EU - what's next?

But only a dangerous fool would celebrate.

German social democrats have alienated their base and fractured Europe
Ashoka Mody 1 June 2018

...


Austerity across Europe

As the eurozone’s never-ending crisis dragged on, weary citizens in member nations looked again to social democratic parties to jump-start an equitable growth process. Thus, the 2012-2013 election cycle gave Europe’s social democrats an opportunity for political revival. In a wave that started in France and then continued into Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, social democratic parties either gained government leadership or emerged as important coalition partners. Besides promising domestic economic relief, social democratic leaders – French president François Hollande, Italian prime minister Enrico Letta, and German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel – stirred the hope that they would help reinvigorate an agenda of European unity.

But notwithstanding their rhetoric, the social democrats did not deliver. The SPD’s failure is noteworthy. At home, in coalition with the CDU, the SPD did little to bring back its former supporters, many of whom, feeling abandoned, had stayed away from the polls. Although the German economy performed much better than other eurozone economies, real wages stagnated for too many Germans and economic inequality increased inexorably.

On European matters, the CDU-SPD coalition remained an unrelenting advocate for fiscal austerity. French president Hollande and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi did put up a brave fight against the grinding austerity, but they fought for minor concessions rather than challenging German orthodoxy. With the European Central Bank offering only grudging monetary policy relief, the overall policy squeeze delayed economic recovery, which severely hurt Europe’s most vulnerable citizens.

The SPD’s intellectual influence was particularly insidious in the area of “labor market reforms.” In October 2014, Renzi announced what was to be his singular achievement: the Jobs Act. Much like the Hartz reforms, the act weakened workers’ rights and, despite claims of protective provisions, reinforced the tendency toward jobs with insecure tenures. Italian governments before Renzi’s had implemented similar reforms, which indeed increased employment. But the evidence from the past reforms was that they dulled the incentives for employers and employees to increase productivity and, hence, contributed to the steady decline in Italian productivity growth. Renzi’s Jobs Act seems destined to prolong Italy’s near-zero productivity growth.

Social democrats thus threw away the opportunity presented to them in the 2012-2013 electoral cycle. They failed to promote a domestic agenda that brought hope to globalization’s losers, especially those who lacked necessary education and skills. Unsurprisingly, social democratic parties were clobbered at the polls in 2017-2018. They lost to protest parties that spoke more directly to voters’ economic and cultural anxieties.

European “solidarity”?

The social democrats’ European promise also continued to prove false. In a particularly jarring instance, in March 2017, the Dutch Labor Party’s Jeroen Dijsselbloem gave voice to a growing north-south divide in the eurozone. He reprimanded governments and citizens in southern eurozone countries for their profligacy: “You cannot,” he told them, “spend all the money on women and drinks and then ask for help.” In the ensuing outrage over the words he had used, Dijsselbloem defended himself. European “solidarity,” he insisted, required adherence to budget rules on debt and deficit limits.

In Germany, the SPD leader Martin Schulz flaunted an eccentric pro-Europeanism. In December 2017, he pledged that, as a key member of a prospective Merkel-led coalition government, he would enforce adoption of a European constitution by all member states. Not only was Schulz’s idea absurdly unrealistic, he misunderstood his domestic constituents, whose priorities lay in actions at home. When, at a party gathering, Schulz spoke of his conversation with French president Emmanuel Macron to promote a grand European strategy, the members groaned. Schulz’s plans and political fortunes nosedived.

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz, the new German finance minister in the latest CDU-SPD coalition, has repeatedly reaffirmed his party’s commitment to unify Europe. But he has acted in the mould of the previous SPD finance minister, Peer Steinbrück. Domestically, Scholz has doubled down on the need for continued budget surpluses, negating any hope that government investment and social spending will spur a broadly inclusive domestic growth process. On the call for a eurozone budget by French president Emmanuel Macron, Scholz has bluntly stated that a German finance minister – no matter the party affiliation – must protect German taxpayer money from fiscally irresponsible eurozone member country governments.

Throughout Europe, social democrats are gripped by an intellectual laziness that risks turning into a terminal stupor. They can have little hope of retrieving lost support in new domestic alliances without an energetic agenda for national revival that creates more opportunities and fosters a sense of fairness. They need new ideas to raise taxes to pay for extending the reach and quality of education and health care to economically vulnerable citizens.

This history also makes it clear that social democracy cannot be a unifying European force. Social democrats across Europe do share common values of fairness, justice, and an open society. But today, such values are subordinated to the requirements of economic policy coordination in support of the euro. And given Germany’s economic dominance, the de facto focal point of European policy coordination is German policy preferences. As such, the euro’s guiding ideology requires weaker workers’ rights and protections alongside a commitment to fiscal rectitude.

The euro

The euro has proved to be fundamentally at odds with social democracy. In its most successful Swedish version, social democracy has been a nationally legitimate social contract to redistribute resources among those who share historical and cultural ties. The straitjacket of the euro ideology, however, places the burden of national competitiveness on lower workers’ wages; and it enforces ill-timed and excessive fiscal austerity measures that limit options in domestic economic policymaking. The euro, therefore, prevents the formation of domestic alliances that could create “a sense of national purpose.” The policy straitjacket is reinforced by the presumption that each national ship must face the risk of sinking to its own bottom, a presumption that undermines the Blair-Schröder call for a “common destiny within the European Union.”

European social democrats have continued to haemorrhage support. The conclusion seems sadly inescapable. On its current course, unable to generate a domestic consensus and powerless to counter the narratives and priorities dictated by the euro, the political practice of social democracy will continue to fail at home while divisions among member nation states deepen.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/ashoka-mody/german-social-democrats-have-alienated-their-base-and-fractured-europe

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Gargantua wrote:

German social democrats have alienated their base and fractured Europe
Ashoka Mody 1 June 2018

...


Austerity across Europe

As the eurozone’s never-ending crisis dragged on, weary citizens in member nations looked again to social democratic parties to jump-start an equitable growth process. Thus, the 2012-2013 election cycle gave Europe’s social democrats an opportunity for political revival. In a wave that started in France and then continued into Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, social democratic parties either gained government leadership or emerged as important coalition partners. Besides promising domestic economic relief, social democratic leaders – French president François Hollande, Italian prime minister Enrico Letta, and German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel – stirred the hope that they would help reinvigorate an agenda of European unity.

But notwithstanding their rhetoric, the social democrats did not deliver. The SPD’s failure is noteworthy. At home, in coalition with the CDU, the SPD did little to bring back its former supporters, many of whom, feeling abandoned, had stayed away from the polls. Although the German economy performed much better than other eurozone economies, real wages stagnated for too many Germans and economic inequality increased inexorably.

On European matters, the CDU-SPD coalition remained an unrelenting advocate for fiscal austerity. French president Hollande and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi did put up a brave fight against the grinding austerity, but they fought for minor concessions rather than challenging German orthodoxy. With the European Central Bank offering only grudging monetary policy relief, the overall policy squeeze delayed economic recovery, which severely hurt Europe’s most vulnerable citizens.

The SPD’s intellectual influence was particularly insidious in the area of “labor market reforms.” In October 2014, Renzi announced what was to be his singular achievement: the Jobs Act. Much like the Hartz reforms, the act weakened workers’ rights and, despite claims of protective provisions, reinforced the tendency toward jobs with insecure tenures. Italian governments before Renzi’s had implemented similar reforms, which indeed increased employment. But the evidence from the past reforms was that they dulled the incentives for employers and employees to increase productivity and, hence, contributed to the steady decline in Italian productivity growth. Renzi’s Jobs Act seems destined to prolong Italy’s near-zero productivity growth.

Social democrats thus threw away the opportunity presented to them in the 2012-2013 electoral cycle. They failed to promote a domestic agenda that brought hope to globalization’s losers, especially those who lacked necessary education and skills. Unsurprisingly, social democratic parties were clobbered at the polls in 2017-2018. They lost to protest parties that spoke more directly to voters’ economic and cultural anxieties.

European “solidarity”?

The social democrats’ European promise also continued to prove false. In a particularly jarring instance, in March 2017, the Dutch Labor Party’s Jeroen Dijsselbloem gave voice to a growing north-south divide in the eurozone. He reprimanded governments and citizens in southern eurozone countries for their profligacy: “You cannot,” he told them, “spend all the money on women and drinks and then ask for help.” In the ensuing outrage over the words he had used, Dijsselbloem defended himself. European “solidarity,” he insisted, required adherence to budget rules on debt and deficit limits.

In Germany, the SPD leader Martin Schulz flaunted an eccentric pro-Europeanism. In December 2017, he pledged that, as a key member of a prospective Merkel-led coalition government, he would enforce adoption of a European constitution by all member states. Not only was Schulz’s idea absurdly unrealistic, he misunderstood his domestic constituents, whose priorities lay in actions at home. When, at a party gathering, Schulz spoke of his conversation with French president Emmanuel Macron to promote a grand European strategy, the members groaned. Schulz’s plans and political fortunes nosedived.

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz, the new German finance minister in the latest CDU-SPD coalition, has repeatedly reaffirmed his party’s commitment to unify Europe. But he has acted in the mould of the previous SPD finance minister, Peer Steinbrück. Domestically, Scholz has doubled down on the need for continued budget surpluses, negating any hope that government investment and social spending will spur a broadly inclusive domestic growth process. On the call for a eurozone budget by French president Emmanuel Macron, Scholz has bluntly stated that a German finance minister – no matter the party affiliation – must protect German taxpayer money from fiscally irresponsible eurozone member country governments.

Throughout Europe, social democrats are gripped by an intellectual laziness that risks turning into a terminal stupor. They can have little hope of retrieving lost support in new domestic alliances without an energetic agenda for national revival that creates more opportunities and fosters a sense of fairness. They need new ideas to raise taxes to pay for extending the reach and quality of education and health care to economically vulnerable citizens.

This history also makes it clear that social democracy cannot be a unifying European force. Social democrats across Europe do share common values of fairness, justice, and an open society. But today, such values are subordinated to the requirements of economic policy coordination in support of the euro. And given Germany’s economic dominance, the de facto focal point of European policy coordination is German policy preferences. As such, the euro’s guiding ideology requires weaker workers’ rights and protections alongside a commitment to fiscal rectitude.

The euro

The euro has proved to be fundamentally at odds with social democracy. In its most successful Swedish version, social democracy has been a nationally legitimate social contract to redistribute resources among those who share historical and cultural ties. The straitjacket of the euro ideology, however, places the burden of national competitiveness on lower workers’ wages; and it enforces ill-timed and excessive fiscal austerity measures that limit options in domestic economic policymaking. The euro, therefore, prevents the formation of domestic alliances that could create “a sense of national purpose.” The policy straitjacket is reinforced by the presumption that each national ship must face the risk of sinking to its own bottom, a presumption that undermines the Blair-Schröder call for a “common destiny within the European Union.”

European social democrats have continued to haemorrhage support. The conclusion seems sadly inescapable. On its current course, unable to generate a domestic consensus and powerless to counter the narratives and priorities dictated by the euro, the political practice of social democracy will continue to fail at home while divisions among member nation states deepen.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/ashoka-mody/german-social-democrats-have-alienated-their-base-and-fractured-europe

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/merkel-responsible-for-italian-political-debacle-by-yanis-varoufakis-2018-05

poput placanja poreza i smanjenja korupcije

William Murderface wrote:Pa nema konteksta u kojem je moguce da se sprovede placanje poreza i smanjenje korupcije u GR i ITA, osim kao deo evropske reforme. Nije to "osnovne gradivo" u smislu da moze biti hronoloski prvo sprovedeno. To je prosto nerazumevanje politike - zavrsi ti to sa porezima pa se onda javi za reformu. Aha, oce to - niti ce se takvim pristupom postici "usvajanje osnovnog gradiva" (beda nadoknadjivanja, sto reko Buden), niti ce biti ikakve smislene reforme. Dobice se upravo ovo sto gledamo - fasizacija. A onda ce dociranje o "osnovnom gradivu" izgledati prilicno pritupasto kad vandali vec uveliko spaljuju skolu i streljaju nastsvno osoblje.

Gargantua wrote:Ma nije, to je ordoliberalizam razvijen do nivoa neoliberalizma (ovo nije "optužba" već konstatacija) - tu je primarna uloga države da štiti kapitalizam od (pokvarenih) kapitalista, u ovom slučaju poreskih neplatiša (e sad, u analizi zašto to rade ponekad upadaju i moralistički argumenti - "takva im je kultura", a ne iz ekonomskih razloga jer zaboga u slobodnom tržištu samo pokvareni mogu da ne uspeju) koji, umesto da su preduzimljivi i poštuju red i poredak, idu zaobilaznim putem i prevaljuju trošak na zajednicu.
I eto, dok se ta primarna uloga ne osigura, you're out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Angela Merkel dashes Emmanuel Macron’s eurozone dreams

Germany won’t back anything resembling a full-fledged fiscal union, chancellor signals.

By Matthew Karnitschnig and Pierre Briançon

6/4/18, 6:56 AM CET


In the end, Emmanuel Macron may wish he hadn’t bothered.

After more than eight months of waiting for Angela Merkel to respond to his proposals for reforming the eurozone — a progressive (if vague) vision aimed at bullet-proofing the single currency against another existential crisis — Macron received the answer in the form of an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the Sunday bulletin of Germany’s establishment.

The gist: Berlin will put a little more money on the table and accept a bit more risk-sharing, but France and the rest of the eurozone can bury any lingering hope that Germany will pursue a great leap forward in eurozone integration by endorsing anything resembling a full-fledged fiscal union.


“Solidarity must never lead to a debt union, but must come in the form of help towards self-help,” Merkel told the newspaper.

That protestant prescription essentially cements the status quo at a time when many political observers are calling for a bold action in the eurozone in response to Italy’s new Euroskeptic government and other pressures.

After the eurozone was caught flat-footed in its 10th year by the emergence of Greece’s debt crisis in 2009, forcing wealthy Germany to back a series of emergency bailouts to stave off the collapse of the euro, many economists argued the currency would remain exposed to such shocks as long as it wasn’t underpinned by a fiscal union.

To recap: When the euro was introduced, the European Central Bank took responsibility for setting the currency area’s monetary policy, but the power to tax, spend and invest remained firmly in the grip of national governments. In order to complement the ECB’s one-size-fits-all monetary policy and forestall another crisis, reformists argued the euro required more risk-sharing among member countries and pooling of financial resources to even out imbalances. Suggestions included eurozone-wide bank deposit insurance (to avoid bank runs) as well as a financial backstop to deal with failing banks. While there’s been headway on some of those fronts, Germany, together with a few other northern countries, remains wary of taking on too much risk for its neighbors.

“Without some degree of fiscal union, the region will continue to face existential risks that policymakers should not ignore,” the International Monetary Fund warned earlier this year.

Macron’s prosposals, which he laid out in a speech to the Sorbonne in September, were aimed at addressing such issues. He also pushed for a eurozone budget in the hundreds of billions of euros and for a eurozone finance minister with real power.

In Berlin, Macron’s proposals were met with a combination of skepticism and fear, especially among Merkel’s conservative base.

Though no country has benefited more than Germany from the currency union, many Germans remain convinced that much of the rest of Europe — particularly the Mediterranean states — is trying to pick its pockets. The Greek bailouts, which cost Germany little in the grander scheme of things, only hardened that impression.

In fact, for much of the German establishment, Macron’s ideas were nothing less than an open invitation to raid Berlin’s treasury.

Last month, 154 German economics professors signed a five-point manifesto — published, like Merkel’s Sunday interview, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine — opposing Macron’s ideas, which they warned “carry high risk for European citizens.”

Given the pressure she faced from within her own party to push back with Macron, Merkel’s tepid response is less than a surprise.

Macron’s only hope to salvage what remains of his eurozone vision is to focus on the few areas where Merkel shows a readiness to move. She backs the idea of a joint eurozone investment budget, albeit a modest one, and she’s ready to consider giving the European Stability Mechanism — the eurozone’s bailout fund — the capacity to extend short-term loans to countries under stress. The ESM, if Merkel gets her way, would be transformed into a European Monetary Fund with the power to evaluate EU countries’ economies. Instead of the European Commission, it would be controlled by the states.

The idea, first championed by ex-German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble last year, is typical of the technocratic, rule-based regimen Germans love and Paris has long resisted.

Nonetheless, given the pressure on Macron to show some success on the euro front, it’s easy to see how Merkel’s proposals, which aren’t far from those the two governments have been discussing, could merge, after a few technical compromises, into what the European Commission also proposed last week.

The main takeaway from Merkel’s interview, however, is that she seems to declare an end to the debate. With the conservative wing of her Christian Democrats promising to resist Macron’s reform push, and her coalition allies from the SPD too weak to seize the initiative, she has had little to work with.

Though her answer came much later than Macron would have liked, Merkel has now said how far she’s willing to go.

And modest as the proposal is, Macron probably has little choice but to accept it.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told far-right news site Breitbart London he wants to “empower” other anti-establishment conservatives around Europe to rise up against “elites.”

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell said in an interview published late Sunday. “I think the election of Donald Trump has empowered individuals and people to say that they can’t just allow the political class to determine before an election takes place, who’s going to win and who should run.”

Grenell took aim at the political and media establishment, calling on conservatives to embrace “a very powerful moment when you can grasp the ability to see past the group-think of a very small elitist crowd telling you you have no chance to win or you’ll never win, or they mock you early on.”

Gargantua wrote:E, da:

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told far-right news site Breitbart London he wants to “empower” other anti-establishment conservatives around Europe to rise up against “elites.”

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell said in an interview published late Sunday. “I think the election of Donald Trump has empowered individuals and people to say that they can’t just allow the political class to determine before an election takes place, who’s going to win and who should run.”

Grenell took aim at the political and media establishment, calling on conservatives to embrace “a very powerful moment when you can grasp the ability to see past the group-think of a very small elitist crowd telling you you have no chance to win or you’ll never win, or they mock you early on.”

In 2009, Grenell founded Capitol Media Partners, an international strategic media and public affairs consultancy with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.[6] He is under contract with Fox News where he is a "Contributor" commenting on foreign affairs and the media.[8][9] He has written for The Wall Street Journal,[10][11] CBS News,[12][13] CNN,[14] Politico,[15] Huffington Post,[16] The Washington Times,[17] Newsmax,[18] and Al Jazeera.[19] In 2012, CNN ranked Grenell's social media outreach as one of the top 5,[20] and Time magazine named Grenell as one of the Top 10 Political Twitter Feeds of 2014.[21]

Gargantua wrote:E, da:

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told far-right news site Breitbart London he wants to “empower” other anti-establishment conservatives around Europe to rise up against “elites.”

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell said in an interview published late Sunday. “I think the election of Donald Trump has empowered individuals and people to say that they can’t just allow the political class to determine before an election takes place, who’s going to win and who should run.”

Grenell took aim at the political and media establishment, calling on conservatives to embrace “a very powerful moment when you can grasp the ability to see past the group-think of a very small elitist crowd telling you you have no chance to win or you’ll never win, or they mock you early on.”

Дојче веле о Италији: Аванти дилетанти

Још се не зна колико ће прескупих обећања новајлије у Италији збиља испунити. Брисел чекају немирна времена јер ће Контеова влада тражити дозволу да раздрагано троши позајмљено, коментарише Барбара Везел.

При формирању италијанске Владе превагнуо је принцип боље врабац у руци него голуб на грани. Матео Салвини, промућурни стратег десничарске Лиге, дуго је оклевао и надао се новим изборима. Његова популарност расла је на ракетни погон те му је била блиска идеја да појача изборни резултат. На крају је превладао опрез и он је пристао на брак из рачуна са Покретом пет звездица – по други пут.

Било би чудо уколико нови премијер Ђузепе Конте буде више од марионете у рукама шефова две коалиционе странке. Непознати професор права није укотвљен ни у Лиги ни у Пет звездица, његова моћ је на реверс. Конте је одабран да буде слаба фигура – шеф владе који ће морати да позове две партијске централе пре него што нешто договори са колегиницом Меркел или Макроном.
У том маниру се даље ређају имена новајлија у Влади од којих скоро нико раније није водио ни општинску управу. Нови министар финансија је до сада непознати професор економије, без икаквог искуства у политици. Када је његово име саопштено, новинари су грозничаво почели да гуглају ко је човек. Међу првим сазнањима чује се да Ђовани Трија није противник евра.

Читава Влада се састоји од почетника, са изузетком новог шефа дипломатије Енца Моавера Миланезија који има завидну каријеру у Европској комисији, Европском суду и италијанским владама. То влади у очима бирача даје додатну веродостојност јер међу стандарде популиста спада гнев против наводног естаблишмента.

Али, како се види на примеру градоначелника Рима који долази из Пет звездица и у главном граду не успева да уради баш ништа, вршење власти захтева више од крупних речи и неколико добрих намера.
Програм брака између две идеолошки неспојиве партије састоји се пре свега у поклонима својим бирачима који из буџета не могу да се плате. Тако су нестрпљиви да нешто мењају, да доведу нове људе у политику, да су се у брзини одучили од дигитрона.
Такозвани ,,flat tax“ – иста пореска стопа за све – којим вођа Лиге Салвини жели да усрећи своје присталице, заправо ће државу коштати милијарде, а грађане растеретити тек ако приходују више од 30.000 евра годишње. Мали људи какви су претежно гласали за популисте заправо ће плаћати више него до сада.

Основни приход који су Пет звездица обећале сиромашнима са југа земље је надокнада за социјално осигурање које је у Италији већ деценијама мањкаво. Нажалост држава за то нема пара. Огромне рупе које ће поменуте две мере отворити у државној каси не могу се запушити нагомилавањем дугова.

Уопште, основна економска идеја је у тренутном стању у свету доведена у питање: може ли Италија збиља да смањи државни дуг тако што ће више трошити? Велики број економских стручњака заступа ово учење. Али како тренутно Доналд Трамп гуши глобалну коњуктуру, тешко је назрети како ће се Италија извући из вира у који је упала.

Европској унији је само још требала популистичка екипа из Италије. Једва да је превазиђена грчка криза, наилази следећа далеко већа претња по еврозону. Италија је економски десет пута већа од Грчке. Ако Рим буде кренуо ка државном банкроту, лом на финансијским тржиштима би могао да усиса целу заједничку валуту.

Још се не зна колико ће прескупих обећања новајлије у Италији збиља испунити. У сваком случају Брисел чекају немирна времена јер ће Контеова влада тражити дозволу да раздрагано троши позајмљено. Ту дозволу ЕУ не може дати јер би крах био неизбежан.
И на другим пољима ће са овим Италијанима бити само свађе. Салвинијеве тираде о раздвајању раса у возовима показују екстремно десничарски, расистички светоназор. Ако као министар унутрашњих послова натера мигранте у ограђене кампове, у Италији ће прво избити грчевита борба за људска права. Ребус је зашто више лево усмерени Покрет пет звездица трпи Салвинијеву демагогију и планове.

И још једно: популисти у Риму убеђују људе да је Немачке крива за италијанску кризу. То је злонамерна глупост. Статистичко просечно благостање по глави становника је у Италији више него у Немачкој. Но у Италији имају огроман проблем са расподелом.
Погледајте, драги Италијани, у своје двориште и не приписујте другима хаос, корупцију, јавашлук, муљаже и све остало што кочи вашу лепу земљу. Осим тога важи: Аванти дилетанти!

Gargantua wrote:E, da:

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told far-right news site Breitbart London he wants to “empower” other anti-establishment conservatives around Europe to rise up against “elites.”

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell said in an interview published late Sunday. “I think the election of Donald Trump has empowered individuals and people to say that they can’t just allow the political class to determine before an election takes place, who’s going to win and who should run.”

Grenell took aim at the political and media establishment, calling on conservatives to embrace “a very powerful moment when you can grasp the ability to see past the group-think of a very small elitist crowd telling you you have no chance to win or you’ll never win, or they mock you early on.”

3 days as Interior Minister endlessly campaigning: Salvini managed to give wrong data, expose confidential docs, make speech on the 'end of the party' for immigrants while tens die at sea and one is shot dead, trigger the summoning of #Italy's Ambassador in Tunis. Wait for Libya pic.twitter.com/CRAlc1CieB

— francesco strazzari (@franxstrax) 04. јун 2018.

Salvini's sentence on Tunisia"exporting criminals" may inaugurate an uncooperative approach to security in the Mediterranean that betrays EU and NATO's stabilisation efforts in the sole democracy somehow surviving the Arab revoltshttps://t.co/f8D6Gkrsov

— francesco strazzari (@franxstrax) 04. јун 2018.