On a European scale the collateral damage of Sunday’s vote risks being tremendous – with xenophobic populists emerging as the winnersThere can be no winners in Europe when anti-EU populists such as Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage think they can claim a victory, as they did when the results of the Greek referendum came out. That kind of extremist support for the no vote will probably be described as a negligible side-show by those who decided the referendum, but that view may be short-sighted. Of course, xenophobic populism wasn’t what Greeks voted in favour of – they want a break from austerity – but the reality is that, on a European scale, the collateral damage of Sunday’s vote risks being tremendous. When the EU project is seen as a failure because it is unable to produce a compromise, those who scoop up the benefit are those who would like the project to disappear altogether.Europe must now brace itself for more turmoil, and more geopolitical weaknesses, unless cool heads can prevail in Brussels and Athens. It is very uncertain that that will happen. The referendum has strengthened the hand of the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, but it has by no means erased realities, which are that Greece has become bankrupt, that its government remains isolated in Europe (and not only in dealing with northern countries), and that a breakup of the eurozone, as well as a full-on Greek exit from the EU, have become more of a possibility now than ever before. Continue reading...
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