Owen Tudor
Sunday’s elections in France, Germany and Greece (Presidential, regional and Parliamentary respectively) are being pored over to determine what they mean for the future of the European economy (as well as European democracy itself): interestingly, the much clearer anti-austerity messages from the UK’s local elections aren’t being seen in that light at all, perhaps further evidence of the UK’s distance from the rest of Europe. Learning from Mitterand’s victories in the 1980s, socialism in one country is unlikely to be tried in France, and Hollande (the ‘other Francois’?) has few allies for his upcoming stoush with German Chancellor Merkel. And whilst the Greeks voted in the main for parties opposed to the outgoing Government’s austerity deal with the troika, parliamentary arithmetic makes it likely that a New Democracy-Pasok coalition is likely to return to power one way or another. The Schelswig-Holstein elections in Germany, meanwhile, offer even less clarity, with the main change being the replacement of the left wing Die Linke by the libertarian Pirate Party.
So what has voting achieved over the weekend? Well, the voters have sent a fairly clear message in Britain, France and Greece that they are not at all happy about austerity (and even in Germany, that case can be made, but more weakly). It’s not yet clear whether that message will be heeded in Berlin, Brussels or Frankfurt (home of the European Central Bank).
Judith Kirton-Darling
