{"id":105368,"date":"2018-01-22T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=105368"},"modified":"2018-01-22T11:00:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T11:00:42","slug":"italy-embracing-populism-is-a-major-headache-for-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/01\/italy-embracing-populism-is-a-major-headache-for-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Embracing Populism Is a Major Headache for Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 Jan 2018 – <\/em>For years Italy\u2019s Northern League kept to itself, being focused on secession rather than reform from within.\u00a0 That change began last year with their non-binding referenda to petition Rome for more fiscal autonomy.\u00a0 But, as the Italian parliamentary elections come into view, the Northern League is playing politics.<\/p>\n

And doing it well.<\/p>\n

Having made a coalition with Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s Forza Italia and two smaller center-right parties, the Leag Norda (Northern League) is now in a great position to win the election.\u00a0 It\u2019s leader, Matteo Salvini has wholly embraced populism and is now in open opposition to Europe as a whole.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From a report at Breitbart:<\/a><\/p>\n

During a heated interview<\/a> with Italian TV Channel Rete 4 this week, Mr. Salvini reaffirmed his eurosceptic credentials, blasting: \u201cEurope can go f*ck itself!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEurope has been punishing us for the last 15 years and we are worse off than 15 years ago,\u201d he added. \u201cEuropean measures are the last thing I am interested in.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Salvini\u2019s populist stance goes much further than that.\u00a0 His Twitter feed reads like Nigel Farage\u2019s after a lengthy stay at the pub.\u00a0 He\u2019s pushing for a 15% flat tax, the bane of the Progressive left who understands that a progressive tax system is the biggest obstacle to wealth generation.\u00a0 Salvini invokes U.S. President Donald Trump whenever he can especially on defending Italy\u2019s borders and EU immigration policy.<\/p>\n

It Italy elects a government hostile to Angela Merkel\u2019s open immigration policy she will have no choice but the back down on her stance against the Visegrad nations \u2013 Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia.<\/p>\n

But, the big question it the euro.\u00a0 And where does this new coalition and Salvini really stand on taking one of the lynchpin economies out of the failing monetary union?\u00a0 Honestly, we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Polls suggest that anti-euro sentiment is still not high enough for it to be a winning electoral strategy.\u00a0 Even the front-running party, Five-Star Movement, is backing off rhetorically on its most radical position, calling a referendum on the euro a \u2018last resort\u2019 now.<\/p>\n

But, this isn\u2019t 2015 and Salvini isn\u2019t the feckless idiot that Alexis Tsipras in Greece is.\u00a0 The Leag Norda comes for truly radical roots. It understands the problems Italy has stem from Germany\u2019s punitive ideas on austerity.<\/p>\n

He directly discusses them in his stump speeches and Tweets.\u00a0 So, a lot of this softening on the euro is simply campaign strategy to get elected.\u00a0 Is it also a means by which to blunt the rise of Five Star Movement and shut them out of the government?<\/p>\n

Absolutely.\u00a0 And in that respect one has to be skeptical if this embracing of populism isn\u2019t just another ruse.\u00a0 If a member of Berlusconi\u2019s Forza Italia was the face of the coalition then I would be more circumspect, but because of Leag Norda\u2019s secessionist roots, I have to believe that this move to challenge Brussels on tax and spending policies is real.<\/p>\n

The problem lies with the polls.\u00a0 Five-Star is in the lead but like Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany no one wants to make a coalition with them.\u00a0 It would be like the Republicans making a coalition deal with the Libertarians here in the U.S.\u00a0 It seems like a natural fit to outsiders but it\u2019s not because the radical outsiders are a threat to the power of the entrenched players.<\/p>\n

And that, I think, is the likely dynamic here.<\/p>\n

Either way, though, Leag Norda becoming a real political force in Italy spells real trouble for a European Union and the Troika.\u00a0 Salvini is advocating the opposite of the plans favored by the power elite in Europe.<\/p>\n

Cut taxes, stop immigration and bring the Italian middle class back into the mix.\u00a0 The problem is that Germany favors a strong euro over a weak one.\u00a0 It gives them a massive advantage over the rest of Europe.\u00a0 It drastically over-values non-German European labor on the open market, retarding investment and trade.\u00a0 While Germany\u2019s industrial base is strengthened comparatively.<\/p>\n

And so, Salvini and Berlusconi, if they win, will have to then sell this idea of Germany using the euro to trap Italy, like Greece in a death spiral, for the next generation if not longer.<\/p>\n

And it is an easy sell on the campaign trail and will be an even easier sell once elected.<\/p>\n

\u00a0___________________________________________<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tom Luongo – Publisher of the Gold Goats n Guns. Ruminations on Geopolitics, Markets and Goats.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomluongo.me<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Jan 2018 – Salvini and Berlusconi, if they win, will have to then sell this idea of Germany using the euro to trap Italy, like Greece in a death spiral, for the next generation if not longer. And it is an easy sell on the campaign trail and will be an even easier sell once elected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}