The most recent elections in Greece are over and the relatively new Syriza party has been declared victorious. This historic election means that there will be changes in Greece–those changes, however, could be very drastic not only for the country itself but for the entirety of the European Union. The Syriza party could be a great force for change in Greece, or undo some of the economic progress that has been made in recent years.

Greece. Image courtesy of [Kevin Anderson via Flickr]. 

What was the situation in Greece leading up to the elections?

Greece has been in less-than-stellar shape since the global recession began in 2008. The country is severely in debt, has a high unemployment rate, and low wages. The government was also much-maligned; in December the Greek Parliament rejected former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ preferred candidate for President. When that happens an immediate election must take place, and that rush to the ballot box brought a number of parties to the forefront, including the Syriza party.

What is Syriza?

Syriza, which means “Coalition of the Radical Left,” is a fairly recently created political party in Greece. It became an official party in July 2013. Since then it remained small until this election when it won by a landslide. Syriza is led by the new president of Greece, Alexis Tsipras.

What is the Syriza Party ideology?

The Syriza Party defines itself as a party of the democratic and radical left whose ideology took root in popular struggles for Greek independence, democracy, labor, and anti-fascist movements in Greece. Even though the party consists of a collection of many different ideological currents and left cultures, the group has built its identity on a synthesis of the values of the labor movement with those of the ecological, feminist, and other new social movements.

Syriza is also well known as an anti-establishment party, and ran on a platform that promised to fight an entity known in Greece as the “Troika,” which consists of the of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank. Syriza wants to force these groups to forgive some Greek debt and allow the country to enact a program of stimulus spending, among other reforms.

The 2015 Election

How did Syriza fare in the 2015 elections?

The Syriza party did extremely well in the election. According to the Greek Interior Ministry, Syriza won 36.3 percent of the vote, enough to obtain 149 of the 300 seats in the Greek Parliament.  

What does Syriza’s win mean? 

The Greek Parliament requires 151 members in order for a party to become a majority, and by extension form and run the government. While Syriza won the most seats, it did not get quite enough to make a majority on its own. This requires it to form an alliance with a party or number of parties in order to make a coalition government. While Syriza is a leftist party, its choice of an ally may seem strange. It reached out and allied itself with the Independent Greek Party, which is a group on the right. The two parties have nothing in common except that they both have a mutual opposition to austerity and the way that Greece has been treated by the rest of Europe. However, their unity means that the Syriza/Independent Greek Party coalition is in control, and elevates Syriza’s leader, Tsipras, to the position of President.

How did other parties fare in the election?

After Syriza, the New Democracy Party won 27.9 percent of the vote, or 76 seats. This party ran on the vision of a new socio-economic development model for the country.

Another party that made gains was the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party; it acquired 6.3 percent of the vote. The To Potami party, which ran on the idea of putting the common man into government and not professional politicians, acquired a similar six percent of the vote. Both Golden Dawn and To Potami acquired 16 seats each.

The KKE Party, which is a communist party that follows the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, acquired only 5.5 percent, enough for 15 seats. The Pasok Party, which ran on a platform of freedom, democracy, and a better future, ended up with 4.7 percent percent of the vote tying it with the Independent Greeks Party, which believes in the political system of parliamentary democracy, as well as religious freedom. Each of these parties won 13 seats.

Austerity

The main issue that has united the Syriza and Independent Greek parties is austerity. Austerity in its simplest form involves policies to reduce government spending and/or higher taxes in order to try to reduce government budget deficits. According to the Atlantic, what this means in Greece’s case is a series of spending cuts and tax hikes designed to reduce the country’s enormous bailout debt, which currently equals 175 percent of its GDP.

The austerity measures, which were put into place in 2012, were beginning to work, according to outgoing Prime Minister Samaras, and he has the facts to back him up. Since 2009, Greece’s primary deficit has gone from a whopping 10.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), to a primary surplus of 2.7 percent of GDP. In addition, the banking sector is much stronger and more resilient than it has been since the beginning of the economic crisis.

Despite all of the economic good news, the changes have not improved life soon enough for the Greek people who have found themselves in dire straits. Four million Greeks have been reduced to poverty and they can’t do much about it because unemployment has soared to 28 percent. To make matters worse, wages have dropped 12 percent in the same time frame. The new government promises to change that by gaining debt forgiveness, even if it means going head to head with the rest of the European Union, some members of which have already said that they will not be backing down. They hope that other nations who have parties with similar ideologies will be able to gain control of their respective governments and force the EU to concede to their demands.

What does this election mean for Greece’s debt?

The election means that Greece is going to look at other methods to pay its debts, get them forgiven, or if left with no other option, default on them. The party is hoping to bully the Troika into submission, but that will be difficult since it will have a hard time asking other nations for help. The video below explains the challenge that Greece will have to deal with.

 How has the rest of Europe responded?

The main response to the elections in Greece came from Europe, and so far these responses have been cold at best. This is particularly true of the entities that make up the Troika. With Syriza’s platform so centralized on removing the austerity measures and the Troika refusing to back down, both sides are gearing up for a fight.

European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker already warned that any reduction of Greece’s debt commitments is not even on the Commission’s mind. His thoughts are being echoed by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup, who stated that “There is very little support for a write-off in Europe.” This means that Greece will have an uphill battle to get anything done in terms of debt reduction. The results of this clash will be watched by other nations that are close to being in the same boat as Greece, such as Italy and Spain.

This leaves Greece with a few options. The country could default on its bills and as a result leave the EU–an option that neither side wants to see happen as it is an extremely unpopular idea in Greece and not a popular one in the EU either. The other option is for the Troika to cave into Syriza’s demands. However this wraps up, observers fear that parties with the same ideology as Syriza’s will gain power in other nations and force the same demands, which could spell big problems for the European Union down the road.

Conclusion

Syriza, an anti-bailout, anti-austerity party in Greece, has won the latest election only to find itself in a struggle with the European Union powerhouses. If Syriza fails, Greece could be forced from the European Union; if it succeeds, the EU will be forced to alter terms with other nations that are in debt to the banks, as well. No matter what, Syriza’s election spells big changes for Greece.

Resources

Primary

Syriza: Who We Are

Additional

Independent: Greece Elections: Syriza and EU on Collision Course After Election Win for Left Wing Party

Atlantic: Europe’s Austerity Moment is Ending 

Reuters: Greek PM Tsipras Names Anti-Austerity Cabinet, Port Sale Halted

Guardian: Syriza’s Election Victory in Greece–How Europe Reacted 

Fortune: Why the Greek Elections Might Be the Beginning of the End for the Euro 

Bloomberg: Euro Area’s Pro-Default Parties May Trigger New Crisis

Time: 5 Facts About the Greek Election

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to credit select information to the Atlantic. 

Chris Schultz

Chris Schultz is a Midwestern country boy who is a graduate of Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa and holds a bachelors degree in History. He is interested in learning about the various ocean liners that have sailed the world’s waters along with a variety of other topics. Contact Chris at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The violence in Paris several weeks ago united Europe as little else has in recent years. Plagued by economic decline, some of the more prosperous nations have voiced discontent with the state of the European Union. Partly leading this surge is a wave of far-right political movements. These nationalist movements are gaining traction from Berlin to Paris to London as people tire of stagnant economic growth and demands for bail outs.

Additionally in many of these countries, a dramatic demographic change is occurring in which traditional peoples and cultures are finding themselves increasingly co-habitating with people who have different beliefs and practices. Read on to learn about the political shift and rise of right-wing groups in Europe after years of economic concerns and changing demographics in the region.

History of the European Union

The European Union, unsurprisingly, traces its roots to the aftermath of WWII. With the continent in ruins, several representatives from leading nations attempted to finally find some way to unify the region and put an end to the seemingly endless fighting that had just led to the most destructive war the world has ever known.

The process started with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, which had six founding members: West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. These six nations agreed to unite their coal and steel production. The foundation was built up further with the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which created the European Economic Community (EEC). In 1967 the European Parliament was created and in 1979 it had its first direct elections.

The European Union itself was codified in 1993 through the Treaty of Maastricht. In 2002, the Euro replaced the currency of 12 of the 15 members of the organization. The Euro reached its highest value against the dollar in 2008; however, like much of the rest of the developed world, the EU was then rocked by the global economic crisis. Since this time, the EU has been attempting to fight off recession and recover, with the only real bright spot being the addition of its twenty-eighth member country Croatia in 2013. The video below gives a succinct explanation of the EU.

Economic Turmoil

In 2008 the global financial crisis hit the European Union and the results have been devastating both economically and with regard to the unity of the region.

The Rich

The economic crisis has hit both rich and poor countries within the Eurozone alike. While many of the rich countries were not in need of bail outs, they still suffered from high debt. First, they had to bail out those troubled fellow EU members that were unable to pay off their high debts after the crisis hit. They also lost markets to sell goods as the cash-strapped nations to the south could not afford to buy as much of their products.

Furthermore, while some indicators of a healthy economy appear to show rich countries in the EU doing well, these can be misleading. In the case of Germany for example, unemployment sits at a very respectable five percent; however, economic growth is virtually flat. In the third quarter of 2014 the economy only grew 0.1 percent, which followed on the heels of a second quarter in which Germany’s economy actually shrunk by 0.1 percent.

Germany is far from the only and certainly not the worst-off wealthy nation in the Eurozone either. France, the second largest economy in the EU, has an unemployment rate of over ten percent and grew only 0.3 percent during the third quarter of 2013. This miniscule growth, similar to that of Germany, also followed a second quarter contraction. Other cases include Spain, the number four economy, and Italy, the number three economy in the Eurozone, with unemployment rates of about 24 percent and 13 percent respectfully.

The Struggling

While the economic crisis certainly hit both wealthy and poor European nations, as is usually the case, the less robust economies ended up worse off. It begins of course with the bail outs. Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain, and Cyprus all had to accept large sums of money from other EU members to avoid default.

Furthermore, as a result of the bail outs, these countries and others struggling with the debt crisis have had to employ austerity measures; however, this strategy limits growth especially because creditors will be hesitant to lend money to struggling economies. This then creates a brutal cycle in which these countries have a difficult time paying off their debts because growth is low and unemployment will remain high. The video below gives a great explanation of the European Union’s economic problems.

Changing Demographics

Coupled with a shaky economic situation are dramatic demographic changes in Europe. This change can be divided into three categories: fertility, age, and ethnicity. First Europe as a whole has a very low fertility rate. Fertility rate is basically the number of children a family can expect to have during its childbearing years. Replacement level, or the level of children being born needed to adequately replace the existing population, is 2.1 children. In 2012 the average fertility rate for countries within the European Union was 1.6 children–well below replacement levels.

Since fewer children are being born, the average populations of these countries are rapidly aging. In Poland for example, the percentage of people above the working age population, 15-64, is expected to increase from 20.9 percent in 2010 to 58 percent in 2050. A large aging population can be a double edged sword, as not only are older people more dependent on public services such as health care and pensions, but they are also less productive in the economy and save less, which affects investing.

Thus a lack of new labor and a society that increasingly needs it has led to mass migration in Europe. This migration can be broken down into two groups. First is the traditional type of immigration, specifically from countries outside the EU to countries inside of it. In 2012, for example, 1.7 million people migrated to the European Union. The other type of migration is within the European Union itself; this figure also was approximately 1.7 million for the year 2012. Both types of migration are headed in one specific direction–west. Western European nations, which not coincidentally have the best economies, are bearing the brunt of the mass movements. The top five destinations in order of descending immigrant arrivals were Germany, the UK, Italy, France, and Spain.

It’s also important to note the origin of the people immigrating. Many are coming from Eastern Europe. A large portion of the incoming people and groups are also Muslim. While it cannot be reiterated enough that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants are in every way able adaptable to European life, there is tension in Europe over this influx. Current events, such as the fact that it has been estimated that currently as many as three thousand European-born Muslims have fought on behalf of ISIS or other extremist groups in the Middle East, haven’t helped this tension.

While fear of these fighters returning home has far outstripped any actual problems, the recent shootings in Paris show what can occur when a marginalized group becomes incredibly radicalized. Unfortunately this image of radicalized Muslims plays perfectly into the hands of politicians and right-wing groups that have come to prominence at the expense of immigrant groups.

Europe has a long history of xenophobia. When it deals with mass immigration, the fear has turned into Islamaphobia.  While western Europeans may not be particularly thrilled with eastern European immigrants, Muslims are being singled out in particular because of their different culture and the historical legacy of conflict between Christian and Muslim areas of Europe and the Middle East. This fear and Islamaphobia also extends to first and second generation Muslims as well, particularly in a time of economic uncertainty.

The Reemergence of the Right Wing

All these issues–economic problems, low fertility rates, and mass immigration–have led to a resurgence in the power and appeal of right-wing parties in Europe. More specifically, what has led to this rise is how economic problems are perceived as being compounded by immigration. For example, in the European Union the youth unemployment rate as a whole is 23 percent; in Greece it has been as high as 60 percent.

In a sadly ironic twist the backlash to this has usually been against immigrants who are perceived as stealing the few precious jobs that are available; however, immigration is necessary in the first place because the birth rates are so low. Additionally, immigrant populations have even higher unemployment rates than native youth.

As a result of these concerns, in recent elections several far-right parties including France’s Front National, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Hungary’s Jobbik, and the United Kingdom’s UKIP all won a surprising number of votes. Each of these parties display different combinations of outward anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and racism, or have been associated with such traits in the past. While this by no means represents a majority, it does indicate a disturbing trend for the European Union.

While it seems clear that far-right political movements are on the rise in Europe, the question turns to what exactly these groups want. Just like other political groups, especially across national lines, their interests vary. Overall, the focus seems to be anti-immigration, specifically based on a fear that immigrants will take away badly needed jobs from native residents. At the forefront of this movement is the Front National in France, which won the most seats in the European Parliament of any far right party.

The Front National can be characterized as one of the most moderate of the far-right parties coming to power.  Its primary focus is on nationalism instead of more overtly far-right ideologies espoused by other groups such as Golden Dawn, Jobbik, and the accused neo-Nazi NPD group in Germany; however, Front National has its roots in exactly the same kinds of dogma that these groups maintain, namely anti-Semitism and racism. This is why the far right party in Britain, the UKIP, has refused to join with them. Thus the main connection these groups all seem to have is strong support for anti-immigration measures, which entails moving away from a united Europe and its open migration policies between nations. The video below provides further explanation of the rise of far-right parties and what they believe.

Current State of the Union

Europe appears to be in serious trouble. Its native population is dwindling because of low fertility rates and an aging population. The people migrating in to fill this void, while on the whole younger, also bring different cultures and mindsets. All this has led to a wave of right-wing parties that are in favor of closing borders, ousting immigrants, and breaking away from the ailing European Union.

Europe’s economy, while growing slightly, is still badly damaged and will likely take years just to return to pre-recession levels. Additionally, fertility rates in Europe show no signs of increasing for the most part, at least in native-born citizens. Without more people to assist the aging population, immigration is also likely to continue. This immigration is also likely to continue from Eastern Europe and nations with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, which often include large numbers of Muslims.

In the future, however, it seems possible that significant changes could come to the union. First it is possible that the UK leaves the EU. Prime Minister David Cameron has already been cornered into a vote on whether or not to stay in the union. While a vote certainly doesn’t mean anything for certain, the mere fact that it is being forced upon him does. If the UK does leave it could have additional shockwaves on other nations such as France and Germany and may also lower confidence in the EU’s future.

A lot rides on France and Germany. They both have already invested a lot in the European Union and reaped rewards from it, so it might be a stretch for them to leave; however, calls for potential European bank reforms to mimic what they have done nationally shows not only how they view their own importance in Europe, but also is a test of how the other members view them as well.

Conclusion

Far right parties are becoming increasingly popular and powerful in Europe. This has been the result of a number of factors; notably the Eurozone economic crisis, low fertility rates, an aging population, and a large influx in immigrants. Furthermore, every indication shows that these mechanisms are only likely to keep moving down this path and not reverse course. Therefore, while it is too early to give up on the grand experiment of a United States of Europe, serious reforms are needed if the experiment is to work. Reform is also necessary if European leaders hope to quell the rising influence of far-right parties and their supporters.

Resources

Primary

World Bank: Learning About the Unknown: The Economic Impacts of Aging in Europe and Central Asia

European Commission: 2014 Autumn Economic Forecast; Slow Recovery With Very Low Inflation

European Commission: Eurostat; Migration and Migrant Population Statistics

Additional

NPR: A Brief History of the EU

Forbes: Suddenly the EU’s Break-Up Has Moved From a Long Shot to a Probability

The New York Times: Study on Wealth Fuels Euro Crisis Debate in Germany

Statista: Unemployment Rate in Member States of the European Union

Eurostat: Total Fertility Rates

Vienna Institutefor International Economic Studies: Effects of Euro Crisis on Europe’s Periphery

Telegraph: Muslim Europe; The Demographic Time Bomb Transforming Our Continent

CNN: From Antwerp to Aleppo–and Back; Europe’s Nightmare

Guardian: Eurozone Growth Figures; Germany Narrowly Avoids Triple-Dip Recession

New Geography: Will Europe Hit a Demographic Turning Point?

Huffington Post: Sudden Rise of Far-Right Groups in EU Parliament Rings Alarm Bells Across Europe

USA Today: Immigration Backlah is on the Rise in Europe

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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