Renzi’s gamble fails
“A week is a long time in politics”, Harold Wilson, British Labour prime minister in the 1960s/70s, memorably said. But last Sunday proved that even a political day can be looooong. It all began so well for pro-EU protagonists when Alexander van der Bellen, a Green, finally won the vote to become Austria’s next federal President, handsomely beating off the challenge of Far Right hope Norbert Hofer in a replay ballot. A few hours later, under the pines of Rome, hope gave way to fear again: Matteo Renzi, Italy’s young premier, once a beacon of hope for that country’s renewal, lost his referendum on proposed constitutional change – and resigned as midnight chimed. After Brexit and Trump, the populists are truly storming democracy’s citadels.
Eurozone/EU finance ministers, meeting in Brussels, were sanguine. “No reason for a eurozone crisis,” soothed Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s ice-cold minister. “No emergency intervention required,” chirped Jeroen Dijsselbloem, his Dutch colleague who chairs the Eurogroup. But, with the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi, encircled by vultures, the political/financial forecast was anything but bland.
Certain defeat didn’t put off Manuel Valls, French premier, from declaring he would run to be the socialist candidate in next year’s presidential elections after the hapless/hopeless Francois Hollande. Marine Le Pen, Front National leader, scoring three times his support in current polls, hailed Renzi’s defeat as adding “a new people to the list of those who would like to turn their backs on absurd European policies which are plunging the continent into poverty.”
Europe as energy leader
The EU constantly talks itself up as first-in-class in fighting climate change and promoting clean, green energy. But the new “transformational” Commission energy package, unveiled on November 30, came under sustained fire this week, with veteran Green MEP Claude Turmes deriding it as a “gift” to coal-producing countries such as Poland. “Pro-renewables governments like Germany are losing out, it makes no sense,” the Luxembourg politician said. Our view is that this package shows that Commissioners who believe that market forces will solve the climate change problem have won out. But, while EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete claims the package will phase out coal subsidies, outsiders say it reopens the door to them for another ten years by allowing coal generated electricity to be subsidised in so-called capacity mechanisms. The UK government is slashing subsidies for renewables and green campaigners say the EU package is doing the same by denying “priority access” for, say, wind power, calling into question its plans for half of electricity to be produced from renewables by 2030. The package at least sets a clear 30% EU target for energy savings by 2030 (up from 27%) and urges new charging points everywhere for electric vehicles but, as usual with EU proposals, they are a compromise between conflicting national interests and will be unpicked from now until 2019 when they’re due to become national law. Except in the UK?
Barnier and a red-white-and-blue Brexit
As eleven UK Supreme Court judges continued their weighty deliberations on triggering Article 50 in the old Middlesex Town Hall on Parliament Square, Theresa May went on HMS Ocean, an amphibious assault ship (sic!), in the Gulf to declare what one wag tweeted as a plan “concealed under a Union Jack tea-towel”. Entering into the same 1940s spirit, Michel Barnier, chief EU negotiator and former internal market commissioner (“scourge of the City”), broke out of a 3-month purdah to give a passable imitation of Captain Mainwaring: “Keep calm and negotiate”. Like ‘The Mousetrap’, this show will run and run – and keep delivering.