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Argos Media

As Jobs Die, Europe's Migrants Head Home - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Mr. Mituletu, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
  • But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Mituletu are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
  • While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
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  • In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
  • Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
  • But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
  • The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave. The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home. And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
  • Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
  • Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
Pedro Gonçalves

Swedish riots spark surprise and anger | World news | The Observer - 0 views

  • "These people, they should integrate in this society and just try a little bit more to be like Swedish citizens."Scratch beneath the surface and this is a sentiment shared by many in a country that arguably has the world's most generous asylum policies. Sweden has taken in more than 11,000 refugees from Syria since 2012, more per head than any other European country, and it has absorbed more than 100,000 Iraqis and 40,000 Somalis over the past two decades. About 1.8 million of its 9.5 million people are first- or second-generation immigrants.
  • So it has come as a shock for many Swedes to discover the scale of resentment. It's not hard to find it. Aleks, whose parents came from Kosovo, says: "I hate the police. I hate the cops. I think setting fire to cars in the neighbourhood should stop, but I don't think throwing rocks at the cops should stop."
  • The trigger for the riots – police shooting dead a 69-year-old Portuguese man called Lenine Relvas-Martins
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  • Martins had been brandishing a knife on his balcony, angry after a confrontation with local youths. Police then broke into his house and shot him in front of his Finnish wife. They say she was at risk. She denies it.The police then inflamed the situation last Sunday, reportedly calling young people causing a disturbance "monkeys" and "negroes".
  • there's no doubt Husby has better facilities than deprived areas in Britain. But it is also more segregated. About 85% of people here have their origins outside Sweden.
  • "The politicians are thinking the wrong way. They want to help people, but you never help people when you put 30,000 to 50,000 in one place," complains the man painting at the library.
  • "For a lot of people who live in segregated areas, the only Swedes they meet are social workers or police officers. It's amazing how many have never had a Swedish friend."
  • A third of the 2,500 white, ethnic Swedes who lived in Husby 10 years ago have left.
  • Inequality has also grown faster in Sweden over the past decade than in any other developed country, according to thinktank the OECD, which puts the blame partly on tax cuts paid for by reductions in welfare spending.
  • According to official statistics, more than 10% of those aged 25 to 55 in Husby are unemployed, compared with 3.5% in Stockholm as a whole. Those that do have jobs earn 40% less than the city average.
  • Esmail Jamshidi, a 23-year-old medical student born and educated in Husby, says young people don't lack opportunities."It's a very recent development, this ghetto mentality," he says. "Immigrants come here, and most leave after a decade or two. A very small percentage of them don't, and this last group are left
  • The older generation of immigrants seems as puzzled by the anger as Swedes. Ali, the owner of Café Unic, a Persian cafe in Husby's main square, says he tried living in America but came back. "I love this country. I mean it," he says. "I'm telling my kids every day to remember that you are born here, in Sweden. I love this country because of the way they built it: because of my taxes, and other people's taxes, everyone has a nice place to live. It's a very, very nice and good idea."
Pedro Gonçalves

Germany's Age of Anxiety - By Roger Boyes | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • Certainly Sarrazin's book is being hailed as the work of a truth-teller: He sold 800,000 copies in three weeks this summer and his public readings are crammed with fans. I attended one the other day and was shocked to see how a teenage schoolgirl was shouted down and hustled out of the room by security guards for mildly questioning the Sarrazin thesis. Merkel, sensing danger, was quick to condemn at least one passage that seemed to suggest that there was a "Jewish gene."
  • This is not just about a book. Germany is beginning to realize that there is a gap in the party political spectrum to the right of Merkel's Christian Democrats, but to the left of the virulently undemocratic neo-Nazis. Opinion polls show that a party inspired by Sarrazin's thesis -- a party that would be critical of Islamic expansion in Europe and that seeks to control immigration -- could win 15 percent of the vote, thus seriously shaking up the German political system.
  • While Merkel reversed course to officially bury multiculturalism, one of her primary coalition partners, Horst Seehofer -- the leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union -- called for a wholesale stop to immigration.
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  • Germans are restless, and they increasingly believe their political class is tone-deaf. Popular resentment is running high, and there is a powerful head of steam behind the emerging anti-Islam movement.
Pedro Gonçalves

european-elections-the-netherlands-far-right | Politics | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The Dutch anti-immigrant maverick, Geert Wilders, scored his biggest victory yesterday, seizing 15% and second place in European elections for the Netherlands, according to exit polls last night.
  • The bleached blond populist, barred from Britain and facing prosecution at home for hate speech, led his Freedom party to win four of the Netherlands' 25 seats in the European parliament at the first attempt, pushing the Labour party of the coalition government's finance minister, Wouter Bos, into third place.
  • Wilders wants the European parliament abolished, Bulgaria and Romania kicked out of the EU, the mass deportation of immigrants from the Netherlands, and a minimum say for Brussels over Dutch policy. The virulence of his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant activities saw him barred from entering Britain earlier this year, while the Dutch authorities are prosecuting him for inciting hatred.
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  • Last night's estimate of 15% represented a big increase on the 6% he took in the last general election in 2006, despite fielding a list of unknowns for seats in the European parliament.
  • The Christian Democrats of prime ­minister Jan Peter Balkenende won the election, according to the television exit poll, but dropped 4 points and lost two seats. Its coalition partner, the Labour party, took 4 seats, like Wilders, but dropped 10 points and forfeited three seats.
  • Wilders will take further encouragement from a mock election staged among 15,000 pupils in 140 schools in the Netherlands this week which gave him more than 19% support, ahead of all other parties.
  • Turnout in the Netherlands was around 40%, similar to five years ago and half the level of the general election in 2006.
Pedro Gonçalves

FT.com / Europe - Liberals take narrow lead in Dutch election - 0 views

  • The party that clocked up the biggest electoral gains, the Freedom party or PVV of Geert Wilders, the controversial anti-Islamic politician, could play a crucial role in those talks, which are expected to take several weeks. Mr Wilders, who wants to stop immigration from Muslim countries and repatriate immigrants who commit crimes, won 24 seats, up from nine in the last general election in 2006.
  • Mr Wilders, who last year made a proposal in parliament to tax all Muslim women €1,000 a year to wear a headscarf, hailed the result as a “glorious day for the Netherlands” and said he was serious about entering coalition talks with other parties. “We want to make the Netherlands better, safer and prouder,” he said.
Argos Media

Hardliner Avigdor Lieberman set to become Israel's foreign minister | World news | guar... - 0 views

  • Avigdor Lieberman, the outspoken far-right Israeli politician, is set to be appointed his country's next foreign minister in a new coalition deal.
  • Under the deal, agreed late on Sunday night, Lieberman would be both foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, giving him an important influence in shaping the new government's policies.
  • Both Netanyahu and Lieberman have stopped short of endorsing a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians, which may set them at odds with the international community, particularly the Obama administration which has promised to "aggressively" pursue a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
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  • His party would also have four other ministers in the cabinet, including national security minister, as well as the post of deputy foreign minister.
  • Netanyahu has said the current peace talks with the Palestinians will not succeed and that he would rather pursue an "economic peace", by which he means financial investment in the occupied West Bank.
  • The agreement between Netanyahu and Lieberman gave a taste of the policies that would follow. "Toppling the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip will be an Israeli strategic goal," the agreement said. The new government would act "with determination" to stop rocket fire by militants in Gaza.It also said: "The government will not conduct political negotiations with terrorist organisations or terrorist elements."Settlements are likely to continue to grow – Lieberman himself lives in Nokdim, a settlement south-east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
  • Lieberman, 50, a Russian-speaking immigrant born in Moldova, resigned from the government in January last year in protest at the restarting of peace talks with the Palestinians, saying: "Negotiations on the basis of land for peace are a critical mistake ... and will destroy us."He is an unashamed hardliner who campaigned on the promise of a new law aimed at the country's Arab minority which would require Israelis to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state or lose their citizenship.He also advocates carving out part of the Galilee that is home to Arab Israeli villages and handing it over to Palestinian control, stripping the residents of their Israeli citizenship. Those policies proved popular enough for him to come third at the polls, but the oath of loyalty is thought unlikely to come into law.
  • He also intends to make Iran the centre of his foreign policy. The agreement said: "Israel will make every effort, especially with regard to the international community, to prevent the nuclear armament of Iran, while emphasising that a nuclear Iran, representing a danger to Israel, countries in the region and the entire free world, is unacceptable."
  • Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said: "We have to declare that sadly there is no partner on the Israeli side to negotiate with."
  • Lieberman, an immigrant and former nightclub bouncer from former Soviet Moldova, does not talk about Palestinian independence. Instead, his party's vision on the two-state solution states: "Israel needs to explain that the demand for a Palestinian state and the refugees' right of return is a cover for radical Islam's attempt to destroy the State of Israel." Lieberman was a member of the current Israeli government, but walked out in January last year as soon as peace talks restarted with the Palestinians.
  • Britain, in particular, is critical of Israel's settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law. But that cause might be harder to argue in future given that the almost 500,000 Israeli settlers include Lieberman and his family, who live in Nokdim, deep inside the West Bank.
  • Lieberman's main target has been his country's own Arab minority, who make up a fifth of the population, and of whom he has said: "Israel is under a dual terrorist attack, from within and from without. And terrorism from within is always more dangerous than terrorism from without."
  • It was this campaign, particularly his call for Arabs to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state, that won him so much support in the elections. He has even suggested that some elected Arab MPs in the Israeli parliament should be tried for treason and then executed.He also appeals to more secular Israelis, arguing in favour of civil marriages, as well as advocating a more presidential style of government.
Pedro Gonçalves

Middle East News | Israeli-US settlement freeze talks hit a dead end - 0 views

  • "The biggest obstacle today is the settlements," Hagit Ofran of the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group PeaceNOW told Al Arabiya. "There is no land left for Palestinians." "We believe it is easier for the government of Israel to stop settlement activities than trying to find excuses for their continuation," Ophran stated. Ophran added Israel's claims of "natural growth" are bogus given that 40 percent of the settler increase is due to immigration to settlements either from within Israel or abroad. "Natural growth in the settlements is not simply a matter of births from within but includes continuous flow of immigrants," Ophran explained. Settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have continued to expand at a rate higher than the population growth inside Israel. Some 180,000 additional Jews have been permitted to settle inside Israel’s Arab sector in East Jerusalem.
Pedro Gonçalves

Generations are divided on feelings about Muslims after London attack | Matthew Goodwin... - 0 views

  • the number of citizens who think that conflict between groups is "largely inevitable" has risen by seven points to 40%, or that agreement with the suggestion that there will be a serious clash between British Muslims and white Britons has also risen, by nine points to 59%.
  • the percentage of respondents who view Muslims as compatible jumped by almost 10 points to 33%. Clearly, the numbers remain low, and point to wider challenges facing government and our local communities
  • Whereas expectations of a future clash between Muslims and non-Muslims are especially pronounced among citizens aged 60 and above (at 70%), among 18- to 24-year-olds this figure tumbles to 48%.
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  • Whereas only 21% of the older group view Muslims as compatible with British life, the figure among young Britons is almost twice as high, at 38%. Whereas almost half of the over-sixties view British Muslims as posing a serious threat to democracy, the equivalent figure among more recent generations is just 19%.
Pedro Gonçalves

Westminster rejects Alex Salmond claim on Scotland's EU membership | Politics | guardia... - 0 views

  • The UK government statement stressed that, unlike the Scottish government, it had obtained formal advice from its law officers and that Scotland would have to negotiate the terms of its EU membership with the UK and all other 26 member states.It said: "This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state."The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."Referring to statements by European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and his deputy, Viviane Reding, that a newly independent country would be seen as a new applicant, it added: "Recent pronouncements from the commission support that view."
  • almond retaliated by quoting from an expert on the EU's borders, Graham Avery, a former strategy director at the commission who was made one of a number of honorary directors general of the European commission after he retired.In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Avery supported Salmond's position that it was inconceivable that an independent Scotland would be expected to leave the EU and then reapply. Salmond said his opinion "rather puts the lie to the scaremongering campaign of Labour and their unionist colleagues in the Conservative party".
  • Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.
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  • "For practical and political reasons, they could not be asked to leave the EU and apply for readmission," Avery told the committee. "Negotiations on the terms of membership would take place in the period between the referendum and the planned date of independence. The EU would adopt a simplified procedure for the negotiations, not the traditional procedure followed for the accession of non-member countries."But Avery, now at St Antony's College, Oxford University, directly contradicted Salmond's assertions that an independent Scotland would not be expected to join the euro instead of sterling, and that it would not need to sign up to the Schengen agreement rules on security and immigration.Avery said independence would give Scotland a louder and stronger voice in the EU, but new member states "are required to accept [the euro and Schengen] on principle". While Scotland's position was still not clear, Avery warned: "In accession negotiations with non-member countries, the EU has always strongly resisted other changes or opt-outs from the basic treaties."
Pedro Gonçalves

Tories call for rapid Europe vote to halt Nigel Farage surge | Politics | The Observer - 0 views

  • Ukip's surge to 23% of the vote – just 2% behind the Tories – reinforced their fear that Farage and his team could emerge as the largest party from next year's European elections.
  • Tories are increasingly concerned that, if they fail to act, Farage could go on to inflict serious damage on their prospects of keeping Labour out of power at the 2015 general election.
  • In the first referendum, people would be asked to give Cameron authority to renegotiate the terms of UK membership on issues such as employment policy, co-operation over police and justice policy, and immigration. A second in/out referendum would be held, as is planned in the next parliament, in which people would be asked if they wanted to remain in the EU after a deal was reached with the UK's EU partners.
Pedro Gonçalves

Libya struggles to contain tribal conflicts | Reuters - 1 views

    • Pedro Gonçalves
       
      What about the secessionist movement in Benghazi and the Cyrenaica region?
  • Long-standing rivalries, divided communities and plentiful weapons are convulsing Libya as the interim government struggles to impose its authority and secure peace among the country's ethnic groups.Violence in the Saharan south and in western Libya have shown how volatile the country remains six months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, who had long played off one tribe or clan against the other to weaken their power.
  • Gaddafi was always quick to end any ethnic clashes in the desert region and in 2009 he put down a tribal rebellion with helicopter gunships. But Libya's new rulers are weak and often out-gunned by the militias they are trying to control.
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  • Oasis farmers by tradition, the Tibu supported the rebel side in last year's uprising against Gaddafi. Their opponents are ethnic Arabs who see the Tibu, a group that also lives across the border in Chad and Niger, as outsiders.
  • In the chaos since Gaddafi's fall, the south has become a smuggling route for weapons which are reaching al Qaeda militants deeper in the Sahara and Tuaregs who are staging a separatist rebellion in northern Mali.
  • It is also used for trafficking legal and contraband goods such as alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, and by African immigrants heading north in the hope of reaching Europe.
  • Without a genuine army, Libya's National Transitional Council has struggled to persuade the many militias who fought Gaddafi across the country to join the armed forces and police, limiting its ability to intervene quickly in troublespots.
  • Analysts say the fighting will not tear the country apart, but it underlines the insecurity. "There is very little the government is currently able to do to prevent further clashes from occurring, either in the same locales or in new ones," Geoff Porter of North Africa Consulting said.
  • "That said, the fighting does not pose an existential threat to the viability of the country. The fighting has not been motivated by explicit grievances with the state, it is not driven by secessionist tendencies, and it does not appear to be underpinned by political ideology.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Far right joins Israel coalition - 0 views

  • Israel's Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has signed a coalition deal with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, officials say. Under the agreement, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman would become foreign minister, said officials from Mr Netanyahu's Likud party.
  • He is a strong supporter of the Israeli settler movement and opposes exchanging land for peace with the Palestinians.
  • Yisrael Beiteinu would get five other cabinet posts, including internal security, infrastructure, tourism, and the integration of new immigrants.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | US to boost Mexico border defence - 0 views

  • The US government is to increase security at the country's border with Mexico in an attempt to combat drug cartels, the White House has announced. Immigration, customs and anti-drug agents and gun law enforcement officers will be reinforced as part of a $700m (£475m) undertaking.
  • Some 8,000 have died in Mexico in the past two years in drug gang turf wars. The south-west US has also seen rising violence and kidnappings.
  • The money will come out of funds already allocated by the US Congress to assist Mexico in its fight against the drug cartels.
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  • Earlier this year, a study by the US Department of Defence warned that Mexico was in danger of becoming a failed state because of the drug gangs.
  • Gang-related violence claimed the lives of some 6,000 people in 2008 and so far this year more than 1,000 have been killed as gangs fight both one another for territory and the police and troops sent to tackle them.
Pedro Gonçalves

Mossad's foreign operations have often embarrassed Israel | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • Mossad agents have been caught with foreign passports before, triggering diplomatic rows. In 1997, two Mossad agents using forged Canadian passports were arrested in Amman after trying to assassinate Khalid Meshal, a Hamas official who is now the movement's leader, by spraying poison into his ear.
  • Two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months in 2004 in New Zealand for trying to falsely obtain a New Zealand passport . They were caught when an immigration official noticed a passport applicant was speaking with an American or Canadian accent.Helen Clark, the then New Zealand prime minister, criticised Israel for behaving in a way "unacceptable internationally by any country".
Argos Media

Torture-tape Gulf prince accused of 25 other attacks | World news | The Observer - 0 views

  • The wealthy Gulf prince at the centre of a "torture tape" scandal has been accused of attacking at least 25 other people in incidents that have also been caught on film, it has been claimed.Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan is now under investigation in the United Arab Emirates after the shocking tape showed him beating a man with a nailed plank, setting him on fire, attacking him with a cattle prod and running him over.
  • But now lawyers for American businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who smuggled the tape out of the UAE, have written to the justice minister of Abu Dhabi - the most powerful of the emirates that make up the UAE - claiming to have considerably more evidence against Issa. "I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people," wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter obtained by the Observer.
  • now it appears the initial tape could just be the beginning of the problem. The new tapes apparently also involve police officers taking part in Issa's attacks, and some of his victims in the as-yet-unseen videos are believed to be Sudanese immigrants.
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  • The fresh revelations about Issa's actions will add further doubt to a pending nuclear energy deal between the UAE and the US. The deal, signed in the final days of George W Bush, is seen as vital for the UAE. It will see the US share nuclear energy expertise, fuel and technology in return for a promise to abide by non-proliferation agreements. But the deal needs to be recertified by the Obama administration and there is growing outrage in America over the tapes. Congressman James McGovern, a senior Democrat, has demanded that Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, investigate the matter and find out why US officials initially appeared to play down its significance.
  • The tape emerged from a court case brought in America by Nabulsi. The American citizen is a former business partner of Sheikh Issa, and claims he, too, was tortured in the UAE after the pair fell out. Nabulsi said the first tape was shot by his brother on the orders of Sheikh Issa, who liked to view them later for his own pleasure.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | US offers migration talks to Cuba - 0 views

  • Washington has offered to resume talks on legal immigration by Cubans to the US, the US state department says.It says the move aims to "reaffirm both sides' commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration". The talks were halted in 2003 after Havana refused to give exit permits to people who had been granted US visas.
  • In March, President Barack Obama eased restrictions on visits to the Communist island by Cuban-Americans and allowed them to send money home more easily. Curbs on sending medicines and food were also eased. The legislation overturned rules imposed by the Bush administration which had limited travel to just two weeks every three years and had confined visits to immediate family members.
Pedro Gonçalves

Defiant or in denial? Champions of EU progress stopped in their tracks | World news | T... - 0 views

  • The morning after the night before, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was either defiant or in denial. The veteran Danish centre-leftist and former prime minister heads the PES, or Party of European Socialists, that groups all the mainstream social democratic movements of the EU."To those who announce a profound crisis in European socialism", he declared yesterday, "I say no."
  • "Our voters stayed away. They simply didn't see the relevance of these elections. They did not see the political choices at European level ... we had a European alternative, but it was not visible enough."
  • "This is a meltdown for the centre-left," said Professor Simon Hix of the London School of Economics, who has been running an EU-wide poll-tracking project for the election. Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform said: "There is a structural crisis for the centre-left, whether they are unpopular incumbents or in opposition. They have been routed."
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  • Given voter anxiety and anger at the misdemeanours of bankers, rising joblessness, failing mortgages and a worsening economic crisis, there were expectations that voters would lash out at incumbent governments, blaming them. This would have disproportionately hit the centre-right parties dominating the countries of the EU, the European parliament, and the political appointees running the European commission. It did happen to a small degree. But centre-left governments in power in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Austria suffered much bigger losses – the Hungarian socialists, the Austrian social democrats and Gordon Brown's Labour slumping to historic lows.
  • And there was no refuge in opposition. French, Italian and Polish social democrats were thrashed. The two social democratic parties that are junior coalition partners in the Netherlands and Germany also returned their worst ever results.
  • "The centre-right won the election, but it [their vote] did not really go up," said Hix. "It's the centre-left that has gone down, in government or in opposition."
  • Wherever the centre-left collapsed, the extreme right frequently scored its most spectacular gains – in Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands and Britain. But pro-EU left liberals and Greens also did well.Hix's analysis is that the poor working-class white vote is going from social democrats to the anti-immigrant extreme right in the Netherlands, Britain or Austria, while middle-class liberals and public sector workers who used also to vote centre-left are turning to the Greens.
  • "It's a timebomb for the left. The white under-class is really feeling the pinch. They are the first to lose their jobs. The rhetoric from the extremists is frightening, but it sounds reasonable to them."
  • The usual labels can also be misleading. A summit of European leaders next week in Brussels, for example, will see Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy challenging Brown to agree to tighter regulation of Europe's financial markets. Brown will resist, to defend the City of London from EU intrusiveness. The mainstream centre-right leaders of Europe are often to the left of British Labour prime ministers.
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