International

Just a few days left before we once again celebrate the New Year. For the European Union it’s going to be an exciting twelve months: elections are coming up in Greece and Spain, elections in which the SP’s sister parties could end up taking the helm. In many other eurozone countries, things are in a real mess. More and more people are resisting this neoliberal EU. The question is, can the eurozone remain. The establishment is running scared; you can see this in the new Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, hitting out ever more wildly. An untidy period, for sure, but also one full of opportunity. Let’s hope that by the end of 2015 we’ll have reached a turning point and that national democracies will emerge strengthened from the struggle.

At the end of November the Financial Times, not exactly a paper of the left, published a commentary in which the editorial staff declared that the left in Europe was simply correct. The mountain of debt in the weaker eurozone countries is much too high and only a massive debt write-off could prevent further stagnation. This is also one of the principal demands of parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Not in favour of an immediate withdrawal from the eurozone, neither do they rule this out should renegotiation of the national debt and the hated ‘reform programmes’ not succeed. Debt write-off is, however, easier said than done. After all, it should not be the case either that the northern member states continue to pay the way for southern Europe on a permanent basis, simply to keep these countries in the eurozone. That could soon begin to pinch.

In Italy the Cinque Stelle (Five Stars) movement has the upper hand, and they do want to leave the euro right away. The same goes for Le Pen in France, and again, she leads the opinion polls. And then of course there’s the UK, where EU membership is itself being questioned and debated, and where Prime Minister David Cameron wants to renegotiate terms of membership and in 2017 hold a referendum on whether or not to stay on board.

Government leaders continue acting as if everything’s fine, but look a little more closely and you will see growing panic. Juncker had already warned the Greeks about Syriza, and this week he was aiming his darts at the Netherlands, where the two governing parties, the centre-right VVD and the centre-left PvdA, as well as centre-right opposition party the CDA, ought to be much more positive about the EU, or the Netherlands could find itself under the control of ‘populists’. All of this of course represents part of his attempts to make the European Commission more ‘political’, but it’s not hard to see that Juncker is frightened. The EU is becoming ever less popular and the resistance is holding all the winning cards.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s time to take our place on this rollercoaster, fasten our safety belts and prepare for a bumpy ride in 2015, because the European Union is going to have to change. The SP’s team in the European Parliament is ready. We have made our alternatives to the existing EU clear. If in the whole of Europe left forces are growing stronger, and the lame duck cabinet under Prime Minister Mark Rutte can be replaced by a government headed by SP leader Emile Roemer, a great deal could be achieved within the year. So I wish everyone an exciting New Year!