European Union

The political landscape in Kosovo appears to be undergoing rapid change after Sunday's parliamentary elections. The coalition of former UÇK rebels lost ten percentage points and leads only by a narrow margin, not large enough for a governing majority. Support for the left-nationalist party Vetevendosje, by contrast, doubled and it is now the second-strongest party. What do these results mean for the country and the Balkans?

A scandal occurred during a ceremony commemorating the victims of an SS massacre in the Greek village of Distomo: as the German ambassador was about to lay a wreath at the memorial, former parliamentary speaker Zoi Konstantopoulou confronted him and demanded that Germany pay war reparations. Manolis Glezos, a 94-year-old resistance fighter, took the ambassador by the hand and helped him to lay down the wreath, saying that the children of the perpetrators were not responsible for their parents' crimes. Greece's press is divided over the incident.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are facing EU infringement procedures. Under a quota system agreed in 2015 the other member states are supposed to take in 120,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece by September 2017. So far Poland and Hungary haven't taken in a single refugee and the Czech Republic has only taken in twelve. Given these figures the states shouldn't complain about sanctions now, commentators point out.

The government crisis in Finland is over for the time being. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä had announced that he was no longer willing to govern together with the Finns Party because under its new leader new Jussi Halla-aho the party threatened to shift even further to the right. Now, however, 20 of the party's MPs have split off and formed their own new parliamentary group called New Alternative in a bid to continue the coalition. Does this leave the government in a stable position?

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Whilst practical cooperation between the EU and Iran already exists, the scope is currently well below potential. The limits of our cooperation reflect ongoing concerns in the EU and international community, chiefly connected to Iran’s nuclear programme. The EU is also following the situation of human rights closely.

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The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association Limited and The Queen
Freedom to provide services
The principle of freedom to provide services guaranteed by EU law does not apply between Gibraltar and the UK

Shortly after their landslide victory in the December 2016 parliamentary elections, and during one of the decade’s harshest winters, Romania’s new governing coalition decided to roll out a series of legislative ‘hot potatoes’ that challenged the rule of law. The ‘emergency decree’ that would have allowed corrupt politicians to escape or avoid jail was passed at night, in secrecy. Nevertheless, 300,000 people came out onto streets in more than 30 cities across the country.

The government, led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), won the elections by promising higher pensions, higher salaries in the public sector, lower taxes and holiday vouchers. But in attempting to save its own corrupt members from jail (and preventing others from facing trial by redefining the legal concept of abuse of power) they underestimated public reaction, particularly among the young, educated, urban population.

Recent years have already seen a series of protests: against austerity measures in 2012, against the cyanide open-pit mining at Roșia Montană in 2013, against government corruption that led to a fatal nightclub fire in 2015, and against a deputy prime minister whose abuses of power led to the death of a police officer in his motorcade in 2016. The 2017 protests had numbers (the largest since 1989) and seemingly endless supplies of humour and creativity. But what made them stand out is that dissent had become mainstream: the streets were filled with people often mocked for their corporate affiliation, marching alongside students and faculty members, entrepreneurs and various civic groups that otherwise would find themselves worlds apart.

For several days, Romanians seemed to forget to fear their state’s authoritarian practices as they demanded a government that abides by the rule of law.  Generous coverage from the European media proved helpful: for the first time in decades major newspapers ran articles on the people’s demand for an independent judiciary and transparent decision-making. But as the light of live coverage fades and a selfie with a protest banner becomes ‘so yesterday’, many of us are aware that the road ahead is long, and that a better government will only be achieved through protesters’ continued presence in the public sphere.

Ten years after joining the European Union, we in Romania look less to Brussels’ leveraging power and more at our own capacity to generate social change. With an ever-growing interest in accountability, environmental justice and inequality, and in transnational issues such as migration, Romanian society might find itself at the core, rather than at the periphery of Europe.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – Sorin Mutu

The post Another Romanian winter of discontent appeared first on Europe’s World.

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Elsewhere, True Finns were effectively kicked out of the Finnish government after their coalition partners refused to deal with their new leader, who has compared Islam to paedophilia and wants to leave the EU. In France, Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche trounced Marine Le Pen’s Front National in the legislative election. In Britain, UKIP’s share of the vote fell to 2 per cent from 12.6 per cent in 2015.

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In October 2015, I gave a speech to international journalists in Germany called, ‘Newspaper lies can cost lives.’ Less than a year later, Britain voted for Brexit, with one of the main reasons cited as ‘too many migrants’. How did such a fear and dislike of migrants develop? Newspaper lies played an enormous role. Video; 14 minutes:

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The post How newspaper lies led to Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.