Trumpians in Europe's future?
From left: Hungary’s Viktor Orban; Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski; and the Czech Republic’s Andrej Babis. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION 731; PHOTOGRAPHER: GETTY IMAGES
Some of the great moments of history sneak up on businesspeople. Two years ago, Britain looked to be Europe’s most economically rational country; now its companies seem to be rolling from one economic earthquake to another, with
Brexit looking increasingly likely to be followed by the election of a near-Marxist prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn.
Looking back, two things stand out. First, there were some deep underlying “irrational” causes that business ignored, such as the pent-up anger against immigration and globalization. Second, there was a string of short-term political decisions that proved to be miscalculations. For decades, for example, attacking the European Union was a “free hit” for British politicians. If David Cameron had it to do over again, would he really have made the referendum on whether to stay in it a simple majority vote (or indeed called a vote at all)? Does Angela Merkel now regret giving Cameron so few concessions before the Brexit vote? Would the moderate Labour members of Parliament who helped Corbyn get on their party’s leadership ballot in the name of political diversity really do that again?
Now, another rupture may be sneaking up on Europe, driven by a similar mixture of pent-up anger and short-term political maneuvering. This one is between the old West European democratic core of the EU, led by Merkel and increasingly by Emmanuel Macron, who are
keen to integrate the euro zone, and the
populist authoritarians of Eastern Europe, who dislike Brussels. This time the arguments are ones about political freedom and
national sovereignty.
Later this month it looks likely the Czechs will have a
new Trumpian prime minister—Andrej Babis, a populist billionaire who wants to send Arab immigrants back home and promises to make the government work as well as his businesses do. To be fair to Babis, he’s a rather more subtle figure than the American president (not to mention a more successful businessman). He is, for instance, careful to emphasize his respect for the judiciary and, on immigration, he welcomes newcomers from Ukraine, pointing out that he himself comes from Slovakia. His main appeal is efficiency (he fumes about his former coalition partners playing with their phones in cabinet meetings).
However, Babis is plainly opposed to increased European integration of the sort that Macron wants and is also against Brussels meddling in Eastern Europe. That means that, whatever the subtleties of Babis’s relatively centrist brand of populism, he is likely to be bundled in with Viktor Orban of Hungary and Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland as part of Europe’s authoritarian fringe.
...more:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-see-another-brexit-like-rupture-beyond-spain
