Any action will give both expected and unexpected results. This happens even when decisions are taken in situations which are determined by known and stable conditions. It happens to a greater extent when events occur in ways for which precedents do not exist and about which it is difficult to forecast future developments.

Brexit falls in the latter category. As the UK exits from the EU, few reliable forecasts are being made regarding how this is going to be done and with what consequences – apart from negative expectations about both the UK and the EU.

However one can turn the problem upside down. How about if, as an unexpected consequence, the result is absolutely the opposite of the negative outcomes being feared? Say, if with Brexit, both the UK and the EU end up in better shape...?

In this perspective, an interesting exercise would be to see how such a scenario could develop on the basis of the facts that are currently available.     

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Out of Austria

The decision by Austria’s constitutional court to cancel the presidential election that took place recently is a worrying development for more than the reason which is most mentioned – namely that the far right has been given another opportunity to elect its candidate to the highest appointment in the state, even if the post is mainly ceremonial.

The court took its decision because it agreed that material irregularities had been committed when the elections were being run. These were not to the benefit of the far right.

Now it’s quite clear that what happened was fundamentally anti-democratic. And one can hardly argue that the far right was responsible for this, against its own interests.

One of the worst allegations made against the far right is that it is disrespectful of democracy.

Suddenly, correctly or not, the perception has become that the far right is not alone in being like so; the same holds apparently for the political forces assembled to oppose it, while they claim that what most motivates them is the need to safeguard democracy.

Given such a perception, the threat to democracy in Europe could be considered as much deeper than one had imagined.  

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Less diversity

I’ll repeat: the years that have passed since we joined the EU have also served to reduce diversity in our economy, not increase it.

Moreover, the basic infrastructure we need to maintain our ties with the outside world, has either diminished in relative terms, or has come to depend greatly on the fluctuations occurring in global markets according to neoliberal rules of play. I doubt whether such maintenance could have been possible without direct and renewed interventions by the state, which are not permissible under the rules defining economic management that we must follow.

While a reduction in economic diversity was proceeding, contradictions did not fail to emerge, almost without our noticing. Like the insistence of the tourism sector, first that Malta allow low cost airlines to operate here; then that at all costs, Air Malta should be kept in the air – something which the EU does not sanction.