The claims and pressures in favour of a European defence policy have grown. They were boosted by the British vote for Brexit. The argument spread that with the strengthening of a common European defence posture, there would be a new momentum for a greater European unity. European peoples would be in favour of a closer union that would set out and implement common military defence policies.

France and Germany have been promoting this way of looking at things. So have the armaments industries. They argue that in the absence of a pan-European coordination of measures aimed to implement joint defence arrangements they are being placed at a disadvantage, compared to armaments industries elsewhere in the world.

In the US, their competitors can develop new items knowing full well that they have a ready demand for their output, in their own internal market. European firms do not have this back up.

The rising claims and pressures in this area are dangerous.

For in truth, Europe is facing no military threat.

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Fascist follies?

Fascism is not a folly. It is a concrete political project that has again come alive after having undergone “modernisation”.

It is finding new support because the traditional parties of right and left are not successfully showing that they know how to safeguard the interests of workers and the middle classes. Or that they have the will to do so.

Faced with the rise of globalisation, left and right seem to have agreed that there is nothing they can do except let market forces run.

For as long as this led to improvements in standards of living, it seemed like this was the right strategy. When developments became negative and people were badly hit, it seemed like left and right were still working on old solutions that were perceived as failures.

Meanwhile post-modern fascism had been broaching concrete proposals on different levels. It is useless to proclaim that these proposals would lead us into a cul-de-sac. The left should be making new proposals that would meet head-on those being mooted by fascism within the same concrete parameters.

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Merkel

Angela Merkel’s decision to present herself again as her party’s candidate in the election for the German chancellorship has been welcomed.

Without any doubt, in past years Merkel’s leadership style has recorded successes. Except most recently, when her policies regarding immigration gave rise to controversy in and outside Germany, her popularity remained solid. Evennow, it is said that all other right wing leaders acknowledge it would be very difficult for anybody to successfully contest her.

It has also been said that Merkel provides the best guarantee of stability in the face of the threat posed by extremist and “populist” parties.

This last point seems to me quite weak.

As former prime minister Romano Prodi remarked,the austerity policies enforced in Europe and championed by Merkel’s government, have sustained the economic stagnation of the euro zone. They have prodded millions of citizens to take a stand against the ways by which Europe is being run.  That has contributed to today’s sense of instability.