Romania ---- After 7 years of theft, overwhelmed by scandals, the
President of the Republic Klaus Iohannis, the most hated of those whohave held this role, more than the dictator Ciausescu, resigned on
February 12 to avoid the impeachment that would have been voted within
two days and for which 178 signatures out of 331 deputies had been
collected. His office, as provided for by the Constitution (art. 98), is
assumed by the President of the Senate until the presidential elections
that will take place in spring.
It will be remembered that on December 6, 2024, the Romanian Supreme
Court had annulled the second round of the presidential elections while
voting was underway to choose between Georgescu and Lasconi -
respectively first and second. Because of this unexpected decision, a
series of reports from the secret services relating to an unspecified
foreign intervention aimed at influencing the outcome of the vote. The
Court had referred to the illegal use of digital technologies -
including artificial intelligence and undeclared sources of funding from
which "preferential treatment" of one of the candidates on social
platforms would have resulted. In the two weeks preceding the December
elections, around 25,000 TikTok accounts were allegedly used to increase
Georgescu's popularity. Behind the initiative - the opposition denounces
- is the European Commission which does not like the positions declared
by the probable winner of the election outcome. The intervention - in
effect a coup d'état - was necessary to avoid the almost certain victory
of Georgescu, a sovereignist candidate opposed to the war in Ukraine,
who enjoys broad consensus in the country, to the point that in recent
months numerous demonstrations have been held in Romania calling for the
repetition of only the second round of the elections. In particular, on
January 12, thousands of people marched through the streets of
Bucharest, expressing their protest against the entire Romanian
political system. The European Union is pushing to repeat the elections
starting from the first round so that new candidates can enter the
competition in the run-off, considering that the other candidate in the
running is also on sovereignist positions. The clash over the methods of
conducting the elections continues but opposition to the war increases
support for Georgescu's candidacy in view of the elections scheduled for
May 4.
France
After more than four months of negotiations and failed attempts, carried
out by two different prime ministers, on January 14, 2025 the French
National Assembly approved the budget law for 2025, putting an end to
four months of fruitless parliamentary work.
The law was approved by the Senate with 219 votes and 107 against,
thanks to the decisive support of the center-right coalition that
supports Prime Minister François Bayrou in the Senate. But to be
approved, the law needed the favorable vote of the National Assembly,
which is divided into three blocks, left, center and right, none of
which has a majority of seats nor great intentions of collaborating with
the others. So the Bayrou government forced approval by resorting to
paragraph 3 of article 49 of the Constitution, which allows the prime
minister to approve a law on financial matters without going through a
parliamentary vote, but exposing himself to a motion of no confidence,
an instrument considered politically inappropriate, used many times in
recent years also to approve important and very unpopular reforms, such
as that of pensions. If the left had maintained its unity, it would
still have been possible to block the procedure. In fact, the
parliamentary regulation provides that the opposition can present a
motion of no confidence in the government and thus block this procedure.
But the Socialist Party broke the front of the left-wing alliance, born
in the electoral vote, already starting from the birth of the Bayrou
government, starting negotiations with the government on various issues
and obtaining several concessions in exchange for the promise not to
vote for a possible motion of no confidence, such as setting the
deficit-GDP ratio for 2025 at 5.4%, instead of 5% and the promise to
revisit the pension reform, introduced in 2023, even if it is not known
in what way, in what direction and to what extent. To repay the
Socialists for the support granted, Bayrou promptly proceeded to release
some statements on immigration, very close to those of the far right,
demonstrating in fact that it was worth supporting the unity with the
other main party of the New Popular Front, France Insoumise, the radical
left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In short, the usual idiot figure!
To come into force, the law now needs a final vote by the Constitutional
Council, a body that oversees the constitutionality of new laws: also in
this case, the positive outcome of the vote is quite obvious. In recent
months, no budget bill had come so close to approval and for over a
month France had been in provisional budget; the State could not arrange
for new expenditure, but had to limit itself to authorizing only those
made in the previous year.
The financial law for 2025 is the most important of those that make up
the package of budget laws for the current year, which should have been
approved by the end of 2024. By using Article 49.3 once again, Bayrou
forced the approval of the other main law in the package, the one on the
financing of social security (PLFSS). which will be voted on separately.
Belgium
After 9 months of negotiations, Belgium has a new center-right
government led by Bart De Wever, of the right-wing party New Flemish
Alliance (N-va), head of the "Arizona coalition" that includes the
Flemish nationalists of the N-va, the Christian Democrats (Les Engagés,
French-speaking, and Cd&v, Flemish), the Social Democrats of Vooruit
(Flemish) and the liberals of Mouvement réformateur (Mr,
French-speaking). It takes its name from the colors of the parties that
compose it. Like all right-wing governments, it aims to fight emigration
through border controls and raids on the homes of illegal immigrants
without a residence permit. Accepting the requests of the liberal
component of the coalition, the period within which it is possible to
terminate a pregnancy is extended.
Institutional reforms are also being aimed at, abolishing the Senate,
opting for a strengthening of autonomies, reducing the powers of the
federal government and the cohesion of the Federation itself.
The new government's program is characterized by the most rigid
ordo-liberalism, as demonstrated by the fact that it proposes to cut the
budget by 18 billion euros to bring the deficit below 3% of GDP by 2030,
as requested by the European Commission, drastically reducing welfare.
Other changes concern work, taxes and pensions, while no tax increase is
planned for the richest. Unemployment benefits will be reduced to two
years, pensions will be reformed, extending the working age and aligning
pension systems between the public and private sectors.
The tax reform will hit the lowest wages in particular and will increase
taxation on financial income to 10%, at the request of the Flemish
Social Democrats. The declared objective is to raise the employment rate
to 80% from the current 70%, starting from the belief that subsidies
encourage people to refuse disadvantageous and degrading jobs. The same
motivations that in Italy led to the abolition of the citizen's income.
It is not a given that such drastic policies of intervention on public
spending will end up producing a coalition crisis: those jostling are
not only the opposition parties or the left-wing parties within the
coalition, but also the French-speaking liberals who consider themselves
free agents, ready to undermine the government at the first opportunity.
To avoid these risks, the government has decided to adopt a policy of
absolute loyalty to the lines that guide the majority of the Brussels
Commission from which it aims to obtain maximum support and therefore,
while criticizing the environmental policies and the fight against the
climate crisis, it supports the rearmament of tiny Belgium, to the point
that the defense minister Ludivine Dedonder has proposed increasing the
number of reservists, recruiting 1,050 new units out of the 3,300 that
make up the army. Truly huge ambitions for such a tiny country: Russia
will be very scared!
Slovakia
Attempts to destabilize the Fico government continue by the NGO Peace
for Ukraine, funded by the United States and the so-called Georgian
Legion. Large demonstrations were organized in 28 cities of the country,
the largest one was in Bratislava with 30,000 participants. This is
according to a report by the Slovak secret services, presented to
Parliament by the Prime Minister, who has opened direct talks with Putin
for the supply of gas and oil. The initiative follows the interruption
of the gas and oil pipeline coming from Russia, blocked by Ukraine,
which has left the country completely without energy and has forced it
to look for alternative ways to bring Russian oil to the country.
Trump's sudden cessation of USAID funding to NGOs has unexpectedly led
to a drop in the tone of the demonstrations. For its part, the
government in Bratislava has stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine in
protest over the lack of understanding shown in relation to the
country's energy problems and has vowed to block Ukraine's accession to
NATO.
Baltic countries
Taken together, the three Baltic countries of Lithuania, Estonia and
Latvia have six million inhabitants and a GDP that does not exceed 150
million dollars per year, yet they hold important positions within the
European Commission. The statements of Kaja Kallas, the "high"
representative for the Union's foreign policy, who has become famous for
her assertiveness and the exasperated warmongering that characterizes
her, appear increasingly out of context and far from reality. The three
countries, together with von der Leyen, have hailed the detachment of
their electricity grid from the Russian one as a great victory, thus
declaring that they have finally achieved energy independence, which in
reality simply means changing dependence: their insufficient electricity
production is in fact compensated by the neighboring countries of the
Community and in particular by Poland. Their determination to pursue an
anti-Russian policy engages them in an accelerated race to accumulate
armaments for armies that are also tiny, given the size of the three
countries, aggravated by the demographic decline with a rate of less
than 1%. The security obsession has led Estonia, which has a 4.5%
Russian-speaking population, which is forbidden to use Russian, to
impose autocephaly by law on the country's tiny Orthodox Church, to
detach it from the Moscow Patriarchate, and Latvia has touched the
ridiculous with the approval of a law that prohibits private tour
operators from organizing tourist trips to Russia and Belarus, all in
homage to the freedom of enterprise of private individuals.
Spain
Spain's growth, supported by an increase in public spending, thanks to
policies aimed at strengthening public services (+3.8%) and stimulating
domestic demand (2.3%), continues to grow, thanks to state investments
in the health and education systems, subsidies for businesses and
self-employed workers, and social welfare measures, starting with the
revaluation of pensions. The result is that exports are increasing and
the cost of energy is lower than in other European countries. In 2023,
Spain's GDP increased by 2.7%. The International Monetary Fund states
that it will grow by 2.4% in 2024 and 2.1% in 2025. But the positive
performance of the Spanish economy does not depend only on the 85
million foreign tourists who nevertheless had a positive impact (12.8%)
on GDP growth. Between 2022 and 2023, Spain, together with Portugal,
benefited from the special mechanism (called the "Iberian exception")
agreed with the European Union to limit the impact of the increase in
natural gas prices. With this mechanism, the government introduced a
maximum cap on the price of gas. The positive effect of the Iberian
exception was felt not only by families, but also by Spanish businesses,
which enjoyed lower costs and energy costs compared to other large
European economies, starting with Germany and Italy. But the labor
reform had a decisive positive impact: the government increased the
national minimum wage several times, which is currently set at 1,134
euros per month (in 2018 it was 735 euros). Since 2020, the minimum
subsistence income (Ingreso Mínimo Vital in Spanish) has been
introduced, a measure similar to the citizen's income that offers a
minimum level of income to those who find themselves in a situation of
economic vulnerability. These measures have stimulated consumption,
especially of basic necessities. In addition, the Spanish government is
making good use of European funds for economic recovery, having received
163 billion euros in contributions and subsidies (PNRR).
These measures have contributed to the unemployment rate being the
lowest in the last 15 years (the highest in the EU area (but unlike
Italy, this is not a rigged figure, since in 2021 a reform was
introduced that reduced the possibility for companies to resort to
fixed-term contracts and increased permanent employment, inducing
companies to plan for the long term, also making workers more motivated
and therefore more productive.
Finally, it must be said that in recent years the Spanish population has
grown, especially thanks to the contribution of migration, to the point
that according to the Bank of Spain, the country has become one of those
in Europe with the highest flow of migrants in relation to the
population. He added that emigrants have a higher employment rate than
Spanish citizens, so they contribute more to the increase in GDP than
the natives. Immigrants from Latin America are culturally very
compatible with the natives and speak the same language: problems arise
with respect to their professional qualifications.
As everywhere in Europe, the possible increase in energy costs could
affect the cost of labor, which could grow suddenly, not so much due to
wage growth as to the increase in contributions paid by companies.
Austria
The far-right party Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), despite having won
the September elections with 28%, was not able to put together a
majority capable of forming a government. We are therefore waiting for
the President of the Republic to accept its request to dissolve
Parliament and call new elections.
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/03/02/osservatorio-politico-2/
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