New survey shows Greece, Europe increasingly worlds apart

Source: Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center just released the results of a recent survey that makes for some fascinating reading. The survey was carried out in eight EU countries – Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, and the Czech Republic – and the United States. The survey included a wide array of questions about several topical issues, including the ongoing economic crisis and how best to deal with it, views about the EU and European political leaders, stereotypes about European nationalities, and a variety of other questions. You can view a summary of the results here.

A number of interesting findings, some of them counterintuitive, jumped out at this reader during a quick overview. In general, the most commonly cited divisions within Europe – those between North and South, West and East, wealthy and less wealthy – do not manifest themselves in a particularly salient way in the survey results. If there was one cleavage that came up again and again, it is the one between Greece and the rest of Europe.

UK earns ranking as most gay-friendly country in Europe

ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map ranks the legal status of LGBT citizens across Europe (Source: ILGA-Europe)

ILGA-Europe, an organization that tracks the status and promotes the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender citizens, recently released its annual Rainbow Europe Map and Index, which compares the legal status of LGBT citizens across countries. According to a description of the criteria that went into the ranking, “ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map rates each European country’s laws and administrative practices according to 42 categories and ranks them on a scale between 30 (highest score: respect of human rights and full legal equality of LGBT people) and -12 (lowest score: gross violations of human rights and discrimination of LGBT people).” These 42 categories fall under six more general sets of policies: asylum, equality and non-discrimination, bias motivated speech/crime, family, freedom of association, assembly, and expression, and legal gender recognition.

Earning top honors this year with a score of 21 was the United Kingdom, largely due to its recognition of civil partnerships, strong anti-discrimination laws, and hate crime laws that include transgendered victims among the covered groups. Germany and Spain were close behind at 20 points, while Sweden ranked fourth with a score of 18. The general geographical patterns revealed by the map are perhaps unsurprising: as one moves from west to east, the various shades of green that indicate positive scores are replaced by the white and red colors indicating countries with more dismal track records. Moldova and Russia finished last among the covered countries with scores of -4.5; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, and Ukraine were just barely ahead at -4. Among EU member states, Malta finished last with a score of 0, while Latvia and Cyprus were close behind at 1.

Perhaps the most surprising rankings were low scores by two of the EU’s founding members, Italy and France.

Merkel’s party loses seats in state election

Campaign photo featuring Hannelore Kraft, leader of the Social Democratic Party in North-Rhine Westphalia.

Last weekend’s headline stories out of Europe were the elections in Greece and France, both of which were perceived as being influenced by the growth of anti-austerity sentiment throughout the continent. Specifically, some analysts viewed the success of anti-austerity parties and candidates in France and Greece as a blow to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has become possibly the most visible face of the pro-austerity crowd. Germany itself had an important state level election this past weekend, in its most populous region, North-Rhine Westphalia.

As we’ve pointed out here before, state elections in Germany are perceived as important bellwethers of national political trends. In addition, in Germany’s federal system, state governments actually have a fair amount of autonomy compared to their counterparts in centralized countries such as France and the United Kingdom. Germany had already held two earlier state elections in 2012, in Saarland and in Schleswig-Holstein. In the March election in Saarland, Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) retained the same level of support from the previous election, but its coalition partner Free Democrats saw their support collapse, and the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) increased their support. In the Schleswig-Holstein election in early May, the CDU once again retained the same level of support as in the previous election, but it lost 12 seats in the state legislature due to gains from other parties. Both elections featured strong showings by the new Pirate Party, a youth-oriented party that campaigns on issues of internet privacy.

The North-Rhine Westphalia election was seen as more significant because of the state’s size; it makes up just over 20% of Germany’s population. This election saw a much bigger collapse in support for the CDU, as its vote share decreased by over 8% to 26.3%, its worst ever performance in the region. At the same time, the SDP increased its vote share from 34.5% to 39.1%. The Pirates once again had a strong showing, gathering 7.8% of the vote and entering its fourth state level parliament. (Full results can be seen here.)

So, what does this all mean?

Greece’s election shocker

Alexis Tsipras, head of the left-wing Syriza party, greets supporters. (Picture: EPA)

Last weekend was an exciting one for Europe-watchers, with two hugely important and potentially transformative national elections in France and Greece. There has been a lot of analysis of Francois Hollande’s victory in the French Presidential election, and what that portends for the future of crisis management in the euro zone. We have discussed this issue previously here and here, and will do so in the future as a better picture emerges of Hollande’s stances toward the EU fiscal compact, the Franco-German relationship, and a host of other issues.

Perhaps the more shocking, if not somewhat expected, events transpired in Greece on Sunday. In elections to the Greek parliament, the two leading parties, the center left PASOK and the center right New Democracy (ND), combined for just barely over 30% of the vote. The magnitude of the party system’s collapse can be seen by comparing these results with the 2009 election, in which PASOK and ND combined for over 75% of the votes and over 80% of the seats. Indeed, the two parties have been the cornerstone of the Greek party system since the country emerged from military rule in 1974. PASOK’s 13.2% did not even place it among the top two vote-getters.

Source: http://greece.greekreporter.com, May 7, 2012

The collapse of the leading parties’ support coincided with major electoral gains by fringe parties, some of them new.

Soccer wars

Source: Wikimedia Commons

We have previously written on this blog about the difficulties inherent in forging a unified foreign policy among EU member states. With about a month to go until the start of the 2012 Euro Football Championship, a new issue seems to be creating conflict among some member states. The conflict pertains to Ukraine, along with Poland one of the two co-hosts of the tournament. Officials from several EU member states governments, including German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, as well as several leading EU officials, such as European Commission President Juan Manuel Barroso, have threatened to boycott the matches being held in Ukraine.

WEST Announcements May 7th – May 11th

EVENTS

1. NEW In Harmony: The European Union Youth Orchestra In Concert. Airs Dates:
   Monday, May 7 at 10pm and Sunday, May 13 at 2pm on 30.1 HD
   Wednesday, May 9 at 1:30pm and Thursday, May 10 at 5pm on 30.2 World. Co-Sponsored by the EU Center.
2. The German Nuclear Phase-out: Experiment or Endgame? Wednesday May 9^th, 8:15-10:00 am at the Chapel Lutheran Child and Family Services 1525 N. Ritter Ave. Indianapolis, In 46219. Free and Open to the Public. Please RSVP by May 7^th at dstiles@lutheranfamily.org. Sponsored by the EU Center
3. Institute for Curriculum and Campus Internationalization (ICCI) Global Mini Conference: Global Issues in World Regions. Monday, May 23^rd. Sponsored by WEST and EU Center.  
4. NAACLT Conference for the North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers. Hosted at Indiana University Wednesday, May 30^th- Saturday, June 2^nd. Co-Sponsored by WEST.
5.  “Lexical Transfer, Language Acquisition, and Language Learning” Presented by Rex Sprouse Professor of Germanic Studies and Second Language Studies, Thursday, May 31^st, 2:00 p.m. IMU Oak Room. Sponsored by WEST.
6. “Manx and Livonian – Attrition and Revival in two endangered language of European fisherfolk communities” Presented by Chris Moseley, Friday, June 1^st 2:00 p.m. IMU Oak Room. Sponsored by WEST.

CALL FOR PAPERS

1. Association for Jewish Studies 44^th Annual Conference December 16-18, 2012 in Chicago, IL Request for Papers. Proposal Submission Deadline May 15^th
2. NEW  Call for Papers: The Financial Crises in Comparative Regional Perspective: Can Europe Learn from other Regions? Freie Universität Berlin Berlin, 23-24 November 2012. Papers and Proposals due to ariekrampf@zedat.fu-berlin.de. May 31^st.
3. ISA 54^th Annual Convention Call for Papers, Theme: The Politics of International Diffusion: Regional and Global Dimensions. April 3-6, 2013 in San Francisco. Proposals and Abstracts due June 1st.
4. DAAD Research Ambassadors now Accepting Applications. Due Friday June 8^th
5. NEW Nominations for a forthcoming book in European Studies for the Columbia Seminar on Modern Europe, 2012-2013 series. Nominations due June 30^th.
6. Currently accepting for the 2013-2014 school year Fulbright Award for European Union Studies. Application Deadline August ^1st.
7. Call for Papers: 6^th Annual Conference on the Political Economy of International Organizations February 7-9, 2013, hosted by the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany. Paper submissions are due September 30^th.
8. German Chancellor Fellowship for Young Professionals. Applications due October 15^th.

FUNDING/EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES          

1. CES Announces 10 New Dissertation Completion Fellowships funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in European Studies. 
2. Accepting Applications for 10 Month Scholarship with Hungarian Language and Cultural Studies. Deadline for Applications May 11^th.
3. Global Village GA Position Available for 2012-2013 School Year. Applications due May 16^th. Send your resume and cover letter to Lauren Caldarera at lcaldare@indiana.edu
4. NEW American Council on Germany is seeking applications from promising young American scholars for two fellowships for the study of German and European Affairs – the Dr, Richard M. Hunt Fellowship for the Study of German History, Politics, Society, and Culture, and the Dr. Guido Goldman Fellowship for the Study of German and European Politics, Political Economy and International Affairs. Applications due June 29^th.
5. NEW International Conference on Global Sustainable Finance.  July 5^th to 6^th in Karlsruhe, Germany.
6. Currently accepting for the 2013-2014 school year Fulbright Award for European Union Studies. Application Deadline August 1^st.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

1. Weekly Job Listing from the Foreign Policy Association
2. Latest Job Listing from EuroBrussels.com, The European Affairs Jobsite

 

Debate over austerity heats up

Source: Reuters

Since the European sovereign debt crisis began several years ago, forcing afflicted countries to turn to the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund for financial rescue packages, the conditions specified by these institutions have been unambiguous: if you accept our money, you must implement reforms. These reforms, collectively known as austerity policies, have aimed to reduce budget deficits through sharp cuts in government spending and tax increases. Austerity policies have always aroused resentment in indebted countries, as the massive protests in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other countries indicate. But in the past few weeks, the anti-austerity backlash has gained momentum, with influential politicians joining the protesters in saying that the policies are not helping and could even be making the situation worse.

Perhaps the main catalyst behind the recent anti-austerity sentiment has been the emergence of Francois Hollande as a leading presidential contender in France.