Local elections give Rajoy the jitters!

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Tomorrow...a Sunday.....sees local elections in two Spanish provinces; Galicia and the Basque country, who will both be voting for their regional governments.  The results will be watched eagerly, not just by Mariano Rajoy, a Galician himself, but by many across Europe in the wake of yesterday's announcement by Angela Merkel that direct re-capitalisation of the (many) Spanish banks who are teetering on the brink of collapse will not happen immediately, if at all.

A worried Mariano Rajoy.

Spain is a country in crisis.  To live here is to be party to the desperation of the people.  Hope is now a dirty word as the nation sinks deeper into crisis and, to be honest, it's very worrying.

The Spanish are a people who do not like change and even when the rest of the world was cowering beneath the falling debris of the of the economic crisis many Spaniards were happy to ignore the signs and carry on as before.  But not anymore.

Spain is changing.  And it's changing rapidly.  But not, I would suggest, for the better in the short-term.  Things are going to get a lot worse before they start to improve.

Unemployment in Galicea is at 21% (as it happens lower than the national average) and is rising every month.  Rajoy, once the local hero, is fast becoming Rajoy the embarrassment, even though he may just hang onto power in the region as a result of the popularity of the PP candidate Alberto Núñez Feijóo (below).  Even so, there is expected to be a rise in the prominence of local nationalists which have a knock-on effect with further elections next month in other provinces.

 Alberto Núñez Feijóo

In the Basque country the situation is more complex, with the new radical nationalist coalition, EH-Bildu expecting to gain substantial support in their push for Basque separatism.  A year ago Eta, the Basque terrorist movement 'officially' renounced violence and since that time the radicals have moved towards a more political and democratic process with EH-Bildu (which actually means 'Basque country gather') blazing the way.

EH-Bildu did not take part in the 2009 elections (because they were formed after this time) and might be expected to gain considerable local influence after tomorrow elections.  Polls indicate that unemployment will be the key issue in an area where the rural vote has always been majorly important.  But even here it beggars belief that the radicals do not offer solutions to the problems for the electorate to mull over but instead spend their campaigning time slagging off the other parties and their mismanagement of the economy, employment, etc.

Heaven forbid that they might offer a new way of looking at things!  Radical by name only it seems! 

And one cannot help but wonder if, once tomorrows results are known, and the celebrations (what the Spanish do best of all!) are over, if anything will actually change.

Spain is a country in flux, but the paradox is that whilst change is being forced upon the nation by the recent austerity measures and an economy that looks to be sliding ever deeper into the red, nothing actually changes. 

Everyone bitches and moans about the lack of cash in their pocket and the complete and utter absence of prospects for the current U25's, no-one really wants anything to change.  If things could just go back to how they were 4 or 5 years ago then the majority of Spaniards would settle for that.

As a political and social policy, sticking one's head in the sand isn't usually a vote winner, but then Spain is a place apart, still reeling from a Francoist hangover and a black-market economy that bleeds the life from Spain as a vampire bat drains a vein, Spain is a nation lost in the political wilderness, wandering aimlessly, but forever looking over the shoulder to the good old days of a few years before.

Historically Spain has been stuck in a time-warp since the era of the Armada and as an Englishman living here I find many of the attitudes and 'customs' (for want of a better term) similarly dated, old fashioned and out-moded.  On the face of it, a staunchly Catholic country, where incongruously church attendances are actually lower than in the UK, yet religious holidays hypocritically fill the calender.  Any excuse for a party!  And as an electoral tactic holding local elections on a Sunday is a no-brainer.  It will almost certainly lower turnout because church is such a good excuse not to vote, whether you actually attend or not.

In the Basque region then the radical nationalists may well find themselves as the one of the new voices of the people.  If, as expected, a similar trend is seen in Galicia with the nationalists pulling together with the communists, separatists and the ecologists, it may spark further disharmony with the Catalonian electorate who hold their elections next month.  And if Artur Mas, Catalonia's President, is re-elected he has already promised a full referendum on the question of Catalonian independence, which may well be the first of many similar referendums all over Spain.

As one of Spain's richest provinces the outcome of the Catalonian referendum could be crucial for the future stability and unity of the Spanish state, especially since Mas yesterday agreed to work more closely with Basque nationalist leader Iñigo Urkullu on the issue of their respective sovereignty claims, further weakening the stance of Rajoy as he attempts to paper over the vast cracks that are fracturing this ever-more fragile and sick nation. 

What the future holds here I don't know.  As fast as people say 'it can't get any worse' it just does!  And it keeps getting worse.  I'm pessimistic about the immediate future of Spain simply because they seem to be unable to adapt to the changing economic climate.  There are no new solutions for what are a host of new problems and until someone actually stands up and offers something truly radical as a possibly way out, then Spain will continue to flounder as its' people go from bad to worse.

What do you think?

P XX

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The Eurozone Crisis: A Retrospective View

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Well it seems we are heading for global Crisis 2 this decade.  Makes one wonder if the International Banks are playing some sort of game.  "I know...let's see how badly we can fuck the planet up whilst still drawing top dollar for ourselves!"

"Can't be done!"

"Wanna bet?"

And the rest is history!  And what isn't history, is either the present or the future of course!!  In the present (in Spain at least) the people are suffering.  Businesses seem to be closing on an almost daily basis and in many stores the shelves are sparsely covered with over-priced tittle-tattle that no-one wants.  And that's just today?  What calamities await us in the near future?  Only God and Wall St. probably have the answer to that one!

But the short answer would seem to be that we are fucked and we are going to continue being fucked for some time yet!

The Eurozone is sliding towards chaos at an ever increasing rate of knots.  Germany and France...our Euro buddies...Not!...have been meeting secretly to discuss the next step (http://gu.com/p/339bf) in (what might laughably be called New) Europe.  If, as seems increasingly likely, one or more nations leave the Eurozone, then where Oh! where does that leave us who remain?  Probably doffing our caps to German fiscal policies, that's where!

There is no doubt that Europe must change and whatsmore, change quickly if it is survive in any workable way.  Leaving the Euro was always in the past an impossibility until the events of the past few months caused a fundamental turnaround in the minds of those in Brussels.  But it's no good now saying that Greece should never have been allowed in.  They were and now we have to lump it.  The same with those countries who agreed to (voluntarily) join the Euro.  Perhaps the big mistake was tying the Euro to pre-Euro exchange rates of the German Mark.  Nations such as Greece and Italy should not have been allowed to enter the single currency until they had sorted out their own economies as well.  As it was they were allowed to adopt the Euro despite being heavily debt-ridden, a situation that has now developed into a complete disaster.  Qualification for the Euro was always fractious and changeable where it should have been strict and rigid.  So desperate were we to embrace our 'neighbours' that no-one ever dreamed it might all backfire.  Oh!  for a time machine!

"We are witnessing fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order that have convinced me that Europe needs to advance now together or risk fragmentation. Europe must either transform itself or it will decline. We are in a defining moment where we either unite or face irrelevance," said José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commision said on Wednesday.

A defining moment indeed.  Italy is now the big concern with many shouting above the endles din that it is too big to bailout!  Europe's third largest economy cannot be allowed to sink and yet it cannot be bailed.  What's the answer?  Print bonds, my little Italian Presidente!  Print bonds!   That no-one will buy and are illegal anyway, not that illegality is something that has ever worried Belusbalony thus far!  And why print bonds?  Because, if Italy is too big bailout and yet it cannot be allowed to sink because it would surely drag the rest of Europe under the waves, printing bonds (or money) seems to be the only possible route out of the path of the on-rushing tsumani.

Quite rightly now, the Euro bosses are now getting more involved in national politics (witness the demise of both Papandreou and now Berlesconi) .  Another thing that Brussels was never supposed to do.  But retractions, back steps, sidesteps and reneging on previous promises is just political expediency these days.  Make no mistake.  Things are desperate and they are only going to get worse.  And yet some still to believe that the Euro can survive.  'Charlemagne' at the Economist says we Europeans are now family (http://www.economist.com/node/21538204) and all that is happening is a family row!!!  I don't know where he lives but it is definitely not anywhere close to me! 

On the contrary in fact.  I think that if the crisis deepens, as every predictor says it will in the early part of next year, and if we do see the loss of perhaps Greece, maybe Italy, possibly even Spain from the Euro, not only would the Eurozone 'family' be shrunken down, I think that in those dispossessed and debt-ridden countries we could well witness a return to strong nationalist fervour that could easily spread and engulf countries that are, and will remain, financially on their knees for the foreseeable future.

Even as the shadow of imminent disaster slowly envelops us all in Europe I cannot help but make comparisons with what has come before.  After WW1 Germany was a country in name only.  It had massive unemployment, low, if not non-existant national pride, an infrastructure that had been decimated after years of conflict and yet, within 25 years it had risen to become the most powerful nation in Europe.  We all know what followed.

Hitler rose to power on the back of nationalist fervour the like of which has probably never been seen before or since.  He roused the pride in Germans.  Made them proud to be German again and the German people adored him for this (nothwithstanding his later war-mongering and megalomania).  In pre-War Germany Hitlar was a hero.  A visionary who gave Germany back to the Germans and got them working again.

Today, with the Eurozone's policies of open-door immigration we have all witnessed the floods of people from the poorer European nations to the richer ones.  That these people should be entitled to make a good living, I think is a universal human prerogative.  Problems have arisen though, as we all know, in limiting the numbers of immigrants.  In the UK this became a huge problem a few years ago and it is still not resolved.  I'm not sure it ever could be solved now.  The UK is too multi-national, too cosmopolitan these days.  And certainly in the UK it has led many, (myself included) born and bred in the British Isles, to wonder where our Britishness has gone.  Today in the UK it is a widely vaunted sin to be proud of being British.  Those with national pride are viewed as low-browed Neanderthals who need to be cleansed of the sin of patriotism.  And what's more patriotism always seems to be equated with racism.  Admittedly, in some cases this may be true.  But for me, to be a patriot is not to be racist.  They are quite clearly, NOT one and the same thing.  For me, in the UK today, there is no British culture anymore.  True Brits have become so scared to stand up for their Britishness that it is now all but gone.  'PC' politics and the need to respect another's culture have been taken to ridiculous extremes and resulted in a watering down of your average Brit until our culture is harder to find than than a thin man in Mississippi!  In London today every culture is represented except British.  We, as a cultural force, do not exist anymore.

But not so elsewhere in Europe.  And (in Spain at least) there is much talk of reversing the open-door policy and getting rid of all the unwelcome additions.  In Spain we have elections in the next few days and, even though, the parties are all pretty much of the same monotone grey, there has been a definite move towards a more socialist ideal.  Vive Franco!!!  The Spanish want Spain for the Spanish and it seems the clamour for a man who can deliver this is growing proportionately as the crisis deepens.  And if that is happening here, where most people are fairly moderate and open-minded, then what must it be like in Greece?  Or in Italy?  Or even in Germany, where they can see all their hard-work being squandered by the tinpot, partying politicians (i.e. Berlusbalony!) of broke and breaking Euro-allies?  In France, a country with a strong socialist base, there are many calling for a complete rout of the country to kick out the 'legal' invaders and to return the country to it's people.

For me a rise in nationalism in those nations worse-affected is inevitable should this crisis continue to deepen and whilst I seriously doubt that it would end up in WW3 I do think that the protectionist policies that would follow such a rise would result in a rise in patriotism, much racial discalm and would eventually lead to violent conflict somewhere down the line. 

The last time the whole world was in global financial meltdown was following the Wall Street crash of 1927 and the debilitating depression of the 1930's.  And what got the world out of depression was of course a global conflict.  It is a very different world now to that before WW2, but the parallels are there for all to see.  Now we just wait, watch and hope that things improve before such extremisms can develop.