Dutch Austerity 2.0 | 48 comments (48 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

You've answered your own question (4.00 / 2)

Communist parties, despite their theoretical adherence to internationalism, generally seem to turn out to be nationalist, anti-regionalist and anti-federalist in European terms.

Greens, on the other hand, are in favour of both localizing and internationalizing decision-making, and in general, tend to regard the nation-state as the most counter-productive decision-making level.

And I would put it the other way round with respect to the spat.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 05:49:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: You've answered your own question (4.00 / 3)

I think the spat has nothing to with the party groups in the european parliament, who are all a bit unusual on the fringes. The question identity as citizen - identity as member of a cultural group - language as technological and administrative tool versus language as part of heritage and identity are much deeper.

And It can be argued that the still centralising french left is the outsider here.

And is doubtful if dwindling languages can be revived: Just look at Irish. On the other hand look at welsh.
Our communists were quite supportive to the sorabians by the way: Didn't help them much, though

And no I don't think the current position of GroenLinks on the budget has a connection to their position on frisian. (Whatever that position is)

by IM on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 06:12:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: You've answered your own question (none / 1)

I think the spat has nothing to with the party groups in the european parliament

No, I think it illustrates quite nicely why european greens feel more comfortable caucusing with progressive regionalists than with communists. I hope you are right about the French left being the outlier with respect to the centralizing state, in which case there may be hope for future co-operation, insofar as they are, belatedly, greening their views.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 07:11:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: You've answered your own question (4.00 / 3)

The problem with regionalism and European federalism is that in contemporary political reality that means deregulation and privatisation, because in contemporary European political reality, the only entity powerful enough to police business is the state.

Devolving power to the regions and ceding it to the EU is to place the cart before the horse: Those institutions need to actually be useful before they can be entrusted with additional power.

tl;dr: Bring the ECB decisively to heel and we can talk about a federal Europe.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Apr 28th, 2012 at 05:52:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Dutch Austerity 2.0 | 48 comments (48 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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