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This book gives a complex description and discussion of today’s populist attacks against the European Union (EU) following the financial crisis of 2008, which opened the floodgates of dissatisfaction and the migration crisis which destabilized the traditional solidarity basis of the EU. The problem of Brexit is also explored.
Each chapter presents one of the main elements of the crisis of the EU. These include West European populism, Central European right-wing populism in power, and the exploitation of the EU’s mistake during the migration crisis of the mid-2010s. These also include the discovery of Christian ideology against immigration and hidden anti-Semitic propaganda using a hysteric attack against the liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and Brexit. There is a detailed discussion of the failures of the EU to pacify the neighbourhood in the South and North, especially in Ukraine and the rising hostile outside enemies of the EU, including Russia and Turkey, bad relationships with Trump’s America, the uncertainty of NATO, and the emergence of a new rival, China, that enters into the Central European edge of the EU.
The author explores strategies for coping with, and emerging from, this existential crisis and ends with the alternative plans and possibilities for the future of the Eurozone. This will be an invaluable resource for understanding the crisis of the EU, one of the central questions of contemporary international politics for undergraduate and graduate students, and readers interested in the discussion surrounding an endangered European integration and difficult world politics.
Introduction
Chapter 1. Existential crisis, the possibility of disintegration and the European Union in the 2010s.
The rise of an existential crisis: the economic factors
Migration crisis and its connection with Europe’s demographic crisis
Muslim terror atacks
Populist attacks against the EU
Recognition of the existential crisis
The outside factor: loosening and hostile neighbors
Deep crisis is over, but are new ones coming?
Escaping forward?
Chapter 2. Inequality within and among member countries undermined homogenization and became a source of discontents.
Capitalism and inequality
Increasing inequality within the EU countries
Inequality among member countries of the EU
Chapter 3. The political representation of discontent: disappearing traditional political parties and rising populism
From class to national parties
Old mass parties are disappearing
Melting down of the social democratic parties
Rising populist parties
Central political issues for populists
Chapter 4. Bexit and its possible impact
Joining late – leaving early
‘Hard’ or ‘soft’ landing? The Chequers plan
The consequences of Brexit
Chapter 5. Anti-European Union Populism in Western and Southern Europe
Liberal democracy and its multi-ethnic culture
Why became populism triumph in Britain?
Wilders, Le Pen and others
Populist defeats and victories, 2017–2018
Chapter 6. Populism flooded Eastern Europe and the Balkans – undermining the EU
Real home for populism
The eastern part of Germany
The region left behind
The reverse migr ation crisis of the region
The crisis of 2008 and austerity policy – authoritarian nationalism
Chapter 7. Christian Europe? The use and abuse of Christian values and the populist debate
Populism and Christianity
The special feature of East European nationalist interpretations of Christianity
Christian values and how they influence European life?
Pope Francis differing interpretation of Christian Europe
Chapter 8. The demonization of George Soros and its real meaning in Central and Eastern Europe
Right-wing anti-Soros hysteria all over
Putin’s Rusia gave the signal
"Let’s not leave Soros the last laugh"
Anti-Soros mania in Eastern Europe
Soros’s view on immigration in Europe
The ‘secret message’ of anti-Soros hysteria
Chapter 9. Is the European Union a neoliberal construction that deserves to be destroyed? A debate with left-wing attacks
Does attacking the -EU equate to anti-neoliberalism?
Globalization or regionalization?
End of globalization? –the increasing importance of regionalization
Austerity policy as exploitation of peripheral countries?
Serving the oligarchs?
The strait jacket of euro and national sovereignty
Real causes of revolt: social shock caused by complex societal changes
Chapter 10-. Outside discontents on the outside: the weakening alliance with the US, a hostile Russia, and Turkey and China at the borders
Loosening alliance with the United States
The failure to keep Turkey in the EU’s orbit
Failure of the Balkans’ policy towards the EU
The failure of the EU’s southern and eastern neighborhood policy
Russia against the EU: its counter attacks and provocations
Europe’s dangerous oil dependence on Russia and the EU’s plans to eliminate it
China is entering the ring: the Balkan Silk Road
Chapter 11. Out from crisis or between crises? The EU of the future?
Steps of further integration: the road towards a fiscal and banking union
First steps towards a European Army
Alternatives for further integration
Plans for the future of Europe
Index
