HOW WILL EUROPE'S DISEASE END?

"Collapse", "garbage rating", "sinking of the banking sector", "growing unemployment". These concepts have become part of the lexicon for every European perhaps. This is especially true of Euro-debtors who had lived beyond their means for far too long.

Greece's economic failures were followed by those of Portugal, Italy, Spain and Cyprus. The queue of bail-out seekers is getting longer as Slovenia is likely to become a sixth candidate.

The economic and financial crisis in Europe has been written about quite extensively. But the economic crisis has also led to socio-political and systemic crises. Analyzing the current situation, experts have concluded that the very essence of democratic values and democratic principles is being put to test in Europe, while their decomposition began in their homeland - in Greece.

Motherland and "grave" of democracy? 

Thus, in late October last year, for example, Greek Prime Minister tried to put a possible reduction of budget expenditures to a referendum. The measures included, among other things, the dismissal of some civil servants, reduction of pensions and the introduction of additional taxes. Also, the country's budget was to be under the control of Brussels. Papandreou's suggestion caused a severe reaction from EU leaders and ultimately the Greek government had to resign. After that, bureaucrats in Brussels started joking that the safest way to overcome the crisis in Southern Europe was to bring "technocrats" to power. The coming to power of technocrats in Italy, Greece and Spain suggests that this joke is quite truthful. In essence, it is a threat to representative democracy in which people are recognized as a source of power but state administration is delegated to various representative bodies whose members are elected by citizens. It turns out that the EU can very easily depart from democratic principles.

The situation in Greece represents another turning point in European history. The transparency and openness of financial policies, budgeting and control over its implementation are a major sovereign right of the people of every democratic state. In October 2011, the international and transnational financial groups actually deprived Greece of this right. It can be presented as a general strategy of economic policies. But these decisions must be agreed with the people, rather than be adopted by organizations usually controlled by Nordic countries (for example, the European stability fund).

Greece has recently become a field of confrontation between national sovereignty and global financial institutions in Europe. The unexpected victory of the radical left party SYRIZA in the 6 May election has caused outrage among EU bureaucrats and neo-liberal circles of the European elite. The outrage was so strong that the media, largely controlled by the shipbuilding and construction sectors, presented SYRIZA as a monster that wants to withdraw Greece from the EU and the eurozone. Antonos Samaras, who is considered by many as the political and economic architect of the Greek crisis, has almost been elevated to the rank of the sole savior of the Greek people. Even if SYRIZA was not so much in favor of the idea of leaving the eurozone and the EU as much as it championed the idea of a new Europe, given the 17 June election results we can say that the media got what they wanted. The ruling circles and neo-liberal governments of the European Union also contributed to engaging the European community, and Samaras won partly thanks to the support of the ruling circles of the EU.

After Greece, EU commissioners have been offering the same buoys to other countries affected by the crisis, leaving them with no choice but to accept these proposals and give away part of their sovereignty.

There has been another visible process in Europe of late that is even more dangerous than the economic crisis, the bankruptcy of banks or growing unemployment. It is the deepening radicalization of European society.

The shade of fascism wondering over Europe?

According to the experts on the history of democracy, there is a strong link between economic development, wealth and democratic principles. On the other hand, the rich countries of South-East and South-West Asia may well serve as an example to the contrary. Pundits seem to agree that as a result of deteriorating economic conditions in democratic societies, democratic principles tend to lose weight and value, authoritarian ideas and political projects that offer to radically and quickly solve the needs of society are enhanced. Scientists believe that it is the crisis of 1929 that led to a weakening of democratic ideas in the time of the birth of fascism and became one of the prerequisites for the start of World War II. Economic crises should also be blamed for coups, internal conflict, local wars and political instability of the 1960s.

The Nazi Party, just like many other fascist parties that emerged across Europe after World War I, pursued the ideas of territorial expansionism and economic protectionism, anti-Semitism and attacks on minority rights, violence by paramilitary groups and incendiary rhetoric.

It all seems to be happening again after another economic crisis engulfed Europe at the start of this century.

Neo-fascism switches to other issues and abandons such classical topics as the acquisition of new territories, militarism, anti-Semitism and economic collectivism.

Thus, adapting quite well to many European countries, neo-fascists push these ideas to the backburner. Although they do get relevance for neo-fascists at time, the main points of their political programs are almost always immigration and defense of Christian values as opposed to Islamic ones (as opposed to their ideological inspirers in Germany in the early 20th century who hated the church).

After the fall of the Weimar Republic, the chief ideologist and ally of Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, wrote: "One of the best jokes of democracy will always remain the fact that it has given its sworn enemies the means by which it was destroyed."

Thus, in the early 21st century, the forces that do not share the values of democracy are weakening it, cynically using its rhetoric.

The election results in Europe in recent years confirm the theory of the growing influence of right-wing parties.

As already noted, the Great Depression of the early 20th century and, consequently, the high levels of unemployment spawned many radical ideas within European society. But tough economic conditions do not always trigger nationalism in modern Europe.

While examining the countries where far-right political ideas are enjoying success, we can say that unemployment is not always the cause of radicalization.

One example is Spain. Despite the highest unemployment rate, especially among young people, there are almost no neo-fascist organizations here. Neo-fascist political organizations in Spain are very weak, while in 2011 an absolute majority in general elections was won by two main centrist parties.

Meanwhile in France, in contrast to Spain, the unemployment rate is extremely low - only 10 per cent. Despite this, the extreme right forces receive significant support of the electorate. The popularity of the National Front was quite high even before the current economic crisis. 

The anti-emigration rhetoric accusing the Muslims - whether they are immigrants or not - of all the mortal sins is as strong in Europe as it was during the Crusades. However, the growth of fascist sentiments does not necessarily require the presence of a large mass of immigrants in the country.

Thus, the party "For a Better Hungary" stands for the resettlement of the country's Roma to concentration camps. Ethnic minorities, the party believes, are-to blame  culprits for crime.

This aggression should not be seen as a result of the economic crisis and a high unemployment rate because relative to other countries its level is quite modest - only 11 per cent.

It is also interesting that the bulk of party supporters represent the educated middle class, not the unemployed or poor people.

Thus, the regeneration of neo-Nazism is determined not only by economic and social problems, it may also be associated with the mentality of society whose diseases start to surface under favorable conditions.

A side effect of such processes is that the political rhetoric in Europe is increasingly adjusted to the authoritarian and undemocratic tone. Center-right and at first glance neo-liberal political forces which feel powerless in dealing with economic problems show nationalist and at times even fascist populism in order to identify the culprits and distract people from their everyday problems, while taking away some votes from the far right.

Who needs this? 

All this causes a variety of predictions about the future of the post-crisis Europe. Some analysts believe that the current economic difficulties in Europe could have been foreseen. While printing huge amounts of money that is not supported with real economic resources, it was possible at least to foresee the end of this financial pyramid. It turns out that the crisis is manmade.

After analyzing expert predictions about the possible scenarios of the future of Europe, we can reach some conclusions.

First, the countries hit hard by the crisis are voluntarily giving away the management and control over their budget and financial policies to centralized economic institutions that are controlled by multinational financial institutions. This will lead to the fact that the democratic values and sovereign rights of nations Europe like to talk about so much will be completely destroyed.

Second, under a more dramatic scenario the situation reaches a point in which countries will withdraw from the EU one after another, while radicalization and depression in society will lead to the war of all against all. As a result, in order to avoid chaos, civil war and violence, the Europeans will voluntarily chose the iron form of government from one center. Most likely, this center will be under the control of transnational financial groups. We recall that when building the Third Reich, Hitler, too, often used to talk about the "new world order".

Today only one thing is clear: no matter how the current crisis in Europe will end, Europe will never be the same again.