<nettime> EUgoslavia

[Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com>]

   is the fucking old eee-you coming apart at the seams?
   ok britain's out but it would like to veto the embryo of a EU army
   (something also the neutralist but otherwise europhile Irish abhor).
   renzi did a photo opportunity with merkel and hollande at the grave of
   european federalism (ventotene, where spinelli is buried), but the
   triumvirate didn't last a month and in bratislava were were back to the
   usual diarchy that has been running europe since its foundation.
   juncker is a faithful butler of German interests couched in european
   rhetoric.

   problem is Europe is now made not of 10 or 12 countries, but of 27. The
   Visegrad countries are in effect putting themselves outside the EU by
   not accepting a single migrant. Italy and Greece are taking in the
   majority of refugees while all borders to their north are being sealed
   from Calais to Ventimiglia, from Brenner to the Carpathians. Being
   outside the eurozone, they didnt have lead on their wings and EU funds
   have made them fly.

   Inside the eurozone, quantitative easing is too little too late and
   anyway the Germans want to reverse it. As we now know, this
   expansionary monetary policy has adverse effects on equality as it
   props us financial assets but does not expand employment enough to
   raise wages. Fiscal policy would, but neither Schaueble nor Draghi are
   ready to countenance deficit spending: they both defend European
   rentiers and pensioners.

   Politically, the eurozone lacks cohesion (save for bloodletting Greece)
   but in my view the only hope for Europe is that the euro area becomes
   some kind of con/federal state and we can trade freely with whoever
   wants out, but free-riders will no longer be able to stop further
   political integration. But can a disqualified eurocracy commanded by
   the discordant concert of government heads lead such a process? No way.

   In fact today being associated to Europe has become an electoral
   liability, as it means migration (rightwing view) and austerity
   (leftwing view) so it's hard to envisage how the same people who gave
   europe a bad rep are gonna solve the problem they caused.

   Today there is a power vacuum at the heart of Europe. The most likely
   development is that there is a return to nation-states and that
   nationalist forces stand to benefit from this. Buy Italian, buy
   Belgian, buy French has never been stronger. People are going inward
   and dream of an impossible autarky. For instance, the practice of
   giving foreign names to kids in Italy has mysteriously stopped: gone
   are the days when Justins and Jennifers were all over the place, now
   it's only Mario and Ludovica..

   Egalitarian/libertarian populism (podemos/ en comu) is the only viable
   ideological response to this historical predicament. But as gerbaudo
   reminds us, populism stresses national sovereignty and so lacks a
   transnational project for europe. So the alternative would be to
   federate all progressive forces and mobilize for a grand political
   design to liberate Europe from inequality and xenophobia. What's the
   Europe we want? What kind alliances between cities and regions can take
   us there? How do we construct a popular european culture? Should we
   start a European Liberation Movement? Can the organization of the
   precariat provide the social counterpart of a transnational political
   project?

   I dunno. What i do know is that Europe � la carte is over. And a rump
   schengen europe is not unlikely. 2017 will be a year of fateful
   decisions, certainly for the french and germans who will choose the
   next president and chancellor.

   best ciaos from northern milano

   lx

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