Javier Fernández Arribas
Journalist / Atalayar’s Editor
Europeans can and should avoid partisan and self-serving political intoxications about dangers and threats that only include their opponents. As much of a threat is the extreme left that we suffer in too many countries as the extreme right.
We must stand up for a Europe without complexes. There are elections in the European Union where what really matters are key issues such as industrialisation, immigration, security and defence with Putin on the side, energy, innovation and digitalisation, chips, car parts, agriculture, food and other issues that affect the daily lives of citizens.
The European Union has to give a clear, effective response to the challenges and needs of its inhabitants with principles and values in hand, no matter who it may concern, even if the populists use social networks and other channels to discredit everything that does not interest them and those who oppose them to succumb to their absurd banalities that only seek their own benefit. They make a lot of noise, they manipulate the term democratic, they appropriate a false social majority, they disqualify their political and social adversaries as far-right and their aim is to impose their only truth in order to achieve power, even if it is by trying to discredit judicial institutions and the media that bother them and stand up to them. Unfortunately, we suffer the harsh reality of the disastrous experience of the political, economic and social management of the extreme left in the governments of too many countries to submit to their impositions, which have nothing democratic about them. Rather, they are fanatical whims and fanciful occurrences. The European Parliament elections represent a good opportunity to strengthen the foundations of the European Union without complexes.
A clear example of the sad and tragic degradation that some insist on imprinting on politics is the analysis of the media coverage in Spain of these elections and the proposals conveyed to citizens. Spain’s domestic situation is so peculiar and unacceptable that it is very difficult to deal with transcendental European issues at a crucial moment, given the imperative need to renew Europe’s momentum and to ground ourselves in the cruel real world we have been living in for more than five years. Now more than ever, European principles and values, without shame or embarrassment, deserve a clear defence above absurd accusations of being fascist or far-right. In short, to stand up with arguments and experience at our disposal to authoritarian populists who use democratic mechanisms to come to power and, once in power, do and undo as they please and pretend to maintain themselves even with boiling oil.
The great threat to true liberal democracies is authoritarian populism, which for too long has been overly liberal and has condoned unacceptable attitudes and behaviour, so long as they are not accused of being extreme right or far right, has provoked a real far-right movement in reaction to the pusillanimous weakness of some governments and institutions that have preferred to avoid a direct clash. The most demeaning and dangerous example is that of Donald Trump in the United States.
During the covid pandemic, the European Union learned from the serious errors of inaction during the economic crisis of 2008, but it has not been able to demand that the corresponding governments manage the recovery funds, the Next Generation funds, which on the one hand have been allocated to friends and family and on the other are pending because they do not know how, cannot, do not want to…. They are urgently needed, among other things because they are asphyxiated by taxes and have to cope with the witty increases in the minimum wage, without taking into account whether or not they are possible. It is one of the examples that votes are votes. Of course it would be nice to have 1,800 euros minimum wage like in Luxembourg, but can we do it? Do companies have the resources for that? Or, simply those who have never paid a salary, decide with other people’s money to present themselves as very progressive and win votes, when what really wins is the list of the permanent-discontinuous, i.e. more unemployment.
You can call us what you like, even disqualify us as ultra I don’t know what, but the reality is that we need to reinforce the principles and values of the European Union over populist rubbish.
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