As Brexit Deadline Nears, EU Loses Confidence in May

Date: 13-02-2019
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Brussels wonders whether U.K. prime minister can deliver any Brexit deal

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May departs number 10 Downing Street on Wednesday.

Six weeks from Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, the bloc’s governments are preparing to make further concessions to try to help British Prime Minister Theresa May win approval for her Brexit deal in Parliament.

But as the clock ticks down, they are still waiting for a signal from Mrs. May about how to move and are losing confidence in her capacity to deliver a majority for any agreement, increasing the chances of a no-deal exit that neither side wants.

One thing European officials say is now certain, although the British side hasn’t admitted it: If there is a deal, the U.K.’s scheduled departure on March 29 will have to be delayed.

Mrs. May is seeking legal guarantees that an arrangement aimed at avoiding the emergence of a physical border in Ireland—ironically a concession by Brussels extracted by British negotiators—won’t be used to trap the U.K. permanently into a customs union with the EU, denying Britain an independent trade policy.

taly’s Salvini Rises, With Fiery Words and Pragmatic Decisions

Date: 13-02-2019
Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Interior minister, head of the ruling League party, has become a central figure in efforts to build a pan-European alliance of nationalists and nativists

PIANELLA, Italy—Far-right lnterior Minister Matteo Salvini strolled through a crowd of supporters in the main square of this southern Abruzzo town. Leaping on stage to campaign for regional elections, Mr. Salvini took aim at prosecutors who have charged him with kidnapping 177 African migrants last year after he refused to let them disembark from a rescue ship.

“They will have to put me on trial for the next 20 years, because I’ll go on blocking the migrants ships,” Mr. Salvini told the cheering crowd last week. “If they think they are scaring somebody, they chose the wrong person.”

In practice, though, Mr. Salvini is working to preserve his immunity against prosecution as a member of Italy’s Senate. His electioneering effort worked. On Sunday, a far-right candidate for governor backed by Mr. Salvini’s League party won the Abruzzo election.

Mr. Salvini is one of the fastest-rising politicians in a major European Union country. He has turned the League, a moribund regional movement in Italy’s north, into the nation’s most popular political force. His combative anti-immigration rhetoric and down-to-earth persona on social media have tapped anger at Italy’s aloof, ineffectual political establishment in swaths of Italian society.

POLITIK BESTIMMT DAS WIRTSCHAFTSKLIMA

FURCHE-Kolumne 260  Wilfried Stadler

Klimafragen stellen sich nicht nur, wenn es um Wetterprognosen geht. Im übertragenen Sinn beschäftigen sie uns auch, wenn sich das Wirtschaftsklima ändert und die ökonomische Großwetterlage Anlass zur Sorge gibt.

Als sich im Herbst vergangenen Jahres der Horizont an den Börsen verdüsterte, konnten die teils heftigen Kursverluste noch als überfällige Korrektur nach einer langen Schönwetterphase interpretiert werden. Mittlerweile zeigen sich jedoch auch ganz reale, konjunkturelle Gewitterwolken. Schon korrigieren die Weltbank-Ökonomen ihre bis vor kurzem noch deutlich optimistischeren Prognosen nach unten.

Realwirtschaftlich ist jedoch kein überzeugender Grund für eine Abkühlung der Wirtschaftsdynamik auszumachen, gibt es doch in vielen Regionen der Welt einen unglaublichen Aufholbedarf. Das gilt für ehemalige Planwirtschaftsländer und nunmehrige EU-Mitgliedsstaaten wie Rumänien oder Bulgarien ebenso wie für zahlreiche Staaten des asiatischen Raumes und schon gar des Nahen Ostens und Afrikas.

Denn so sehr auch der isolierte Blick auf saturierte Marktwirtschaften ein Ende des Wachstums nahelegen würde, so realitätsfern ist diese Sichtweise, wenn in den Betrachtungshorizont all die bisher benachteiligten Zonen einbezogen werden. Dort bedarf es zur Schaffung zumutbarer Lebensbedingungen dringend wirtschaftlicher Belebung – und die geht nun einmal mit Wachstum einher. Nur so entstehen Arbeitsplätze, nur so Kaufkraft, nur so die nötigen Steuereinnahmen, um jene Grundfunktionen zu finanzieren, ohne die kein Rechtsstaat und damit auch keine Wirtschaftsordnung funktioniert. Die zu erwartenden Umweltkosten dieses Wachstums in den bisher benachteiligten Teilen der Welt erhöhen noch unsere Verantwortung dafür, umso konsequenter klimaschonende Strategien zu fahren.

Building a Better Nationalism

Date: 13-02-2019
Source: Foreign Affairs By Yael Tamir

The Nation’s Place in a Globalized World

At a rally in Texas last October, U.S. President Donald Trump was delivering his familiar “America first” message, complaining about “corrupt, power-hungry globalists,” when he tried out a new line: “You know, they have a word—it sort of became old-fashioned—it’s called, ‘a nationalist.’ And I say, ‘Really, we’re not supposed to use that word,’” he added, grinning. “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, OK? I’m a nationalist.” As the crowd cheered, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” Trump nodded. “‘Nationalist’: nothing wrong with it. Use that word!”

As Trump correctly noted, in recent decades, “that word,” and all it suggests, has fallen out of favor. For most political thinkers and elites in the developed West, nationalism is a dangerous, divisive, illiberal impulse that should be treated with skepticism or even outright disdain. Yes, nationalism helped give rise to the modern state system, served as a liberating force in anticolonial independence struggles, and fueled anti-Soviet sentiment during the Cold War. But surely, the thinking went, nationalism was a phase that the rich democracies of the world had outgrown—and in those places where it still thrived, it posed more problems than solutions.