debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The new Dutch coalition government combines austerity politics with a ‘fair redistribution of pain’ This week, the new Dutch Government was installed, in the presence of Queen Beatrix. The two-party cabinet will consist of the conservative-liberal VVD and centre-left Labour Party (PvdA) – the two winning parties of the September 12th national parliamentary elections. VVD-leader Mark [...]
That there is a crisis of Social Democracy in Europe is not in doubt. The question is whether it is terminal. The symptoms are worrying. In Vienna, home city a century ago to anti-semitic, brownshirt politcs, 27 per cent of voters supported the extremism of the late and unlamented Jorg Haider’s party in the autumn [...]
’It’s the immigration, stupid’. That was in few words my response to the analysis ‘Why Labour lost the elections’. Last week I was in London at the Policy Network launch of Southern Discomfort Again, a smart pamphlet written by Giles Radice and Patrick Diamond explaining the factors why the British Labour party [...]
There is a populist time bomb ticking underneath all postwar political systems. This is very visible in some countries on the European Continent , where populist parties with unprecedented speed move from the margins to the political center. Everywhere new combinations of the center-right aligning with right-wing or radical-right populism pop up. The dominant style [...]
Last Friday, both in Belgium and the Netherlands the cabinet formation process has gone on the rocks. There was a time difference of just one hour. In Belgium, Wallonian Parti Socialiste-politician Elio Di Rupo gave up his task of forming a Belgian cabinet at 17.00 p.m.; in the Netherlands it was Geert Wilders who at [...]
In the Netherlands, like in Belgium, the formation of a new cabinet is underway. In these small, but ultracomplex coalition countries, it takes weeks and weeks to form governments. Cabinet formation is a giant Sudoku puzzle. In the Netherlands, the most rightwing coalition ever in its history is in the making: a combination of conservative [...]
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