The end of the European Union

Por: Stefania Deriu, 144898: Ciencias Politicas, Universidad de las Americas Puebla

The end oft the European Union?

Economic crisis, national debts, new budget rules for the countries, these are the themes that are bothering the European Union in the last years, but especially in the last few months.  According to the New York Times article from the 28th of November 2011 different head of states in Europe are demanding a stronger influence of the European Central Bank and furthermore a strengthening of the European Union. Generally there are several disagreements between the single sates in the European Union, how the crisis can be overcome and also about the level of commitment to the European Union. But this is not the only conflict potential. A part from the disagreements between the single states, there are also divergences between the opinion of the state-politics and the inhabitants of the different member states.   

Probably nobody knows what is going to happen in the future. What happens if the European Union and the Euro break, and the single states go back to their national currencies? Which political implication would this have? But one thing is already quite sure, even if the nations lost their influence and the European Union is always regulating more and more the European politics, a tendency of a rising nationalism can be identified, especially in eastern Europe, because they don’t accept the loss of their freedom which they finally achieved after the end of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In accordance to the author Andrew Heywood, economic uncertainty and the frustration towards established political parties, who are lacking the capacity of resolving social and political problems, is leading to an emergence of extremist right- wing parties.

The second question is what is going to happen with the welfare state? The welfare state is the most common explication for the national debts. Most of the European states had a “deficit spending” policy, which further on led to huge national debts. In the last view years, most states left the idea of a social welfare state behind, and started to implement a more neoliberal strategy. That’s why all over Europe the nations are reducing the public spending, starting from cutting health-care payments, introducing fees for universities and saving money in the education sector and finally decreasing other family assistance payments. Moreover more and more state owned companies are privatized. Unfortunately these actions lead to more frustration and unacceptability in the population. This leads again to more potential for extremist right- or left- wing movements, strikes and manifestations.

It is not sure what will happen in the future. Presumably most of the states will have to cut off the welfare state, in order to reduce the national debts. The neoliberal ideal will gain more influence, the state-owned companies will be more and more privatized in order to achieve better prices and more competitiveness. On the other hand these circumstances will cause more frustration in the population and the potential of extremist right- or left-wing actions will  increase.

 References:           

www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/world/europe/euro-zone-leaders-weigh-new-budget-rules.html?ref=europe