Journal

Editorial

Europe is going through an emotional roller coaster. The top EU politicians all have their hands full in trying to manage and improve their half-hearted bailout attempts for member-states that are beginning to careen out of control. In all of this we can’t fail to see that the states in question are in no way being given a hand – not to mention the layers of the populations hit by the austerity measures. The goal of this unprofessional crisis management was and is first and foremost to protect European banks from meltdowns and to keep the financial markets in a good mood.
It is an irony of history that the EU states only ended up in a precarious situation when after the outbreak of the...

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Contents

• Essay

• • The European Union and the Dilemmas of the Radical Left

  • By Gerassimos Moschonas

  • “... the task  arises is not merely to criticize the policy of the ruling classes [...] from the standpoint of the existing society itself, but also to contrast existing society as its every move with...

• Europe: No Future?

• • Europe in the Centre of the New Phase of the Big Crisis

  • By Joachim Bischoff , Bernhard Müller

  • We are in the deepest crisis in the history of the European Union. Only if both the governments of member-states and European institutions act decisively, can we get out of it. European countries can...
• • The Crisis of Europe: Elements of a Political Strategy

  • By Elisabeth Gauthier

  • At the time of this writing, Europe is becoming increasingly unstable and no one can predict the scenario of the coming weeks. It is safe to predict that we are heading for a series of tragedies....
• • Austerity, Debt, Social Destruction in Europe: Stop! Coordinate Our Strengths – Democratic Alternatives
  • European Conference, 31 May 2001 (Brussels) in Partnership with the GUE/NGL Parliamentary Group After September 2010 forces involved in the European Social Forum and in European social mobilisations...
• • Organic Crisis of Financial-Market Capitalism: Scenarios, Conflicts, Competing Projects
  • Institute for Critical Social Analysis (IfG), Germany Preliminary Remark...
• • Crash as Cash Can – Crises, Bubbles, Speculators – 1929 and Today

  • By Fritz Weber

  • In autumn 2008 the world experienced a financial crash, which brought the financial markets to the outer edge of collapse. Then peace returned (or more accurately: organised pacification), until...
• • The Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy in Greece Tracing Ruptures and Indicating Tendencies in the Memorandum Policies

  • By Giannis Balabanidis

  • In what follows we will analyse the general impact of Memorandum policies adopted one year ago and that of the measures introduced by the Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy Law this summer. Given the fact...
• • Reforms in the Czech Republic – Towards Social Darwinism

  • By Ilona Švihlíková

  • The current situation in the Czech Republic is quite tense. Once again, twenty years after the so-called Velvet Revolution, citizens are asked to “tighten their belts” – however, this time not with...

• Europe and the World on the Move

• • The Peculiarities of the Greek Crisis: Democracy, Protest and Contention in Syntagma Square

  • By Giorgos Tsiridis

  • This article attempts to illustrate the particularities of the Greek movement organised against the austerity measures, imposed by the government under the auspices of the EU and the IMF. Apart from...
• • May 15 and the Spanish Revolution

  • By Armando Fernández Steinko

  • In Spain the crisis of 2007/2008 marked the end of a long political cycle. Since the 1980s, a big centre coalition tried to build a modern welfare state on the ruins of a destroyed labour society and...
• • Fluid Democracy: The Italian Water Revolution

  • By Tommaso Fattori

  • From Commons to the referendum

• • Chile - The Constitution and the Crisis of Education: A Decisive Battle

  • By Juan Pablo Cárdenas

  • This summer’s student demonstrations detonated the major social explosion our country is experiencing today after 17 years of an authoritarian regime and two decades of dashed hopes. Over and above...
• • “The People Demand Social Justice!” - A Huge Social Protest in Israel

  • By Michel Warschawski

  • Less than a year ago, the whole Arab Region, from Tunisia in the West to Yemen in the South East, was the arena of a gigantic and extraordinary popular uprising for freedom and democracy. The...
• • Egypt - After the Revolution is Before the Revolution

  • By Gabriele Habashi

  • Sure, we were all happy. And of course we celebrated. The whole world was watching Egypt. We were enormously proud. But then?...
• • Egypt - Will the Fire in the Israeli Embassy Spread to the Whole Region?

  • By Gabriele Habashi

  • September 9, 2011: The Israeli Embassy was in flames yesterday. Angry demonstrators broke down the protective wall surrounding the building and set it on fire. As a precaution, the Israeli ambassador...

• On the Far Right

• • Right-Wing Populism in Europe

  • By Walter Baier

  • In many discussions the increase of extreme right-wing and right-wing populist parties in a growing number of European countries is regarded as if it were only a matter of parallel individual national...
• • Norway - From Meta-Politics to Mass Murder – A New Right-Wing Extremism

  • By Mathias Wåg

  • The massacre on the island of Utøya and the attack in Oslo’s government district targeting the Scandinavian labour movement was horrible, the worst kind of right-wing terrorist act. How could it...
• • Netherlands - Understanding the Wilders Phenomenon

  • By Hans van Heijningen , Arjan Vliegenthart

  • It is said that the German writer Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) once remarked that if a revolution were to break out in Germany, he would flee to the Netherlands, since there everything happens fifty...
• • Right-wing Populism in Germany too? A European Trend and its Special German Features

  • By Gerd Wiegel

  • The wave of right-wing populist electoral successes continues to sweep across Europe: Scandinavia is now completely riddled with parties of this type. Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and...

• Country Reports

• • The Turning Point In Italian Politics: The Victory Of The Centre-Left In The Milan Elections

  • By Giorgio Riolo

  • Preliminary remarks...
• • Danish Elections – New Government

  • By Inger V. Johansen

  • A new Danish government was formed on October 3rd, consisting of three parties: It is led by the Social Democrats – the other participants are the Liberal Democrats (”Det Radikale Venstre”) and the...
• • The LINKE after the Elections of 2011

  • By Cornelia Hildebrandt

  • The Berlin elections of September 2011 were the last in this year’s election cycle of seven regional and two communal elections. On the positive side, the LINKE has been able to assert itself as a...
• • France: The Left Front – The Challenge of a True Popular Dynamism

  • By Dominique Crozat

  • As everyone knows, in the 2005 referendum the French people rejected the European Constitutional Treaty. What had enabled this success was that, for the first time, forces opposed to neoliberalism...
• • Book Review - Persecution: The Austrian §278a as an Example

  • By Lutz Holzinger

  • It is not certain if the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001 were the kick-off for the rollercoaster ride the financial markets have been on ever...
• • Workers’ Self-management in Yugoslavia – An Ambivalent Experience

  • By Boris Kanzleiter

  • In the discussion of an alternative economic order the terms “producers’ democracy” and “workers’ self-management” are inseparably bound up with the “Yugoslav experiment”. The “Third Way” of Yugoslav...
• • New Challenges Confronting the Progressive Governments of South America

  • By Véronique Sandoval

  • In the course of a seminar organised by the São Paulo Forum from June 30 to July 2 at Rio, which brought together ministers, political leaders and research workers from about ten Latin American...