Articles

The G1000 was a citizens’ summit held in Brussels on 11 November 2011, based on the idea that Belgium’s recent political crisis was not only a national crisis, but a wider crisis for democracy. A participant describes the proceedings.

After the massacre on Utøya on 22 July 2011, Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg assumed the role as “comforter of the nation”, a response typically Scandinavian in its implication of a quasi-paternal relationship between prime minister and population. Writing in ‘Samtiden’, Stoltenberg describes the thinking behind the wording of his statements and sees in their overwhelmingly positive reception a “renaissance of the public address”.

While discrepancies between EU member states can be overlooked during win-win periods of growth, recession triggers xenophobic and anti-European reactions in both rich and poor countries. In interview with Nikola Tietze and Ulrich Bielefeld for Mittelweg 36, Ulrich Beck explains how inequality leaves the Union susceptible to decay. Building on the sense of a common European destiny engendered by the crisis, how can Europe be communicated as an opportunity for more power rather than a threat to national sovereignty?

Historically positioning themselves between an unruly, oriental population and the western powers, since 1981 Greek elites have siphoned off EU funds into a bloated public sector favouring corruption, patronage and social climbing. The threat posed to Europe by the breakdown is less contagion to the centre than a wave of anti-western feeling that could exacerbate geopolitical instabilities in the region.

Misdirected EU aid has strengthened rent-seeking elements in the Greek economy and fostered political clientelism, writes Iannis Carras. Instead of learning from mistakes, current EU/IMF policy favours construction and privatization of state land, enabled through a legal sleight of hand. Quite apart from the environmental risks, this is counterproductive in economic terms.

Too many Europeans have too long avoided the question of Europe, says Swedish writer Per Wirtén. To prevent the EU from turning into a “post-democratic regime of bureaucrats”, intellectuals need to stop mumbling and take the fear of Europe seriously.

Studies to test the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices are too often never made public, putting lives at risk. Head of Investigations at the ‘British Medical Journal’, Deborah Cohen reports.

In Iran, the revolutionary dogma prevailing at the official level has obliged “post-Islamist” philosophers to provide profound justifications for Islam’s compatibility with democracy. Katajun Amirpur puts contemporary Iranian thinking on religion and politics in the context of the intellectual anti-westernism of the Khomeini era.

French-German leadership during the euro crisis has been fraught with tension. It’s not so much the case that Germany is abandoning its European responsibilities, more that the crisis emphasizes differences in political culture. While Germany may seem dilatory, French resolve forfeits democratic deliberation.

It is not capitalism that has come to an end but a mode of politics that seeks to guarantee market stability, argues economic historian Werner Plumpe. The crisis must be allowed to serve its cyclical function, the state limiting itself to compensating for the social consequences of structural economic transformation.

The Ukraine-European Union summit, originally planned for 19 December, was to have brought talks on an Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU to a conclusion. However the conflict over the prosecution of Yuliya Tymoshenko has endangered the process, raising serious doubts about the European aspirations of the current Ukrainian leadership. The country’s future hangs in the balance, writes Tatiana Zhurzhenko.

The thirty-year long experiment in market capitalism has failed to unleash a new era of enterprise, entrepreneurialism and dynamism, argues Stewart Lansley. Examining key areas in which the market model was supposed to deliver, he finds that, on almost every count, post-war “managed capitalism” outperformed it successor.

By the end of 2011, European member states are expected to have demonstrated their fulfilment of the requirements of the EU Framework Programme for the integration of Roma. But what are the chances of the programme succeeding if structural anti-Roma racism exists within European institutions themselves? Valeriu Nicolae is founder and president of the Policy Centre for Roma and Minorities in Bucharest, an NGO that works directly with young Roma. At a conference in Berlin in November, he talked about the discrepancy between European rhetoric and institutional reality.

Russia’s democratic inertia results from the dominance of private over universal values, writes writes Samuel A. Greene. But what are the factors that could lead to change? While pressure from below is likely to provoke consolidation of the elites, long-term economic decline might encourage greater European integration and reform of the country’s institutions.

Is the monetary union worth preserving if it means the virtual colonization of the weakest member economies? Assessing responses to the euro crisis, John Grahl argues that the real cause – private sector deficits across the periphery – remains unaddressed. Instead, a regime is emerging in which EU creditor authorities override national decision-making in every aspect of public policy.

European leaders’ unwavering commitment to ever closer union is causing more harm than good, argues Stefan Auer. Europe doesn’t need more integration; it needs more democracy to enable its nations to regain control over their destiny. Partial and well-managed disintegration may be preferable to a chaotic implosion.