European Politics Thread

To be precise about Rome: first the councilwoman for Environment resigned due to pending investigations on her, within a bigger inquiry for corruption in the city's garbage disposal service; then this close aide, Raffaele Marra, has been arrested for corruption related to works he did under a previous mayor.

Ms. Raggi's defense, that the arrested one is "just one of the 23,000 public employees of Rome" has been quickly derided: while a technician and not a member of Five Stars, Marra was at first bound to be vice-mayor or some other high rank in the administration, then "demoted" to chief of the department for personnel and human resources - which manages the aforementioned thousands of employees. Like the resigned Ms Muraro, his long experience with past administrations made even parts of the Movement quite wary about him. Reportedly, a string of resignations that left the young administration in disarray last September were caused by internal strife around Marra's position, which Raggi defended time and again; when Marra's brother was hired in another department, she exposed herself saying she had promoted him herself.

Raggi's excuses are frail, some of her opposers within the party want her head, and more in general after six months the 5S administration has never taken off, instead constantly losing pieces. Since national elections aren't coming too soon, Rome may now become the biggest source of embarassment for the Movement.

Seems like Switzerland has finally decided on what to negotiate for in the immigration dispute with the EU*. Needless to say, the Swiss People's Party** is pitching a tantrum.

*Back in February, an initiative was barely passed that requested immigration to be reduced to contingents. But defining what these contingents should be has been debated in the Swiss parliament since then. And since most proposals would clash with the free movement of people principle of the EU that Switzerland is bound to by virtue of the "bilateral agreements" we have with the EU, we also need to get an agreement with Europe over this.

**Right-wing party with a big focus against immigration and the EU. The sole one left with political relevance, they have sucked up everyone else who was on the right of them.

Update about Rome. From what is reported so far, mayor Raggi has been left with two options by her party.

1) Accept any indications and orders from the Five Stars Movement from now on, and first off, fire her closest aides, like the vice-mayor. 2) Have the 5S symbol revoked (i.e. she'd be expelled) and continue her tenure as mayor without them.

Any scenario is awful. In the former case, basically control of Rome would be under Grillo and a never well specified "staff" also linked to Casaleggio Jr's company, Raggi would be left alone with no people she really trusts, and she'd be just a puppet. About the latter, apparently some of her council members are already opposed to the idea of going on without the 5S, so if she opted out, it may cause a fracture in her majority and possibily force her resignation.

Whatever happens, Rome will ultimately be the victim because in any scenario, you can't hope for the 5S city government to be stable and capable of doing what they promised - if anything, so far they've contributed in making the situation even worse.

Movements like 5S tend to make things worse, look no further than Greece. On a side note, the fact that Grillo can dictate terms to a democratically elected mayor is ver dubious imho.

Unlike 5S, Syriza had a mostly coherent program at the beginning (before it was shot down), though.

Speaking of Syriza, the Guardian link from the previous page doesn't tell the whole story. The short-term reliefs and social welfare measures are not just about retirees, but are also about the children and the islands (hence the exemption of sales tax) and other areas which took a lot of refugees.

Also, this bit:

Makes one wonder about what the heck is going on with the IMF. Something's fishy...

edited 17th Dec '16 10:26:05 AM by Quag15

I am actually not sure how much flak Syriza personally deserves. He seems to be trying, but he really followed the wrong advisors in his initial handling of the EU. Without the idiotic "if you protest enough they will give in the rescue the Euro" strategy, he would now have way better cards. As it is, he squandered away the benefit of the doubt the EU was willing to take into account. Anyway, he is the kind of politician I don't want to judge too harshly too early. I certainly wouldn't want his job.

Glory to Europe! EU's very own geo-location system Galileo goes live!

edited 17th Dec '16 12:35:14 PM by TerminusEst

Took them long enough. I've been waiting for this since I was a kid.

What a coincidence; my Chinese flat-mate was actually just talking with me about this.

edited 17th Dec '16 2:16:32 PM by DrunkenNordmann

@Swanpride: The thing is that Tsipras had, as populist politicians often do, two contradictory mandates. One was to stay in the euro, the other was to tell Germany to go fuck themselves. Varoufakis had a coherent position (go full Argentina, burn the debt and rebuild from primary surplus), but obviously Greece's voters weren't interested in something that radical.

I actually don't think that this would have worked. What Greece needs to do more than anything else is built trust, so that investors start to seriously consider the country again.

Final update on Rome: Raggi has accepted the "scenario 1" I described a few posts above. The vice-mayor will be her only close aide left - he's also advisor for Sports and will keep only that role.

Salute the new Consuls of Rome, Grillo and Casaleggio.

I blame Tsipras for two things: Backing Varoufakis as long as he did even when it became apparant that he was a terrible choice and telling the Greek people that they could keep the Euro and reject austerity. European politicians were more than willing to make some concessions towards Greece, but the behaviour of Varoufakis quickly destroyed any goodwill.

edited 17th Dec '16 5:01:55 PM by Zarastro

Tzipras wanted to keep austerity? He was promising to keep it? Really?

I meant to say "reject".

Yeah. Tsipras promised to reject austerity, and Europe said "no," so he fell in line and got rid of the guy who actually insisted on going with the campaign promises.

Of course, we are talking Europe; the idea that the politicians have to listen to their constituents is an Anglosphere thing

The Greeks also wanted to keep the Euro (overwhelmingly so). They simply should have made up their mind.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-01-26/greece-s-election-is-rebuke-to-europe-and-austerity

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. At least he was smart enough to realize this in time and do what a leader should do, go with the option you consider the more reasonable one. I know that a lot of people think that Greece would be better off outside of the Euro, but I am not so sure about this. Because without the commitments, there would be no reason to actually tackle the corruption and overspending which ails the country. Leaving would have made the general population even poorer and the businessmen, who have their money on foreign accounts anyway, even richer.

Now if the UK politicians would finally realize that they can't deliver on what the leave campaign promised....not that I would miss the UK, but I really feel sorry for the people whose live has been thrown out of order by this.

You mean, like the UK government being super-eager to pull article 50 to please Brexiters?

"Brexit means Brexit."

Yeah in the end the promises of no Austerity and keeping the Euro simply couldn't both be kept to, one had to be chosen over the other and the Greek people choose keeping the Euro.

But why? Everyone seems to agree that keeping the Euro is a terrible idea, that the monetary policy that fits Berlin and Paris does not fit Athens, that they need their own currency that they can handle in a sovereign way.

It was always uncertain whether Greece could have negotiated to leave the Eurozone but stay in the EU, which I imagine is the thing Greeks want to remain a part.

After Brexit that's likely to be even more of a dicey prospect since the major EU states are going to likely be even more punitive to prevent other states from wanting to leave. I really doubt that Greece wants sanctions or punitive tariffs placed on them even now.

I've never heard it seriously said that Greece would risk EU expulsion if it next the Euro, that idea seems to have come from nowhere.

I think that the Greek people wanted it because they were told they could have both, that and any independent Greek currency would be rather weak compared to the Euro, thus hurting the ability of Greeks to buy things from abroad.

There are a number of arguments why Greece is better off with the Euro...the need for imports being the smallest one. There is a not to underestimated risk of hyperinflation the moment they revert back. Just remember what happened when it looked like the would loose the Euro, there was a run on the bank and people are still drawing money out of the Greek opportunity left and right. This won't change with a new currency. It will make the common people poorer and the rich ones richer, and the young people of Greece are not stupid enough to not realize this.