What will the Europe of Melons and Baerbock be like?
After Lagarde and Von der Leyen, Baerbock, Le Pen and Meloni could reach the top of the EU. The article by Tino Oldani for ItaliaOggi
For Giulio Tremonti it is useless to delude oneself: the Franco-German axis will continue to dominate in Europe also in the coming years. «In the autumn, in Germany the CDU could retreat. And in France in 2022 Marine Le Pen could win. But that plank won't break. It may change in form. But it will remain intact ». Described in a few lines, in an interview with La Verità in which he tears up the Recovery Plan, compared to Stalin's failed five-year plans, but with more rhetoric, the former minister's prediction seems to be dictated more by the memory of the past than from the present political. But Tremonti is like this: take it or leave it. For this reason, according to him, the agreement between an economic power (Germany) and an atomic power (France), sanctioned by Konrad Adenauer and Charles De Gaulle with the 1963 Elysée Treaty which put an end to the centuries-old conflict between the two countries , still constitutes «an indissoluble union». Not everyone thinks so in Europe, not even in Germany, where the newspaper Die Zeit dedicated a wide controversial interview to Marine Le Pen, wondering why none of the German leaders has yet realized the "Le Pen danger", which in the polls for the Elysée it is now at 48%, a whisker from the possible victory against Emmanuel Macron. A turnaround that, if the green Annalena Baerbock wins the next German elections and takes office in the chancellery, could have disruptive consequences on the current Franco-German axis: just read the ferocious slate that Le Pen, in the interview with Die Zeit , makes of environmentalist policy of the leader of the German greens.
Then there is another aspect that must be taken into account. Le Pen's France, deployed on the right in very critical positions towards the European Union, but no longer for the exit, could risk severe political isolation. But Giorgia Meloni could arrive at her side in 2023, who leads the Italian right, has several ideal and programmatic points in common with Le Pen, and has just confessed that she is ready to govern Italy, assuming that the polls in her please find a response in the polls when there will be the next political elections.
At that point, even if the scenario is pure hypothesis, at the top of Europe there would be five women in command, instead of the current three: Angela Merkel left the scene, there would still be Ursula von der Leyen (EU Commission) and Christina Lagarde (ECB), plus the new entries Baerbock, Le Pen and Meloni. Their political location would have decisive consequences: a center-left European bloc (Von der Leyen, Baerbock, Lagarde) against a right-wing bloc (Le Pen, Meloni). With the first that could take the place of the current Franco-German axis, weakened by the eventual electoral defeat of Macron, the German media and the Euro-American power lobbies are doing everything possible to prevent this from happening.
Meanwhile, in the interview with Die Zeit , Le Pen takes the opportunity to say all the possible evil of Baerbock's environmental policy. Given that the latter would like to occupy 2% of the land in Germany with wind turbines, with a policy bordering on fanaticism, which worries traditional industrial sectors, Le Pen takes the opposite side: "We want to turn off the turbines as much as possible wind farms and keep nuclear power plants running. Germany has decided to turn its back on nuclear power, but it is causing considerable damage to the planet with its coal-fired power plants. Depending on the direction of the wind, your polluted air arrives here in France. Nuclear energy is the only ecological option ”.
Equally clear is the criticism of the role played by Germany in Europe. Madame Le Pen, asks Die Zeit , four years ago she wanted to get France out of Europe. Not anymore: why? Answer: «It is the EU that has approached the positions of my party. Germany is responsible for a strict austerity policy, which has set us all back in Europe, but Covid is now shaking this dogma. We believe we have a better chance of transforming Europe from within than from without. We are optimistic that the austerity measures are over ».
Keeping the German Franco axis in place, with these premises, will only be possible if Le Pen is defeated. For this reason, some think-tanks have already taken steps to focus on their weaknesses, first of all Carnegie Europe, a branch of a powerful American lobby, close to the State Department, which brought together several European experts. For Carnegie Europe, if Le Pen arrived at the Elysée, he would propose radical changes in Europe: cancellation of the legislative initiative in the hands of the EU Commission and the European Council, and transfer of powers from Brussels to individual member states, weakening the supranational powers of the EU. Furthermore, it would attempt to reform the internal market, a taboo for Germany, by placing constraints on the mobility of workers between member states, and would limit the EU's interference in the internal affairs of individual countries. A catastrophic scenario, argues Carnegie Europe, worse than the exit of a single Member State.
Among the experts of various countries consulted by the think-tank, the German ones have suggested safeguarding the single market for at least a year, in the hope that Le Pen, if elected, will not remain in office that long. Other analysts, deliberately anonymous, do not exclude an extreme hypothesis: the outbreak of a half-civil war against internal Islamist extremism, proposed by some French generals against Macron, could serve the purpose, but in favor of Macron, by imposing a postponement of the elections for the Elysée, thus giving the current president the opportunity to remake his image and present himself as a defender of values such as law, order and security, on which the right has built its rise.
Article published on italiaoggi
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-sara-leuropa-di-meloni-e-baerbock/ on Sat, 22 May 2021 05:38:32 +0000.