By PAUL TAYLOR
PARIS — A kaleidoscope of novel political coalitions are taking shape around Europe as old two-party systems crumble.
These new “odd couple” partnerships — conservative/green; socialist/radical left — offer voters new faces and some promising changes in policy. But they are unlikely to resolve the democratic dilemma driving populism and protest in many countries.
Bringing young parties with fresh ideas into the corridors of power is only part of the change that Europe needs to counter alienation, popular anger and the rise of often ugly identity politics.
Continental politics will continue to fester until policymakers take measures to reverse widening inequality of income and wealth, reinvest in depressed regions and find ways to involve citizens more actively in the political process.
As a rule of thumb, radical parties that compromise to join governments as junior partners tend to be punished at the polls
This month alone, Spain and Austria got new ruling alliances of unaccustomed political bedfellows — an arrangement the Portuguese call a “geringonça” (contraption).
After two inconclusive general elections, the Spanish parliament approved the country’s first coalition government since democracy was restored in the 1970s. The far-left Podemos — born of the anti-austerity “indignados” protest movement — took five ministries as junior partners to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s center-left Socialists. The minority Cabinet will depend on an assortment of regional and separatist parties to pass laws, making it unstable from the outset.
Austria got an unprecedented black-green federal government with the environmentalist Greens taking office as second fiddle to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservative People’s Party. Many political scientists see the Austrian experiment as a test-bed for a possible first Christian Democratic-Green federal coalition in Germany, the EU’s most powerful member, after a general election due in 2021.
While few Germans consider their Alpine neighbor a template, the greens and conservatives have worked together at state level in Germany — including in a successful Green-led regional administration in Baden-Württemberg.
Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is testing a black-green coalition | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP vi Getty Images
The new combinations promise Spaniards an increase in purchasing power after a harsh decade of austerity and unemployment, and Austrians a chance to lead Europe in the fight against climate change by embracing the stretch target of becoming fully carbon-neutral by 2040.
Both policy directions are in sync with the objectives of the new European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen, which has made “an economy that works for people” and bold action to combat the global climate emergency two of its central priorities.
Another thing the two deals have in common is that both broke political stalemates, installing a pro-European coalition while keeping hard-right, anti-immigration, nationalist parties out of power.
A similar outcome occurred in Italy last summer, when the center-left Democratic Party (PD) teamed up for the first time with the radical, anti-establishment 5Star Movement after Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, pulled the plug on the previous government. How long this new, shaky coalition will survive Salvini’s battering ram remains to be seen.
The question now, for all of these new “contraptions,” is: What happens next?
A sprinkling of greens and radical leftists in ministries that don’t control the purse strings is not going to convince Sweden’s Greta Thunberg to go back to school on Fridays instead of leading transnational protests against the inadequacy of government action to save the planet.
Nor will it do much, if anything, to address the anxieties of people and communities who feel left behind by the decline of traditional manufacturing industries, the depopulation of small towns and rural areas, the spread of precarious, low-paid work and increased competition from immigrants for jobs, housing and public services at the bottom of the social ladder.
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has been successful with a minority Socialist government | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
In Portugal, Prime Minister Antonio Costa has made a success of his geringonça— a minority Socialist government supported from outside by the radical Left Bloc and the Communist Party. He has raised living standards and eased austerity while balancing the budget thanks to a four-year economic boom and won reelection comfortably in November.
But as a rule of thumb, radical parties that compromise to join governments as junior partners tend to be punished at the polls — whereas those that stay in opposition, even if they prop up a mainstream party, find it easier to preserve their electoral capital.
It’s harder to embody protest against “the system” while simultaneously holding office. Yet there are exceptions. Italy’s Salvini showed that this high-wire act can be sustained — at least for a time — by picking fights with coalition partners and opponents, maintaining a constant social media buzz, and touring the country in permanent campaign mode rather than sitting in an office in Rome.
In both Spain and Austria, as in Italy, mainstream parties committed to pursuing orthodox fiscal policy will control the key economic ministries. This could soon make the radicals feel frustrated and powerless, and undermine their credibility with their electorates.
Italy’s 5Stars lost support and members at an accelerating pace since getting into bed with the PD, its historical enemy. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio quit as party leader last week without waiting for two disastrous weekend regional election results. The party’s survival as a force of political protest are increasingly in doubt.
On top of tax and deficit cuts, Kurz has forced the Austrian Greens to swallow his hard-line approach to asylum, migration and Islam, designed partly to win back voters from the far-right anti-immigrant Freedom Party, his previous governing partner.
With the decline in support for big-tent political parties across the Continent, “contraptions” look increasingly like Europe’s future.
Sánchez affirmed his pro-European social democratic orientation by promoting technocrats with Brussels experience in the economics and foreign ministries, and bringing the head of Spain’s independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility into the Cabinet as social security minister.
Podemos, whose charismatic founder leader Pablo Iglesias became one of four deputy premiers, gained Cabinet portfolios for sustainability and social rights, equality, employment, consumer protection and universities. But the radicals may struggle to pull policy far enough to the left to satisfy their mostly young voters.
In Italy, as elsewhere, it will take more than new political stitch-ups to assuage public anger at the perceived impotence, incompetence, immobility and sleaze on which the Salvinis of this world surf.
With the decline in support for big-tent political parties across the Continent, “contraptions” look increasingly like Europe’s future.
That makes stable, long-term government less likely.
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