International

The meeting between the Greek and German finance ministers was icy. The European Central Bank (ECB) is making it impossible for Greek banks to borrow cheaply. And to complete the picture, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the European Parliament’s biggest political group, wanted the EP to adopt a resolution on the rise of extremism in the EU which would have included a specific mention of the new Greek government. It’s striking that in each of these instances the EPP, the home to Europe’s Christian Democrats and allied conservative parties, the group which includes the Dutch Christian Democrats of the CDA, played a leading role. Where we used to sometimes speak of the CDA’s ‘social face’, the mask has now fallen to reveal the grimace of merciless market fundamentalism under Angela Merkel’s command.

Foto: Robert Temple Ayres

Manfred Weber is head of the PPE. Weber is a pleasant man with whom several years ago I found it easy to cooperate in the working group charged with developing a code of conduct for MEPs. On the other hand he comes from Beieren, known in Germany as a centre of neoliberal thought.  This perhaps explains why a few weeks ago in the meeting of group presidents he proposed the addition of a point to the agenda of this week’s plenary meeting in Strasbourg on the rise of political extremism, and in particular the coalition in Greece.

The initiative failed, because all of the other political groups rejected the proposal, declaring their confidence in Greek democracy. A battle has raged for years in the EP between the EPP and the rest of the Parliament over Hungary. A number of resolutions have been passed in which pressure is put on this member state to restore the human rights which the Hungarian government has indeed restricted. Weber’s action may then have been a sort of retaliation for these, as Hungary’s governing party belongs to the Christian Democrat ‘family’.   

The action, however, doesn’t stand alone. German Christian Democrat finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has begun a real battle against Syriza and repeatedly declared that the Greeks must simply do what the Troika tells them: cut their spending by so much it will destroy them and in that way once more become ‘competitive’. The ECB, on whose board Christian Democrats are well-represented, is on a similar collision course. By denying Greek banks the right to obtain cheap loans, it is undermining their financial position.  

Syriza wants to negotiate new agreements with the EU on paying off its debts and on the measures which Greece can best take to boost the economy while at the same time combatting poverty and unemployment. Negotiations often follow a pattern in which the parties begin at loggerheads, but behind the scenes comprises are worked out. Let’s hope that the behaviour of Weber, Schäuble and Draghi is to do with this. If not, what we’re witnessing is a dirty war waged by Christian Democrats against modern left movements such as Syriza. The SP is perfectly capable of responding to this challenge, but it’s a pity that this means that we now know that the social wing of our own Christian Democrats in the Netherlands has lost definitively, making cooperation with this political current a bit more difficult.  Perhaps what’s needed is another somewhat lively CDA national conference, because I’m not convinced that all of their members see themselves reflected in this line.