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Elections in the European Union have granted a great victory to the conservative parties, and even to others not so moderate on the extreme right. What happened is relatively complex, and needs to be analyzed country by country. French or German moderate rights are not comparable with the more conservative Spanish and Italian. Not even the British, which, incidentally, will go on their own, instead of fitting into the EPP (European People’s Party). It seems to be definitely: Tories would enter into another group. Why? Maybe because they still have been dragging out the same problem for years; that is, the British conservative have not yet assumed the fact that the British Empire does no longer exist; also because they do not get used to the fact that the rights that matter in Europe are French and German.
In addition, the results made the left-wing wonder if they are not being exceeded by right moderates on their own world’s vision. People seem more and more opting for the centre-right line -not the hard right that ruled the United States during two terms, except maybe in Italy and Spain, as usual.
The sad part should be that the moderate right could fall into a lure of ultraliberal counter measures, shamelessly exploiting the workers to re-impose the awful 65 hours working week that they wisely decided to discard -in view of the fact that people who voted for them would not give support to that issue.
Spanish conservatives did count on the loyal support of their people, while the left has abstained from voting. The left-wing voters’ relationship to the polls is more complex: if they see something they do not like, they do not vote; while the right-wingers, even if their leaders’ ideology is as a satrap’s one, they do not care –e.g. Valencia regional leader Camps involved in corruption cases.
Silvio Berlusconi in Italy is a special case, something that would require a sociological and psychological analysis, and even to ‘craft’ a handbook on psychiatric mental health about those Italian who vote to such a peculiar personnage. Similar to Sarkozy’s France. German right is further levelheaded at least.
However, with Berlusconi and Sarkozy successes, the right removed the mask; they have no longer complex on what they are or what they do. Left-wing should ‘update’ itself before it’s too late… as the right, cleverly aped some issues and even occasionally expressed support to culture –and topics formerly reserved to their competitors as sex, adultery, religion are no longer a taboo.
Must European countries converge to one single model? The question seems to be at the core of the legitimacy of the European integration project.
A different and interesting view from Stefan Collignon over here.
