How the world sees Greece
ATHENS, Jan. 31 (Xinhua)-- Under the burden of 200 million euro (215.09 million US dollars) debts to banks, one of the largest press groups with a long history in the Greek media landscape, Lambrakis Press Group (DOL), has changed hands, outgoing managers ...
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Case in point: director Chad Stahelski says it will take the elements of GREEK folklore that appeared in the first film - gold coins for Charon the ...
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The Holy Mother of God Greek Orthodox Church hosted the Greek festival on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3. The festival was held on the grounds of the church. The festival presented some of the finest food and culture. This is something that has been going on for more ...
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When he moved to Idaho two years ago, George Tarlas came as a basketball player. The member of Greece’s U-16 national team soon realized the high school basketball season is only four months long in the U.S., so he joined the Caldwell High football team ...
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GREECE has the highest unemployment rate in the Eurozone according to data published by Eurostat on Tuesday. Although the Eurozone average for ...
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This is expected to become a great year for those involved in the lemon sector in GREECE, as the prices paid to producers in recent days have ...
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Alpha Bank said on Monday that it had reached a deal to sell its wholly owned subsidiary Alpha Bank Srbija to Serbia's MK Group, which is involved in ...
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As increasing numbers of refugees choose to the eastern Mediterranean route into the EU, via Turkey and GREECE, the numbers of asylum holders ...
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The Victors Gymnastics of GREECE men's team recently competed in the ... Liam Brick, of GREECE, placed third on still rings in the Level 5, Ages 6-8 ...
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It appears that there are efforts to reactivate the Kardak (Imia) issue between Turkey and GREECE… Will, like the 1996 case, the islets bring the two ...
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Archaeologist Shelley Stone to Lecture at UNC Asheville on Feb. 16: Morgantina in Sicily and Studying Ceramics at a Large Archaeological Site Archaeologist Shelley Stone, who has been part of the excavations at the Morgantina site in Sicily for 40 years ...
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… % (-3bp) Italy: 2.26% (-7bp) Greece: 7.82% (+21bp) Portugal: 4 … session, the yield on two-year Greek government debt was up by …
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“We have good and bad news for Greece. The good news is that we add four new routes from Athens airport in winter 2017. Unfortunately, Ryanair will make a reduction of Athens traffic by 22% for the winter 2017,” the Commercial director of low cost airline, David O’ Brien, told […]
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The heavy atmosphere on the GREEK bond market was severely aggravated on Tuesday not only by the German Finance Ministry's statement in favor ...
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If Prince Harry decides to pop the question to his girlfriend Meghan Markle, the royal won't have to worry about the actress throwing a wild bachelorette party. Before it was revealed that the two were dating, the 35-year-old Suits star penned a blog ...
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When we talk about old civilizations, the first name that comes to our mind is ancient Greeks. In two of his most popular novels Gates of Fire and Tides of War, Steven Pressfield takes you back in time but more importantly, highlights traits such as ...
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Greece’s creditors are ready to make a proposal for austerity measures along with debt relief measures in order to close the second review of the bailout program. According to European officials, creditors will send a letter to Athens asking for specific ...
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On Saturday Leslie Meral Schick ducked underneath the walls of an ancient Greek castle to visit the desolate cavern where 11 Algerian refugees take turns warming by an open fire. The Algerians live in tents on a beach on Chios, a Greek island where many ...
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Corruption in Greece has not increased “but is only now being uncovered,” the General Secretariat for Combating Corruption said in an announcement on Tuesday, responding to press reports. He also pointed out that Transparency International’s annual ...
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The Greek economy remains in recession while figures for the rest of the euro zone have taken a positive turn with growth on the horizon, as new Eurostat data released on Tuesday show. Unemployment is at its lowest in eight years across the 19 euro zone ...
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GREEK Wine Dinner: Tuesday, February 7, 6:30-9 p.m., Cork Wine Bar & Market, Stowe. $55 plus tax and gratuity; reservations recommended. corkvt.
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Minster of Digital Policy, Media and Telecommunications Nikos Pappas admitted on Tuesday that some of the sarcastic comments posted on social ...
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“Greece can be the coordinator of actions to form all kinds of networks that will take advantage of the geographical advantage of this region”, stated Deputy Minister of Economy and Development Stergios Pitsiorlas in an interview he gave IBNA. Pitsiorlas underlined the fact that “Greece is the third largest power in terms of investment in […]
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Greece’s announcement that it will create its own space program was greeted by a storm on social media Tuesday. The hashtag #Greek_NASA was one of the top trends on Twitter in Greece following the government’s online announcement Monday night that ...
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Tourists from Germany, Russia and the UK have already made plans to visit Greece this summer pushing the number of pre-bookings into positive territory and offering sector professionals a glimpse of what’s in store for 2017. Vacationers from the US are ...
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The border post at Evzoni (Greek-Fyrom borders) remains closed from 4:30 p.m. on Monday. Protesting farmers have blocked Idomeni interchange, 200 meters away from the borders with Fyrom. “If police do not prevent the additional forces that we expect to arrive, we will open one direction of Thessaloniki-Evzoni motorway as an act of goodwill,” said […]
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The well-known Greek bookstore located in Dulwich Hill offering authentic imported books from Greece is calling it a day after 5 years of running on a voluntary basis. It is a sad event for many, as the shop was the only cultural meeting place for the ...
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Allow the Momondo search to complete, then proceed to book with the OTA of your choice: Please note, all the information on this page is accurate at the time of publication. If you are viewing this deal at a later date, the price and availability may no ...
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CHICOPEE, Mass. (Mass Appeal) Quinoa……is it a rice, is it a pasta, is it healthy??? We're learning about quinoa with Personal Chef Bill Collins from ...
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The Greek film The Lobster directed by Yorgos Lanthimos earned a nod in one of the major categories. The film is in the running for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
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Europe's economic recovery is gathering speed, with growth up, inflation spiking sharply higher and unemployment at its lowest in nearly eight years, official figures showed Tuesday.
In
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A migrant walks after receiving food during snowfall at the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, on January 9, 2017Getty A string of four deaths in one week at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos has sparked concern about the conditions in ...
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Viewsnight is BBC Newsnight's new place for ideas and opinion. Here Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister, argues for a universal basic income.
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras used a visit to Belgrade on Tuesday to say Athens would not change its stance on recognizing the independence of Kosovo, a former Serbian province. Tsipras's remarks came during a two-day visit to the Serbian capital.
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The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) issued a clarification on a report published in Reuters on Tuesday, in which Director General Klaus Regling ...
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The Hispania Graeca merchant vessel rescued four shipwrecked fishermen off the south coast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines last week, after a ...
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… in the Aegean Sea The Greek website e-amyna.com has released …
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… Commission wants to work with Greek authorities for a conclusion of … issue. He also noted that Greece was "a source of … solutions and a "reformed Greece with growth and jobs.…
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… Turkey, citing sources saying two Greek boats entered Turkish waters in … a tense few days between Greece and Turkey. According to Turkish … faceoff. This came days after Greece refused to hand over Turkish …
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New Rochelle's Tzatziki Grill puts twists on Greek fare Chef and co-owner Billy Kokoronis has been serving his takes on classic Greek dishes since May. Check out this story on lohud.com: http://lohud.us/2jRTHxf
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[Difficult living conditions at the Moria camp (pictured) on the Greek island of Lesbos have prompted authorities to relocate migrants, many of whom sleep in poorly heated single-person tents]Greek authorities on Tuesday relocated dozens of migrants from a congested camp on the island of Lesbos following three deaths attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
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Fresh off a hearty tour and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, the Steve Miller Band announced its tour schedule for 2017, which includes stops at Pacific Amphitheatre (100 Fair Drive) in Costa Mesa on Aug. 9 and the Greek Theatre ...
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The Moscow-based manager expects the profitability for GREEK banks to improve in 2017. Greece is still in talks with its creditors about the country's ...
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You know me. Though I hate this in myself, I can't help but admit I'm a bit lazy. That's the main reason I absolutely love my slow cooker. I especially ...
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Freezing and "inhumane" conditions on GREEK island migrant camps have been blamed on the EU's attempts to stem the flow of migrants crossing ...
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_Desperate decisions on the road to refuge left a young Afghan mother disabled, bereaved and stranded. Her story illustrates the appalling risks Afghan refugees are taking in the face of rising European asylum rejections and deportations._ When Fatima Bakhshi awoke, her first thought was for her children. She did not know where she was, where her two boys were, or what had happened to her mother. Then she realized she could not feel her legs. It would be days before she could emerge from the haze of painkillers to recall the final frantic moments before the crash, which occurred in Serbia. The 29-year-old from Kabul had been crammed with another 14 people into a Volkswagen Passat with its back seat ripped out. Fatima had been crouching with her mother Nadia behind her, and her boys were on their grandmother’s lap. In broken English, Fatima had pleaded with the driver to slow down as the vehicle began to veer between lanes at high speed. She remembered panicked shouting inside the car, and then nothing. When she regained consciousness, Fatima found herself in a hospital bed in the Serbian city of Niš. An English-speaking doctor told her that after complications and an infection following an initial surgery, her legs had to be amputated above the knee. For now, Fatima’s desperate attempt to get herself and her family away from Afghanistan has come to a brutal halt in Niš, the city closest to the fatal crash that occurred when the smuggler, fearing interception by the police, veered off the road into a barrier. The collision occurred on December 28, and Fatima spent days without news of her children and mother, as the authorities initially had no way of establishing the identity of the survivors. Two adults and one child had died, but the driver from the smuggling gang was nowhere to be found. After an agonizing wait, she discovered that her two sons, Ahmed, 4, and Shohaib, 9, had survived the wreck with broken bones, cuts and bruises, and were being treated in a different facility. Her 59-year-old mother, Nadia, had not survived. Known to friends as Naji, Fatima did not take the decision to leave Kabul and travel to Europe lightly. It was done with the support of her mother, who had watched Fatima suffer at the hands of both her father and an abusive husband. Fatima’s father, Nadia’s husband, was an “oppressive and violent man,” she would later confide to friends in Greece. Of Fatima’s two sisters, one migrated to Germany while the other committed suicide in Afghanistan some years ago by pouring gasoline over herself and setting herself alight. Fatima’s husband proved to be violent, and the pair eventually divorced in 2015 after he began to use heroin. Even after the separation, the man’s family continued to harass and threaten her, prompting their decision to flee the Afghan capital. After an ordeal experienced by hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants, the four members of the Bakhshi family reached Europe via a rubber dinghy, landing on the Greek island of Lesbos in March 2016. Their arrival came after the closure of Greece’s northern borders. Fatima and her family found themselves in limbo in the Athens refugee camp of Elaionas. It was in Athens that the Bakhshis became involved with the Melissa Network, which supports refugee and migrant women. “Fatima taught herself English during her journey, over the period of the past nine months, something she takes great pride in,” said Nadina Christopoulou, the head of Melissa, who is marshaling efforts to help Fatima in Serbia. “This was appreciated by all our members, who saw the resilience and determination of these women to create a better life for themselves and the little children.” Their late arrival in Greece, after more than 1 million refugees and migrants transited the country in 2015, left the Bakhshi family facing an asylum lottery in which Afghans are increasingly the losers. Throughout Europe the rate of recognition for asylum claims for Afghans has been plunging faster than for any other nationality. Where Germany recognized 72 percent of asylum claims from Afghans in 2015, a year later that rate dropped to 56 percent. In Norway, the rate plummeted over the same time period from 82 percent to 30 percent. In Greece, where Fatima applied, recognition dropped from 61 percent to 49 percent last year. The family had strong reasons to fear rejection and deportation. It was with this in mind that Fatima and Nadia took the fateful decision to skip Elaionas after their neighbors at the camp told them they had decided to use smugglers to continue their journey. The mother and daughter quickly packed the essential items, giving the rest to friends in the camp. For the cost of a little over $3,000, they were told they would be smuggled out of Greece and driven across FYROM and Serbia into Hungary. Their eventual destination was in Ireland with Nadia’s two brothers, Farooq and Zakhrie Bakhshi. Farooq heard reports of Afghans being killed in a crash in Serbia, but had no idea his relatives had left Greece. When he got a call from a doctor in Serbia, he began to look for his loved ones and some answers there. Farooq, an engineer, arrived in Niš at midnight on January 3, after boarding a bus from Belgrade. With no idea where Fatima was and finding no English speakers, Farooq was forced to speak the little Russian he still knew from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to try and communicate. By the time he found Fatima’s doctor, Zoran Radovanovic, at the Niš Clinical Center, another half day had passed. “I asked her what had happened but it took two or three days for her to be able to explain,” said Farooq. “I told her not to worry about anything, now with technology we can make anything. We can make legs.” Farooq, who has since returned to Ireland, also tracked down Ahmed and Shohaib. They had only been able to speak to their mother by phone and were in deep shock. Ahmed had a broken arm and leg and was still in considerable pain. “They told me that everything went dark and they didn’t know what happened. They thought they had gone to another world.” The two uncles are now determined to reunite the family in Ireland. It is unlikely to be simple. Afghan refugees from Germany, Sweden and elsewhere in Europe are facing deportation in increasing numbers, while those in Pakistan and Iran are being coerced by the hundreds of thousands to return to a country still at war. Last year was the deadliest in Afghanistan since 2001. Some 620,000 people were forced to flee their homes inside its borders. The Bakhshi brothers are only too familiar with war. Zekhrie was threatened by the Taliban following his work as a fixer with the BBCjournalist John Simpson. Dr. Zak, as he is known, worked as a translator on a number of high-profile stories including the Afghan girl photo by Steve McCurry. After being given refuge in Ireland, he completed his medical studies at Trinity College Dublin. He now practices medicine and is ready and willing to sponsor his niece and grandnephews if Irish authorities will let him. “My heart is crying now that we didn’t do enough to prevent this,” said Zekhrie. “We knew what was happening, they were running away from brutality and war. We wanted them to get here and be with us, and had faith that they were safe under U.N. protection in Greece, and that through them we would eventually reunite.” _This article originally appeared on Refugees Deeply. For weekly updates and analysis about refugee issues, you can sign up to the Refugees Deeply email list._ -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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Greece’s most prominent neo-Nazi movement says it has found a new surge in support following Donald Trump’s election as US President, and that his ban on travellers from some Muslim-majority countries “validates” the group’s far-right views.
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Greece is in 69th position in the countries in connection speeds is available for 2016 with average 6.9Mbps (actual). In the first place South Korea which, together with Hong Kong and Norway are the three areas of the planet, whose inhabitants are ...
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John Keane, _University of Sydney_ The writer-political thinker Albert Camus once commented that the true source of strength of modern Europe has been its ability to live on its contradictions, flourish amid its differences and, under pressure, to reinvent itself as "a civilisation on which the whole world depends even when rejecting it". The remark was anti-fascist, a sharp knife designed to cut through fantasies of European unification, by ideology or military force. It expressed equal contempt for the violence of European colonialism, which Camus knew well from his native Algeria, and for all forms of nationalism. "I love my country too much to be a nationalist" was his shorthand formula for casting doubt on the nationalist fetish of borders, nation state jurisdictions and pompous talk of the "essence" and "purity" of nations and national identity. A generation later, this whole democratic way of thinking about a post-nationalist and diverse Europe is besieged by an assortment of menacing trends, Claus Offe explains over lunch during my recent visit to Berlin. A sage septuagenarian with a gift for no-nonsense political analysis, Offe is among Europe's best-known public intellectuals. He specialises in straight talk. So I begin by asking him to summarise what's going on in Europe. Claus Offe/Author provided "Our times resemble the 1920s", he replies. "We're witnessing the accumulation of various crises that are rapidly putting the whole European project under tremendous pressure. Illiberal forces are on the rise. Middle classes are shrinking. There's populist hatred of 'the establishment' and fascination with strong leaders. Europe is suffering multi-morbidity. Our problems, and the promises that are being broken, are now far greater than anything money could possibly buy, even if large sums of EU transfer funds were suddenly made available, and spent wisely, in a spirit of solidarity." ECONOMIC STAGNATION An obvious source of the present European malaise is economic stagnation, which has now lasted nearly a decade. Offe recalls the work of the American economist Robert Gordon, who's shown that in the history of modern capitalism, the median economic growth is less than 1% per annum, and who calculates that in the face of "headwinds", such as a rapidly ageing population, soaring inequality and festering social ills, a new round of innovation-driven growth is highly improbable. "Europe's economic problems aren't over", Offe tells me. "Stagnation is combined with rising household, investor and public sector debt. Italy has an unstable banking system. Income and wealth inequality gaps are still widening. Product and process innovations that favour both labour and capital are in short supply. Unemployment stops millions of people from servicing their debts. And there's a worrying new statistical category: young Europeans who are classified as NEET because they are 'not in education, employment or training'." Europe's macroeconomic situation has left a whole generation of young people who, not in employment, education or training (NEET), are struggling to get a foot on the ladder of life. It's said that bad luck comes in big bundles. Europeans are feeling the pinch of the proverb in this unfolding set of crises, he says. The social injustices and destabilising effects of a stagnant economy are one thing. There's also the Putin factor. The military assertiveness of the Russian regime is spreading fear and division among the people of Poland and the Baltic states. It's also undermined the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood Policy. "The Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine is destabilising the Ukraine state and producing military and international law conflicts that we've not seen, apart from the post-Yugoslav wars, since the end of World War Two." The Putin factor is spreading fear and division in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Sasha Maksymenko/flicker Russian aggression compounds the swelling uncertainty and failure in other policy areas, Offe continues. It's as if there's a conspiracy of trends determined to bring ill fortune to Europe. He gives another example: the unhappy coincidence of sluggish growth and high unemployment with the escalating refugee crisis. The combination is proving to be "a real godsend for the populist right in Europe". REFUGEE CRISIS AND POPULIST TROUBLE Populist movements and parties, he says, are trying to stir up public trouble by stringing together the problems of stagnation, refugees and threats of terrorism into a single story. He's adamant that their simple-minded story-telling must be resisted. In this worsening European crisis, in matters of intellect and politics, recognising the complexities of the multiple dynamics really matters. Offe underscores the point by noting that Europe's entanglement in the ongoing wars in Libya, Iraq and Syria, in its neighbouring regions, is among these multiple dynamics. Europe is at war. It's been drawn into the devilish "confrontation between the two regional powers of Iran and Saudi Arabia" and the military rivalries of Russia, Turkey, and the USA, "each with its own and openly conflicting military agenda". The spread of IS-inspired jihadist "suicide missions and random killings of civilians" is another matter. He tells me that some acts of violence, including the December attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, are products of "administrative and police failure". Contrary to the populists, most acts of violence are "home-grown", he insists. "This violence has little or nothing directly to do with refugees. The discomforting truth is that the big majority of known attackers are citizens, and often natives, of EU member states, often with family roots in the Middle East and North African region." The trouble for Europe is that the in-flow of refugees "is not going to end any time soon", he emphasises. It's not just that "human beings are a migratory species" or that "building fences on salt water is for technical reasons impossible". The policies of the European Union are in disarray. Its governing capacity is weak. The Dublin agreement, which placed the responsibility of settling refugees on the states where they first arrived in Europe, was defeated by wall builders in Hungary, Slovenia, Macedonia and other states. The European Home Affairs Ministers agreement (in September 2015) to allocate at least 120,000 stateless peoples throughout the EU was stillborn; more than a year later, figures from the European commission show that only 8,162 people have found a permanent home. The Schengen Agreement, an open-border arrangement that enables passport-free movement of citizens across most of the EU bloc, an arrangement that was among the "most effective and popular accomplishments of European integration", is crumbling. Europe must come to terms with the reality of the long-term in-flow of refugees. European Commission DG ECHO/flickr The EU-Turkey deal, signed in March 2016, is not working either, and probably can't be made to work. Refugees continue to arrive in large numbers in Greece and Italy, where they face appalling living conditions; the promised funding of several billion euros hasn't yet been provided to the satisfaction of Turkey, which is hardly a "safe third country". Yet more refugees from the war zones are surely on their way, Offe says, driven from their homes by uncivil wars, food shortages and climate change. "People aren't frivolously leaving their home country. They leave because their situations are intolerable, and because Europe is an attractive safe haven. Syria's just the tip of the iceberg. Waves of Kurdish refugees may be next." With more than 1.3 million Syrians now believed to be trapped by the al-Assad government's "surrender or die" tactics in Idlib and at least 40 other besieged communities across the country, Offe's assessment hardly seems exaggerated. With an additional 1.1 million Syrians facing the threat of siege, Frauke Petry of Germany's _Alternative für Deutschland_ (AfD), Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage and other populist xenophobes are rubbing their hands together in glee. Offe detests their tactics, and their thinking. It's not just that "Europe's political elites still haven't understood that the gates of 'fortress Europe' can't be fully closed", or that most European governments are callously flouting humanitarian norms. The framing of refugees as foreigners who don't belong in a Europe that is supposedly "full" simply doesn't make sense, Offe says. "If all the refugees who've so far arrived had been settled fairly in the member states, then the share of refugees in each country would be less than 1% of their total population." That's hardly "an unbearable economic burden". Offe is quick to point out as well that populists are normally silent about the mounting costs of wall building, border protection and potentially lost trade. He cites a recent European Commission report that notes that lost business, steeper freight and commuter costs, interruptions to supply chains, and government outlays for tighter border policing will probably cost the whole European economy at least 18 billion euros each year. Syrian refugees strike at the platform of Budapest Keleti railway station in September 2015. Mstyslav Chernov/Wikipedia Commons Populists, he notes, are equally silent about the long-term economic benefits of migration. When refugees are seen in terms of labour markets, a subject he's studied and written about for nearly half a century, the new arrivals are on balance long-term assets. "I don't underestimate the challenges of integration. It will take a generation. Many refugees are burdened by bad memories of terrible atrocities. More than half come equipped with only elementary school qualifications. But Syrian medical doctors and many other refugees are unpaid-for human capital. Through time, they're going to fill the demographic and labour-market gaps of rapidly ageing European societies". THE GERMAN BURDEN The galling fact is that Germany, home to more than a million refugees, has been forced disproportionately to bear the costs of the catastrophes suffered by people from war-ravaged countries. Data collected and analysed by the Pew Research Centre and Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, show that Germany gave refuge to more than 1.1 million people in 2015, the highest annual number received by a European country during the past 30 years. The year 2016 saw another 300,000 people arrive in Germany. So our conversation shifts to Angela Merkel, and her impending political fate. For someone whose leftist sympathies run deep, Offe's empathy with her migration policies is surprising. On this issue, he's clearly on her side. He's scathing about Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders (who in response to the Berlin attack tweeted a provocative photo of Angela Merkel, with blood on her hands) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his dismissal of the refugee issue as a "German problem" and Chancellor Merkel's policy as "moral imperialism". > Offe makes a prediction that doubles as a warning: the refusal of the majority of European member states to bear their fair share of the burden is going to affect them, too. His warning has a sting in its tail. This time around, he says, pausing, Angela Merkel miscalculated the degree of member state support for burden sharing. But Germany's leadership in the refugee crisis "unwittingly shows that when Brussels fails to deliver effective policies Berlin and Germany's leadership can't substitute for the European Union". But what about those loud voices, within Germany's AfD and elsewhere, who are saying that heavy intakes of mainly Muslim refugees are threatening European civilisation? Offe grows visibly irritated. "That's the battle cry of the populists: all these 'foreigners' make 'us' feel like 'foreigners in our own country'". The odd thing, he notes, is that "ethno-nationalist and xenophobic passions" are weakest in the very countries (Italy and Greece) that for geographic reasons are being forced to bear the costs of wave after wave of refugees. The pattern throughout Europe, he says, is that Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry are strongest where there are fewest refugees. He gives the point a sharp twist: "It's the demagogue populists and their supporters who are most urgently in need of being 'integrated' into societies that are ever more diverse." "France, and its citizens, are no longer safe." BREXIT AND EUROPEAN DISINTEGRATION Our short time together is ending, so I press Claus Offe to say a few words about Brexit, and the dangers posed to the EU by potentially ruinous state rivalries. Offe admits he's worried about new fractious fissures that are developing, for instance between Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, "the loser countries of the Euro and debt crisis", and the rest of the EU. The disagreements over refugee policy between Brussels and the Visegrad ("V4") countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) are similarly ominous, he agrees. But he reserves his full exasperation for the Brexit drama: the events triggered by the decision of UK voters (actually only 37.5% of them to leave the EU. The historic vote to break away from the European Union is plunging the UK into political uncertainty. The wise public intellectual suddenly reveals his upset about the political damage that's being done to Europe by the Brexit decision. "Let's imagine we're living in a house with others", he begins, "and a resident proposed a vote on whether or not we should continue staying in the house. We'd naturally expect a discussion of alternative housing arrangements before the vote was taken. We'd need to know where we're moving. Incredibly, that didn't happen prior to the UK referendum." Offe rounds on the "fear-driven, truth-doesn't-matter propaganda" of the Brexit campaign. His harshest words are reserved for the motives and miscalculations of David Cameron. The UK referendum "was the political equivalent of what's known in penal law as 'criminal negligence'" led by a Prime Minister "trying to stem the tide of nationalist populism", says Offe. "How could he so recklessly force a whole country to play Russian roulette against itself?" I remind Offe that Cameron's been punished politically for his foolishness; after all, he was forced to resign, in disgrace. "Yes," says Offe, invoking Winston Churchill's biting quip, "but the trouble with committing political suicide is that you live to regret it." Then follows a remark about suicide: "Suicide requires courage, but in this case the decision to hold a referendum was driven by cowardice." Cowardice, I ask? "The cowardice of a governing elite that shirked its political responsibilities as representatives of the public good", he replies. "And the cowardice of voters not held accountable for such a momentous and complex decision that will surely inflict massive economic burdens and long-lasting political disadvantages upon the whole British population". David Cameron with Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council in February 2016. European Council President/flickr The whole saga "stinks on ice", Offe says. Not only does it raise such practical questions as what will be the fate of the two million European citizens currently working in the UK, or who will pay the pensions of British citizens currently employed at the European Commission, Brexit is compounding public anxieties about the future. Flights of capital from the country have begun. And Brexit exposes the deadly dangers of using a referendum to handle complex and consequential matters. "Parliaments use safety procedures, such as several readings of bills, confidence votes and super-majority requirements," he says. "In this Brexit business, such procedures were entirely absent at Westminster." Now that the UK Supreme Court has ruled (by an 8-3 majority) that Theresa May's government must win the support of both houses of parliament before triggering Article 50, new battles are bound to happen. The Scottish National Party will undoubtedly seek substantial amendments to the proposed legislation; the Liberal Democrats will likely vote against Article 50 unless there's a guarantee of another referendum on the final deal reached between the UK and the EU. How the Lords will react is unclear. Populists are of course wetting themselves with excitement. "Now Parliament must deliver will of the people - we will trigger A50 by end of March. Forward we go!", tweeted Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. > A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE But in which direction? And with what results? Whatever transpires, we agree that the whole messy Brexit process is spreading anxiety throughout the whole of the EU, so I put my farewell question to Offe. When measured in terms of media coverage and public commentary, paradoxically, European integration is deepening, I say. Not since World War II has the subject of Europe gripped the hearts and minds of so many millions of people. Yet most things otherwise look rather bleak, as in the 1920s; the menace of European disintegration is getting the upper hand, isn't it? How long will it be before Europe becomes a burden to the rest of the world, I ask? Can Europe, as Camus had hoped, once again prove it's capable of finding energy in its contradictions and differences and, under pressure, reinvent itself as a place the whole world respects? Claus Offe surprises me with his ebullience, or what he calls his "cautious realism". Europe may be on its knees, he says, but it's not down and out. "Those who draw analogies between the 1930s and our times are mistaken," he says. "Yes, our present troubles bear some resemblance to the economic disruption and political disaffection of the 1920s. But there are no Führers waiting in the wings. There's widespread public commitment to democracy. Even fringe neo-fascist parties like Germany's NPD (National demokratische Partei Deutschlands] are forced to camouflage their doubts about democracy." "And the setbacks of the moment are but the flipside of eclipsed hopes", he says. "Neo-liberal globalisation has momentarily triumphed over a robust welfare state. It's fashionable to ignore the economic benefits of integration and to think that tightened national borders are a bulwark of security. But I'm convinced none of this can replace the hope for an integrated Europe that provides for the security and prosperity of its citizens in ways that disjointed nation states can't any longer do." Europe must not be lost. Pete Lambert/flickr I ask him what he has in mind. "There's only one viable general alternative", he replies. "The banks and states have been bailed out. Now it's time to rescue workers, the unemployed, young people, pensioners and other citizens who've been most severely hurt by financial crisis and stagnation. Money's cheaper than ever, austerity has failed." He pauses, for effect. "So imagine the founding of a new Ministry for Social Affairs and Social Security in Brussels that pays each member state 50% of the unemployment insurance and retraining costs they currently bear. Then imagine a multi-billion euro infrastructure investment programme in such fields as communications, transportation and energy, backed by a strengthened European Parliament and a Commission-led government of a federal Europe. Such initiatives would undoubtedly increase public support for European integration. They would encourage citizens to feel that Europe mustn't be lost, that it's possible to move forwards, towards a system of transnational social security and representative democracy never before tried anywhere else on our planet." ------------------------- _Born in Berlin in 1940, Claus Offe has published widely and researched and taught at many institutions throughout the world. He was most recently Professor of Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin (2006 - 2012). Among his best-known recent books are Reflections on America: Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in the United States (2005), Europe Entrapped (2015) and (with Ulrich Preuss) Citizens in Europe (2016)._ _This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century._ [The Conversation] John Keane, Professor of Politics, _University of Sydney_ This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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