.

The crisis is scary and confusing. We can only hope that political leaders, particularly Angela Merkel, show braver and more enlightened leadership in the next days then they have in the last 20 months.

A Green Governor in Germany

I was going to write at length about the political earthquake in Germany yesterday - partly spawned by Germany's freakout about nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster caused by a real earthquake halfway around the world - but The Economist covers everything pretty well in this blog post. The Green Party has captured the minister presidentship (the German version of the governorship) of Baden-Wuerrtemberg, a wealthy, large state in Germany's southwest - population 10.7 million, larger than many European countries. They came in second place among the parties, but the two center-left parties combined did better than the two center-right parties. This weakens Angela Merkel's government as the opposition gains more power in the upper legislative chamber in Berlin, composed of representatives of the 16 Laender, or states. So just a couple things to add.

Although much of the commentary does not note this, the Green Party was actually leading in the polls months ago, before Fukushima, before Germany decided to sit out when France, Britain and the United States decided to prevent a massacre in Libya. The nuclear disaster - and Merkel's blatantly election-minded reversal of the nuclear extension, which had been the biggest success of her second term - helped put them over the top - weakening the Christian Democratic Union's case in its heartland which it has governed for 58 years, and giving to the edge to the Greens rather than their natural coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD). But the SPD, even more so than the CDU, has been in decline from its old position as a Volkspartei (one of the two major parties). The Green Party platform resonates in Germany, and it has been pragmatic but principled enough that its environmental, energy, economic and foreign policies appeal to a growing section of the German electorate. The SPD is more economically populist - challenged from its left flank by the post-communist Left Party - as well as particularly pro-Russian - Gerhard Schroeder got on famously with Vladimir Putin, although his Green foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, did not. Once the party of protest, the Greens have become the most centrist of Germany's five major parties - and it is an admirable, forward-looking centrism. They also have a more pro-European outlook than the Christian-liberal coalition governing in Berlin. So congratulations to the Greens. And there is a very good chance that they soon could be leading the government in Berlin as well - although the position of Buergermeister, not Kanzler.

Hope Sinks In Germany

Imagine that in 2006, Barack Obama, the attractive, eloquent, inspiring politician of the future, had suddenly been felled, driven out of the Senate, by a scandalous personal failure. That gives an idea of what has just happened in Germany with Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepping down two weeks into a scandal that erupted when it was revealed that he had plagiarized parts of his PhD thesis. In a quirk of bad timing, the charge put him in the company of the son of Muammar Qaddafi, who was less than original in his own PhD work at the London School of Economics.

Zu Guttenberg was the shooting star of German politics, dashing, popular, (seen as) principled. Fairly unknown two years ago, he was soon the most popular politician in Germany. Descended from nobility but comfortable among the voters and personable, with a glamorous wife descended from Otto von Bismarck, zu Guttenberg served in the Bundestag from the age of 30. He became secretary general of the Christian Socialist Union - the Bavaria-only sister party of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union - in November 2008. In February 2009 he took over as Federal Minister for the Economy and Technology when his predecessor resigned. When he publicly favored bankruptcy for GM's European branch Opel - in opposition to the rest of the Cabinet - it boosted his popularity. For a year and a half, in Merkel's second government, he has been the highly visible defense secretary, planning a major reform of the Bundeswehr, ending conscription. He visited the troops in Afghanistan nine times.

Zu Guttenberg's crimes are not from the last two years of eye-catching, voter's hearts-winning service to his country, but from his quiet years in the Bundestag. When the plagiarism revelations came out, he temporarily renounced his PhD title. But soon his university permanently stripped him of it. Though Merkel defended him, having hired him "as a minister, not a research assistant," the academics of Germany demanded his resignation, the opposition would not let up, protesters shook their shoes at him. Zu Guttenberg "reached the limits" of his strength, as he announced last Tuesday. He might have survived, retaining a strong well of popularity and the chancellor's support. Other politicians in Germany and elsewhere have had their shares of past misdeeds. Unlike some of these men (in Europe, Silvio Berlusconi, for everything, and Gerhard Schroeder, for his post-chancellery business practices, come to mind, in the US David Vitter, Charlie Rangel and a host of others), the young baron apparently retains an old-fashioned sense of shame.

His face was splashed all over the weekly papers and magazines as I visited Cologne this weekend for Karnival. Zu Guttenberg leaves a "divided country" and will occupy us for a long time, Die Zeit wrote.

Let's go back to that Obama comparison. Actually, it shouldn't work. Barack Obama is an African-American whose middle name is Hussein and who spent several years of his childhood in Indonesia, a faraway, Muslim-majority country of which Americans know little. His father herded goats in Kenya in his youth and Barry grew up in an unusual but firmly middle class environment. Obama's wealth came after his 2004 political breakthrough, when his books became bestsellers. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is a noble who did not need to work and could easily afford to have a career in politics rather than in a more personally lucrative field. Obama was the great hope of the left - in a time of conservative domination of American politics - not only were his supporters ashamed of the Bush Administration, many of them also did not like the triangulating moderate policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Zu Guttenberg was the great hope of the right - when the right had already been in power for several years, and the left looked weak. Obama made an audacious run for the presidency after two years in the Senate. But for those two years, in 2005 and 2006, he actually kept about as low a profile as someone receiving that kind of media interest could. In his two years as a federal minister, zu Guttenberg has been as attention grabbing a Cabinet member as I can think of in any country. Of course Obama wanted the presidency, and zu Guttenberg wanted the chancellery. Obama's great chance came earlier than he planned, but he took it. Zu Guttenberg's path to the top would be blocked for some time longer by Merkel, who is still going strong in her own peculiar fashion. But he outshone everyone else on the stage. He would have become chancellor in time. A political comeback for the 39-year-old can't be ruled out, but as the first bit of post-resignation commentary I read last week concluded, he will not become chancellor now.

The zu Guttenberg phenomenon begs some hard thinking. Why did so many Germans see this man as a hero? Are there positive lessons to learn from his strengths for other German politicians? What happens now? The right remains ascendant in Europe, due to economic uncertainty and issues around immigration and Islam. I fear post-zu-Guttenberg disenchantment will add to a mix already brewing - Thilo Sarrazin's little red book, the examples of nationalist parties in the Netherlands, France, Denmark, even now Sweden - which is likely to result in the emergence of some political force to the right of the CDU in the next few years - not that it will take over the country or even get into the Bundestag in the next election, but the rise of the nationalist right in Germany obviously dredges up ghosts. And as Jean Marie Le Pen, Geert Wilders and others have shown, you do not have to take formal power in order to have influence.

After zu Guttenberg, the CDU looks weakened, likely to lose more state governments later this month. The Social Democrats and Green Party have reason to cheer, in the short run at least - they have lost a formidable opponent. But Germany has lost something big here. Merkel has lost her most outstanding lieutenant. The country's voters have lost a politician who actually inspired them - and when was the last time they really had one of those? (I'm not sure - Willy Brandt? Who also had to step down due to a bad error in judgment, although his moral standing remains far above zu Guttenberg's).

Even when I am just visiting Germany briefly, and for fun, I try to take the pulse of the country. It is the most important in the European Union, something quite obvious by now. Its performance in the euro crisis - essentially self-interested and halting - has troubled its European partners. They are not sure where the country is headed. Nor does Germany know itself.

Embassies of Berlin

I spent about 24 hours in Berlin on Saturday and Sunday morning, a break at the end of 72-hour business trip (it was supposed to be 96 hours, with more than 3 hours in Berlin before I took a train to the Rhein, but my flight to New York was delayed and I missed my connection). And when I ran across this, I reverted to my old habit of photographing embassies. Yes, that is the Embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we don't have one of those in Washington. It is unsurprisingly on the eastern side of where the Berlin Wall used to run. I discovered the large Czech embassy (and wondered if it was a renovated Warsaw Pact leftover or a new building) nearby. I resisted going overboard and only photographed two of the embassies in Germany's capital, however.

Unter den Linden, the great avenue of Berlin, runs from the Brandenburger Tor (the city gate where Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the wall) on past Humboldt University towards the Museuminsel and Alexanderplatz. Called Mitte (it means "middle"), the area was the showpiece of the East German capital and I've enjoyed watching it change since my first visit to Berlin in 2003, when I lived there for a month (this was my fourth return). Near the Tor is a Starbucks just 100 meters into the former communist country, like a monument to capitalism. But about 200 m further on, a whole block is dominated by the Russians: their embassy and a large Aeroflot office (featuring their logo, a hammer and sickle with wings).

The Museuminsel, an island in the Spree, is named for the museums at its north end but also features the Berliner Dom and the now empty Schlossplatz, where the Palace of the Republic stood after the war-devastated Schloss (palace) of Prussia's rulers was torn down by the East Germans. Berlin tore down the Communist showpiece after 2006, when I last saw it, and is now rebuilding the Schloss, except that the city is broke. I read at an information booth about how Berlin had "lost its heart" when the Schloss was destroyed. I don't agree, Berlin has as much heart as any city I know. The Palace of the Republic had an asbestos problem, but the reasons for tearing it down go beyond that, obviously, although the decision was controversial. At a Fulbright event in Berlin in 2006 I asked a politician about preserving the historical and architectural legacy of the DDR such as the Palace of the Republic and Alexanderplatz. She chose to answer only about Alexanderplatz. I donated a euro to the building of the Schloss anyway, the open space is sort of nice, but I would like to see the finished project on a subsequent trip to Berlin someday.

Back at the Tor, a stone's throw from the Reichstag, there is a square called Pariser Platz. The French embassy stands on the square, but it was named in honor of the capture of Napoleon's Paris in 1814, not the embassy. The new US Embassy is also here on the square, and it makes me proud - it is the type of friendly-looking public embassy in the heart of a city which should be our model, when too often we built fortresses, even in the capitals of countries which are our friends. It was about 17 degrees Fahrenheit, but the gate at night was beautiful, with a Weihnachtsbaum as well as a giant menorah lit-up for the fifth night of Hanukkah. The scene (and thoughts of my next cup of Gluhwein) warmed me. Germany is an especially fascinating place right now, I can't wait to go back.

Europe's Far Right and the Tea Party

After elections last weekend, Sweden has become the latest European country with a parliament featuring a anti-immigration, anti-Islam far-right party. Like the Netherlands, home of the unabashedly anti-Muslim Geert Wilders, who is the closest thing the European far-right has to a transnational star, Sweden has enjoyed a reputation as a paragon of tolerance and and liberalism. The far-right is still weak in Sweden relative to in many other European countries, but it is rising in popularity and speaks to xenophobic fears among the Swedish people. As La Stampa points out, Sweden is indicative of a growing problem in Europe - and in the West overall - which the global economic downturn has naturally accelerated. Centrist leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy have fended off the political right by trying to attract its voters, as in the recent deportations of Roma to Romania. Such nationalist and xenophobic actions, as EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding expressed, betray European values and summon the ghosts of a dark past.

Aside from expressing worrisome intolerance among European populations, such electoral results as Sweden's can make governing difficult. With the Swedish Democrats reaching about 5.7% of the vote and entering the Riksdag, they hold the balance of power between the two tradition center-right and center-left blocks. In order to remain prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt will need support from the Greens. The entry of a new extremist, populist party unacceptable as a partner to the others has led to near-political-paralysis in other European parliamentary states. Wilders' Freedom Party won 24 of 150 seats in the Dutch elections in June and the country has still not been able to form a government. In Germany, the 2005 success of the Left Party, which has roots in the East German Communist Party, led to the awkward grand coalition government between the two largest parties. In another solution, the Danish People's Party, still seen as too toxic for a formal coalition government but the third-largest political force in Denmark, has informally supported minority governments of the center-right in exchange for concessions on its issues, principally immigration.

The rise of the right has real costs. Immigration to Denmark has become all but impossible. The French Roma policy is discriminatory as well as expensive and without much purpose, as the EU ensures freedom of movement and many Roma deported from France say they will soon return. Anti-foreigner measures undermine the moral authority that Europe pretends to and indeed requires on the global stage in order to fight climate change, prosecute war crimes, etc.

While Sarkozy, Hungary's Viktor Orban, and Slovakia's former prime minister Robert Fico have thrown bones to the far right to gain support from its voters (indeed, Fico's popularity among the nationalists cannibalized his smaller coalition partners and led to him losing his job when one of them didn't make it into parliament in this year's elections), Germany's Angela Merkel has refused to pander to the right, governing as a true moderate (her stance against Turkish EU membership is conservative, but perhaps the most widely shared position across the European right, and does reflect the center of European opinion as few countries' populations favor enlargement). But some worry that in doing so she is leaving an opening for the development of a far-right force in German politics. Erika Steinbach, the head of a group of Germans with ancestry in modern-day Poland, left the Christian Democratic leadership structure after her latest in a long series of insensitive comments that angered Poles. Steinbach warns that an opening is being left on the right. Meanwhile a book by a Bundesbanker Thilo Sarrazin (who was driven out of his job after its publication) entitled "Germany Does Away With Itself" labels immigrant Muslims seeking generous social benefits in Germany as genetically inferior. The New York Times notes that all that may now be missing for the rise of a far-right party in Germany is a charismatic leader willing to unite the nationalist and anti-immigrant strands and take the heat of the inevitable Nazi comparisons.

The United States is protected from extremism by its rigid two-party structure, which requires candidates to tack to the center when they face moderate electorates in November. Indeed, this is one of the major pluses of the often frustrating limited options of a bipartisan system. But extremists can win elections, and some fairly radical Tea Party candidates are probably headed to the United States Senate in January - from purple (Colorado, Nevada) and maybe blue (Delaware) states as well as red (Kentucky, Alaska, Utah) ones. Sarah Palin has a very real chance of winning the Republican nomination for the presidency, and possibly even the office itself if the economy stays bad.

The rise of the Tea Party is an interesting development, a real conservative street movement which is purging the GOP for idealogical purity through elections, eviscerating the party's already weakened moderate wing. Like the European nationalists cursing the EU and Brussels, they wrap themselves in the flag and rail against the capital, which they see as remote. They worship the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, although giving them a one-sided reading. As George Washington and Alexander Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow points out, both the father of the country and his most trusted aide believed in a strong federal government, and the Constitution of 1787 strengthened the federal government because the previous set-up of a national government under the Articles of Confederation had been to weak to act in a coherent fashion. And the American Revolution was not against taxation per se, but against taxation without representation. The only district in the continental United States that currently lives under this condition is the District of Columbia, so perhaps it is its citizens which should be flooding the public spaces of state capitals across the nation in protest.

The primary argument of the Tea Party is a radical economic one - taxes and the national debt and deficit must all be slashed as soon and as much as possible, and we should do this by drastically cutting government services, including eliminating the Department of Education, scrapping unemployment benefits, etc. I believe this is disastrously bad policy and unrealistic, but it is not inherently racist, despite the fact that it would harm minorities even more than whites. Less government has more appeal to rural residents than urban residents for natural reasons: they see fewer services, don't like to pay for them, and pride themselves on their independence (with notable exceptions of farm subsidies, and the limited system of socialized medicine i.e. Medicare which America has already enjoyed for decades).

But there is a significant xenophobic element to the conservative Tea Party movement as well. The fears of older, white, rural (and suburban) Americans that their country is becoming more diverse and that they are losing political power were displayed when the right defeated President Bush's centrist immigration reform in 2007. More recently, they have been exposed by hysterical conspiracy theories over President Obama's exotic background and left-of-center politics, fanned by Fox News and mainstream politicians such as Palin, Newt Gingrich (who embraced Dinesh D'Souza's ridiculous theories about "the roots of Obama's anger"), and some who actually currently hold elected office like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And fear of Islam has led to fury over a Muslim community center planned for an old Burlington Coat Factory building in Lower Manhattan, and a Florida preacher's threat to burn the Quran on 9/11 has already led to more protest-related deaths in places like Afghanistan and Kashmir than the preacher has souls in his flock, and undermined the security of the United States.

America continues to make social progress - we have elected a black president, and his successor could well be a woman or a Mormon. The GOP, long embarrassingly undiverse, features rising politicians like Cuban-American Marco Rubio and Indian-American Nikki Haley in the South. But the use of code language against Obama is at best cynical and dangerous, anger against Islam and the Muslim world is counterproductive to our national security, and the populist conservative approach to immigration costs the country and, given demographic trends, will cost the Republican Party in the near future if it does not evolve.

It remains to be seen whether the Tea Party can achieve its goals beyond winning (and losing) some elections. Judging by the national Republican Party's new Pledge to America, the new GOP is really the same as the old GOP (though many conservative commentators have blasted the stale ideas of the pledge, and if Palin and her allies win control of the party, perhaps we might see something new): the American right in of the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s. In Europe on the right, this isn't the case. The postwar consensus of social protection and European integration continues to splinter, slowly.

Last Thoughts on the World Cup

I feel like I should write a last few sentences about the World Cup before moving on to other topics, so that I don't leave you hanging in the quarterfinals. I miss the 19th FIFA World Cup, and I can't wait for the 20th in Brazil in 2014. So let's go back for a few minutes early July....

• Paul the Octopus was right about everything. Spain really loves him now, while Germans want to eat more octopus. But he's apparently staying in Germany and trying to help Greek sea turtles, rather than move to Spain.
• I believe Germany was the most talented, most fun to watch team in this tournament. But they also weren't consistently the best, losing to Serbia, and then coming out completely flat-footed against Spain. Spain never really impressed, but they won the World Cup like the tortoise, slow and steady, with an amazingly low 8 goals. Germany scored that many against Saudi Arabia in 2002, Portugal nearly scored that against North Korea this time around. You wonder how Spain would have fared against Diego Maradona's Argentina, Brazil, or even plucky little Uruguay (whose Diego Forlan deservedly won the Golden Boot after a last tough performance against Germany in a third-place match which was better than the final).
• But Spain deserved to win the final match against a disappointing Netherlands (which nevertheless had a couple golden chances to steal a victory from the better team). Having finally attained the grand prize, Spain is now the third most-successful European nation in soccer, in my view. On the World Cup all-time table (finally updated), with their 18 points in South Africa (6 wins, 1 loss, 0 draws), they have leapfrogged France into sixth place, only one point behind England. Like England and France they have won the World Cup just once. But England's win was in 1966 and Spain's was in 2010, and Spain have won two European championships while England has never won. England really has very little to brag about in their soccer accomplishments at the national level, haha. OK, France has also won two European championships but they embarrassed themselves so badly at the World Cup in 2002 and 2010 that Spain gets the edge.

There you go. My next post about soccer will probably have something to do with Ukraine's problems getting its Euro 2012 stadiums built in time. Nice flower symbol!

A World Cup History Lesson

Today was the first day in a while without live World Cup soccer - which makes it much easier to concentrate on one's work. The Round of 16 games bought few surprises. Every group winner beat the group runner-up they were matched against, with the exception of the United States losing to Ghana. The officiating continued to be a problem, most notably in the Germany-England and Argentina-Mexico matches, though the superior team clearly won in both cases and would have won even without assistance from the officials. The exit of the United States was disappointing, but understandable given one fairly damning statistic: the US, which accomplished amazing things at this Cup by winning its group and with exciting comeback results, led for exactly 3 minutes out of its 390 at this World Cup, after Landon Donavan scored against Algeria. You can't dig yourself a hole and escape every game. Ghana became only the third African team to make it to the quarterfinals, and will try to become the first to make it to the semifinals, and Uruguay is beatable. But after they knocked my team out for the second Cup in a row and given their pathetic time-wasting measures such as lying down on the pitch without reason in the final few minutes against the US, I wouldn't mind seeing Ghana lose to another team with a compelling story, Uruguay. Uruguay are by far the smallest country to have won the World Cup, about a tenth of the size of Argentina in population, and they won the first Cup, in 1930, at home in Montevideo, then shocked hosts Brazil when the Cup resumed in 1950.

Three compelling match-ups await in the quarterfinals, along with Spain vs. Paraguay (two reasons to root for shock Paraguay victory: their gorgeous superfan, and the possibility of a Uruguay-Paraguay final to determine which nation is the guay-est). I think Spain will play against Brazil or the Netherlands in the final.

But for now, here's some World Cup history factoids since I've gotten so into the all-time records this year:

• At the first World Cup, 1930 Uruguay, only four European teams decided to sail for South America, and random ones at that: France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Romania. A odd total of 13 teams competed. The United States had their best ever result: not only did they finish in third place, but American Bert Patenaude recorded the World Cup's first-ever hat trick against Paraguay. Uruguay beat Argentina in the final.
  
• For the second World Cup, 1934 Italy, defending champions Uruguay decided not to make the trip to Europe because Italy hadn't bothered to come to South America four years earlier. Mexico made the trip over the Atlantic, but then found out they had to play the United States in a play-in game in Europe even though the Americans had turned in their application late. The US won, so Mexico didn't get to compete. Sorry, that was sort of a dick move. The tournament did take on its long-running 16-team format here. Mussolini's Italy won the World Cup.
• Only 15 teams got to play in 1938 France, because GERMANY ANNEXED AUSTRIA. Austria was one of the best teams in 1934, so maybe this was another reason for the Anschluss. World War II canceled the Cup for a while, when the fourth edition was finally held, in 1950 in Brazil, Germany was red-carded and had to stay home. The US shocked England in this Cup, but even more importantly, Uruguay shocked Brazil in the final.
• 1954 saw favorite Hungary lose to Germany in der Wunder von Bern. No small European country like Hungary has ever managed to win the World Cup, this was probably the best shot. Instead, it was the beginning of Germany's impressive haul of championships.
• In 1958 Brazil won the Cup in Sweden. This is the only time a South American team has won in Europe. The pattern has been Europeans win in Europe, Brazil and Argentina win in South America and Mexico, and Brazil wins everywhere else. Brazil won in 1962 and 1970. England won in 1966 at home against Germany, and had deja vu when a goal off the crossbar, much their winner in 1966, was discounted against Germany on Sunday.
  
• If you look at just the last nine World Cups, Brazil, which has won the most total titles, doesn't look quite as dominant. Beginning with 1974, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Italy have each won two World Cups, France has won one and lost another final in penalty kicks.
• The tournament finally expanded to 24 teams in 1982 and again to the modern 32 teams in 1998.
• So right now, 5 Cups for Brazil, 4 for Italy, 3 for Germany, 2 for Argentina, 2 for Uruguay, 1 for England, 1 for France. Four teams look to add to their totals in the next two weeks, while Spain, the Netherlands, Ghana and Paraguay aim for their first Cup first-place trophies.
  
• The 20th World Cup will be held in 2014 in Brazil. Guess who will win.
  

World Cup, Day 3

When Clint Dempsey's shot slipped through Robert Green's hands yesterday, the American ran down the field pointing his fingers and his eyes to the heavens. With good reason - America's draw against England can't really be attributed to an impressive performance by its strikers or midfielders, and the less said about the defenders the better. Chalk it up to a combination of divine intervention or luck, whatever you prefer, and Tim Howard's top-notch goal-keeping. The draw was a fine result for Team USA. England, who I believed was one of four or five teams that could win the Cup (Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, England, maybe Argentina), did not look bad but nor did they look like champions.

Germany, on the other hand, just made a statement. Given that their goalkeeper had committed suicide last year and that their next-choice goalie and captain Michael Ballack were out of this Cup, I predicted Germany, along with fellow European powers Italy and France, was headed towards a disappointing Cup, even a first-round knockout in Group D, which looked decently tough before today. But after today's results Germany and Ghana have momentum, Germany looks like a contender, Ghana looks like it might be Africa's great hope, Serbia looks haunted by the prospect of second consecutive bad Cup performance, and you can stick a fork in Australia's ass and turn them over, they're done, with their best player red-carded out of the last two group games.

Little Slovenia is next up for the Americans. When I was shopping for jerseys I considered them, as their mountain outline is either one of the coolest jerseys in the tournament or a bit too Charlie Brown. But Slovenia gear was off-limits because they're in my team's group. I see a US victory and the US and England both in the Round of 16, with England more likely to finish first on goal differential or America drawing one of its two remaining opponents. Then Germany would be a scary opponent, but we'll see how they play in their next two games. Ghana is capable of beating them, and from the qualifiers, you would think Serbia able as well.

And then there's Greece, who I had picked as my second-favorite team in the Cup, based on my Greek roots and the present situation of the country (this job is flexible, last year it was held by home team Germany). I picked them for the semifinals on a whim, but now I don't think they're going to make it out of the group. They were easily outclassed by South Korea yesterday. Which means they're playing for respect, and against history. I've found many interesting nuggets of information in the Goldman Sachs World Cup 2010 and Economics report. One of which is that only one team has played a full six games in the World Cup without winning at least a draw. But Slovenia, Greece, and New Zealand could all have joined El Salvador in this ignominious record by the end of this World Cup. With its victory, Slovenia has more than a snowball's chance in hell of actually advancing to the second round ahead of the United States or England. But Greece and New Zealand could yet match the record. Greece, additionally, has lost four games, and never scored a goal, with 12 goals against it. Only Zaire, which was outscored 14-0 in its one Cup, has a more lopsided history. El Salvador's goal differential is 1-22. To escape ignominy, Greece must beat or draw mighty Argentina or Africa's largest county, Nigeria, which has a very good keeper. So good luck Greece, you'll need it.

The Rape of Europa; or Greece and Germany, You Disappoint Me

Last night in my Balkans class I brought up Greece, which has by now rejoined Europe’s messiest region (not including the Caucasus). Asked by the professor what I thought about the debt crisis, I said that given what we had seen in the last three days (the sharp rise in debt yields for Greece, Portugal and Spain and debt downgrades for those countries), the euro was finished. That’s a bit hyperbolic, as I tend to be, especially when I talk rather than write. But the problem is huge and I do believe the European Union as we know it is on the brink and we are likelier than not to see some major changes.

There is plenty of blame to go around. True fiscal federalism and a United States of Europe are not what the citizens of the European Union want, so there are political limits to the centralization of fiscal decision-making, which would the best way to ensure a stable common European currency. I do not support the argument of those who wrote ten years ago that the euro was doomed and who are now eagerly writing columns to prove that they were right. The euro was a much greater success than anyone anticipated for a full decade. There were two large policy problems beyond the inevitable and insurmountable economic asymmetries which have led to the problems of Spain, for example, which experienced a construction boom and built up external private sector debts and cannot devalue its currency in the crisis because it is on the euro. The first was that the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact limiting debt to 60% of GDP and deficits to 3% of GDP, which Germany insisted was necessary, were not followed, by the Germans and the French among others, well before the crisis of 2008 and onwards, which has required flexibility. Across the eurozone, the rules to limit vulnerabilities were flouted in normal economic times. Secondly, Greece lied about its numbers to get into the eurozone and continued to lie about its numbers until autumn 2009.

I believe the Greek crisis might still have been solved by a skillful response to the crisis by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. But this did not happen. Nicolos Sarkozy wanted to keep the IMF out, partly because he is worried that Dominique Strauss-Kahn could be his opponent in the next presidential election. Germany wisely insisted on IMF participation. But Angela Merkel’s government has wavered so much on allowing the EU to do its part in rescuing Greece that the uncertainty in the markets has made the necessary rescue package larger than it had to be and less likely to succeed in helping Greece avoid default. As of a few days ago, I am 99% sure Greece will default. Why has Merkel allowed this to happen? Because rescuing the Greeks is enormously unpopular with the German public, and there is an election May 9 in Germany’s biggest region, Nordrhein-Westfalen (which includes Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Düsseldorf, and a quarter of Germany’s citizens, actually a larger population than that of Greece). If Merkel’s Christian Democrats lose the region to the Social Democrats, they lose control of the upper house of the German parliament, they will have trouble getting their agenda enacted, and early federal elections could result. So Merkel can make an argument that she is acting in the wishes of her countrymen and bowing to political realities. But she is also sacrificing the interests of the entire European Union over the region of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Small-minded priorities are not new in Europe – Greece’s objection to Macedonia’s name is a perfect example – but Merkel is the most powerful woman or man in Europe, she knows it, and she should act accordingly.

The stakes are quite high. Contagion could result in multiple sovereign defaults. If only Greece defaults, the eurozone should be able to survive. If Spain goes down, it’s hard to predict what happens. Reintroducing the old currencies would be tremendously damaging to the peripheral economies. But if Spain defaults, we really would be in a “moment of extraordinary politics,” to use Leszek Balcerowicz’s phrase. What I anticipate is that a two-speed Europe would then become inevitable. A German-led core of the strongest economies, looking much like the original European Community of six nations (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy) plus a few like Austria and/or minus Italy, would have the euro, more fiscal federalism, and perhaps a more unified foreign policy. A ring of European states would be affiliated more loosely, naturally led by Great Britain, but including Greece, much of Eastern Europe and sooner or later possibly Spain, Portugal, and Ireland if they did not manage to or did not want to stay in the core, possibly Turkey (the lower-speed of a two-speed European Union is the only way Turkey would ever gain entry) and perhaps Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. It is hard to work out exactly what the looser group would share with the core Europe or how many of the EU-27 would choose or be forced into it. Perhaps there would be three “concentric circles” rather than two. But a Spanish default would change the European Union significantly.

One thing is certain even if Greece dodges default – Germany and the other members of the eurozone are going to be very wary of letting additional members into the common currency area from now on, although according to the accession treaties Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden are all obligated to join the euro eventually (only Denmark and the United Kingdom are excepted). For Latvia in particular, a country which has suffered an internal devaluation as its leaders have clung to a tight currency peg to the euro and an as-soon-as-possible euro accession strategy like a raft in the storm of a crash which has cut the value of the economy by 20%, changing rules would be extremely cruel. The crisis in the eurozone and the European Union could also delay the EU membership of Croatia, which is already ready already, and countries like Montenegro and Macedonia which for various reasons it would be better to bring in sooner rather than later (while it is tempting to use the crisis to force Greece to abandon its childlike position on Macedonia’s name, this is probably not possible because the country’s leaders are expending so much political capital on austerity measures).

Germany’s inward focus on this crisis only exemplifies what has become a problem for the European project in recent years. Leadership by the big three countries is necessary in enacting changes in the structure and size of the European Union. Britain is perpetually wary of Europe. A referendum on EU membership (actually promised by the pro-European Nick Clegg, who unfortunately doesn’t have a chance of becoming First Lord of the Treasury even if the Liberal Democrats win the most votes May 6, rather than by David Cameron, leader of the Euroskeptic Tories) would likely lead to withdrawal from the Union. Britain has however been a force for widening the union, while fighting against deepening. (This eurozone crisis, by the way, has for the first time convinced me that Britain’s hesitancy to join the euro might not be stupid). The elite of France are quite committed to the European project and deepening the Union and playing an important role in the world, even if the French people themselves are more skeptical. However, France worries that enlargement of the EU dilutes its voice and thus only went along with the 2004 big bang enlargement to the east and strongly opposes Turkish membership. Germany is the most important country in Europe because of its size and economy, and it is the key swing vote between Britain’s widening strategy and France’s deepening; having ambitiously pushed for both widening and deepening in the past, under Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer’s Social Democratic-Green government, it has turned against both under Chancellor Merkel, particularly in her second term with the FDP as her partners instead of the Social Democrats. Only Croatia has a good shot at getting into the EU in the next five years because of its Habsburg history and the fact that Germans like Adriatic beaches. Merkel’s hesitancy to help Greece has only exposed the fact that her pro-European image has been declining since her reelection.

Which brings us back to Greece. Italy is often seen as a joke because of its unfunny clown of a prime minister and its inability to consistently match its economic and demographic weight in Europe with equivalent political weight. But Italy is actually less likely to default than other countries in Europe’s periphery due to high private saving and it actually made some heroic economic adjustments to prepare itself for eurozone membership in the 1990s, even if it has not sufficiently dealt with its large debt (117% of GDP). Greece does a much worse job fitting in with its European partners. Greece has not sufficiently reformed its economy while lying about its numbers. Greece is a beautiful place with a nice culture, but it is not a Western European country and it was and is not prepared for membership in the eurozone. The modern country holds far more the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Along with the Greek Cypriots, the Greeks are Russia and Serbia’s best friends within the EU. Greece belongs in a wider conception of Europe that has room for less dynamic economies and Orthodox and Muslim cultures. The behavior and statements of continental Western European statesmen and stateswomen in recent years, from Sarkozy to Merkel to EU President Herman Van Rompuy, has called into question whether that is the Europe that Paris, Berlin and Brussels want. The question of European identity is one that will never be resolved, but the debate is one Europe needs to have. We have a fairly good idea of the dominant British and French viewpoints. The German one is less clear.

Greece gave birth to Europe with Periclean Athens in the 5th Century B.C., seen as a wonderful model by Brits, French and Germans in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It now looks like Greece might well destroy Europe. By the way, does anyone know what image Greece chose to put on their two-euro coin when they dishonestly qualified for the euro back in 2001? The Rape of Europa.