Unemployment resulting to a large extent from the austerity drive that has affected most of the EU member states combined with a pronnounced lack of leadership and statesmanship, both in Brussels and most of the member state capitals, have fuelled the rise of extremism in Europe. As a result, the european elections might result in far right extremism entering for the first time in the European Parliament at a very crucial time for Europe, says Marilena Koppa, MEP.
During an interview at New Europe Studios, the Greek MEP, who is also the coordinator of the Socialist Group on defense and security, stressed that “this is the most crucial election because we are faced with the risk to have the most anti-european parliament ever. In most if not in all european countries, extremism is on the rise. It’s something that strong pro-european forces have not managed to tackle up til now”.
As to the causes, she believes that “the economic crisis is at the very very core of this issue. The economic crisis, which in fact was not only an economic crisis, it was a crisis of values, social crisis, moral crisis of Europe and this had as a result, the rise of populism, extremism, and of course of extreme-right phenomenom as Golden Dawn in Greece for example, or Jobic in Hungary”.
She stressed that she mentioned these countries as an example “because they have also the paramilitary component, which is more visible and much more violent”.
For this phenomenon to reach this magnitude there must have been a lack of leadership both in the national governments and in the European Union.
“You’re absolutely right”. Let me start first at the European level. In fact, what most people see in the top posts and top seats in Europe are mostly functionaries and not real leadership. We are far away from the Delors era, where we had people, pro-europeans with a vision. Barroso seems to be an employee of Mrs. Merkel for many Europeans and this of course harms the image of Europe”.
You are representing Greece to the European Parliament. Greece is the country that first got a taste of European solidarity. Greece is the country where we had the most visible rise of extremes during this period, during the period of austerity. Do you believe that there is something wrong in the mix of the policies that were imposed on Greece, or on the way that the Greek governments were implementing these measures?
I think mainly it’s a question of policy. It was a policy of austerity, with finacial debt discipline. Don’t take me wrong. Greece needed discipline. We made a lot of mistakes for many decades in the past. To focus only on austerity without the growth component was a huge mistake.
Greece has lost 25 of it’s GDP. It has an unemployment at about 29 percent, and youth unemployment about 63 percent. 63 percent is a nonviable percentage.
Do you believe that if we had statesmen, if we had serious political forces, the situation will develop in a different way?
You’re right, and you’re coming again to the question of leadership. It’s true. We don’t have true leaders in Europe now and it’s not only the case for Greece but also for other European states because leaders can make compromises, can find ways of consensus. This was not the case for forces in Greece, because in fact what we would have needed in Greece is a broad alliance for the forces, for the salvation of the country. We were not at that point.
Even today’s government, Prime Minister, Mr. Samaras for about 2 years opposed the George Papandreou government on the same issues and then came and implemented the same policy. We’ve lost too much important time. Things could have been better. I don’t say that they could have been ideal, but much more better than the situation. When I say better it’s about people’s lives, it’s about pensions, it’s about salaries, it’s about quality of life and we should all of us have been much more cautious when creating alliance for dealing with the opposition. I think we lost important time in Greece and people are paying this in a very hard way.
Are you afraid we might have a repetition of the situation that led to war and to strife in Europe?
Unemployment is a bomb and in my view the major problem against Europe is not debt, it’s unemployment. This is, you know a bomb at the very structure of Europe. So it’s a first thing that one should address at this point. History does not repeat itself, but there is a great danger of authoritarianism and anger being expressed in ways that we would think belong to the past. Nobody can be sure what will happen. Let us work for more Europe. I think this is the only way to move forward.
Do you consider the level of communication about these elections both from the European Union itself and from the member states to be adequate? Is it convincing especially for the younger people?
No because we don’t explain to them why Europe is an absolute necessity. Why we cannot do without Europe.
The problem is that a very large percentage of the population don’t even remember, don’t even have an image of Europe before the European Union.
That’s true. They have the image of a Europe who punishes through the memoranda, Troikas, etc. etc. The challenge is to change this image and prove that there is a different Europe that is possible. A progressive Europe. A Europe which is more human, which addresses the main issues like unemployment, like growth is possible because the Europe that the majority up to now present to us is a Europe that nobody wants to have anything to do with. There is the possibility to have another Europe. We need leadership. We need a different way of addressing the issues. Most of all we need to take care of our house which is Europe.
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