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      in UK Politics

      ‘Hypocritical’ Britain to blame for every Channel migrant drowning, says Macron

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      Emmanuel Macron has said Britain bears the responsibility for all migrant deaths in the Channel and accused Westminster of ‘hypocrisy’. Speaking to the regional French newspaper La Voix du Nord, President Macron said he will “step up” the pressure on Boris Johnson to establish a legal route to Britain for asylum seekers – something Westminster has so far declined to do.“The responsibility for those who die at sea does not fall upon France but upon this British refusal,” Mr Macron said. Responding to the President’s comments on Wednesday, UK home secretary Priti Patel said they were “absolutely wrong”. Ms Patel told MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee: “Macron’s comments are wrong. They’re absolutely wrong. So, let me be very, very clear about that.”President Macron told the French newspaper that the British economy is reliant on low-paid, illegal immigration labour, adding: “The British continue to have a system from the 1980s, which manages economic immigration through hypocrisy. There is no legal immigration route.”He added: “The British must articulate their needs in terms of the economy and reopen a path to legal asylum requests. We are going to step up the pressure.”Priti Patel highlighted that “very good work” was being done by the UK ambassador in Paris and praised the “co-operation that we have to have with France to combat the dangerous and unnecessary crossings, dealing with illegal migration, but also working with like-minded partners across Europe.”She concluded: “So, those comments are just wrong.”The numbers of migrants crossing the Channel is rising and six times as many people made the perilous journey by boat this January, compared to the same month last year. UK authorities intercepted or rescued 1,341 people compared to 223 the year before.France has previously proposed setting up joint processing centres on French soil, where applications for asylum in Britain could be examined by British immigration officers.Last year, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin urged Britain to open a legal immigration route because “at the moment anyone who wants to ask for asylum has no other choice but to cross the Channel”.He also said that relaxed labour practices on the other side of the Channel created a “pull effect” on people who were looking for work.The tension between France and Britain came to a head in November last year when 27 people tragically died making the journey across the Channel in freezing conditions. Following the tragedy, Boris Johnson called on France to take back people who had entered Britain illegally as a deterrent measure. Mr Macron, who is expected to announce his campaign for re-election soon, is now pushing for a new agreement between the EU and the UK. President Macron has yet to declare that he will seek a second term in France’s April elections and told La Voix du Nord that the crisis over Ukraine and coronavirus come first. He said that plunging into the presidential campaign now would betray a promise he made to be president “until the end” and would be wrong at a time when “we have a crisis on the Ukrainian border which threatens our collective security”. More

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      in World Politics

      Dissecting the Ukraine Crisis (Language and the News – Updated Daily)

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      As we announced in January, by highlighting the everyday abuses of the language of public personalities and the media, Fair Observer’s new running feature prolongs the four-year-old tradition of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary (now reduced to a weekly format). We will frequently add new items to the month’s entries. Each item will cite an occurrence in the news and add a short reflection focusing on its intended and unintended meaning.

      We invite readers to join us and submit their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

      February 1: Multiple Audiences

      CNN reports that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is feeling some discomfort in the face of US President Joe Biden’s eagerness to create panic around the idea of a Russian threat. Zelensky himself describes Russia’s actions as “dangerous but ambiguous.”

      “Earlier in the day, another source from the US side said there is a recognition in the White House that Zelensky has ‘multiple audiences’ and is trying to balance them. ‘On the one hand, he wants assistance, but he has to assure his people he has the situation under control. That’s a tricky balance.’”

      Though the source cited only two of the audiences, there are certainly a few others that were not mentioned. It could be said that nearly every relatively powerless country has at least two audiences: its people and whatever hegemonic power has decided to support it. The United States is by far the most prolific hegemonic “audience” of countries across the globe, though some fear China may surreptitiously catch up. The idea of being an audience, of course, implies an attitude of listening attentively, usually through the hegemon’s diplomats but just as significantly, through its spies.

      Why Monitoring Language Is Important

      Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

      In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

      Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

      Fair Observer’s Language and the News feature seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      Trouble at home but a warm welcome expected for Boris Johnson in Ukraine

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      “It’s a pity that Boris Yeltsin still isn’t the Russian leader, he liked to party, he and your Boris would have got on well together,” Nicolai Olynik observed. “Maybe all this fear of war could have been lifted a bit with a few drinks.”There has not been much cause for levity in the Donbas, eastern Ukraine, amid warnings of an impending conflict and around 125,000 Russian troops massed at the border.Nor have people here been following the ‘partygate’ saga in the UK in much detail. But the scheduled visit to Kiev on Tuesday by Mr Johnson has kindled some interest in what has been taking place in London in recent days.There is, undoubtedly, a feeling of gratitude in Ukraine over the weapons – NLAW anti-tank missiles – that the UK has supplied to Kiev as the threat of invasion by Kremlin forces rose in recent months and hope that support will not be dissipated by focus on domestic British issues.Mr Johnson was also supposed to have had a telephone call on the Ukraine crisis with Vladimir Putin before meeting the President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. That call, however, was cancelled because the British Prime Minister had to be in the Commons following the partial report by Sue Gray on breaches of lockdown parties at Downing Street, and is now scheduled to take place on Wednesday afternoon.Mr Johnson, speaking on Monday, declared that President Putin needed to “step back from the brink… any incursion into Ukraine beyond the territory that Russia has already taken in 2014 would be an absolute disaster for the world, and above all it would be a disaster for Russia.”Mr Olynik, a 33-year-old businessman said: “It is a pity if this phone call between Johnson and Putin is not done, maybe we would have more of an idea about what the Russians want to do. At the moment there is a lot of uncertainty here and lot of different ideas about what’s going to happen. Any news about Putin’s intentions would be good to know. Mr Yeltsin probably could have been bit open after a few vodkas and champagne.”Mr Yeltsin was the first President on the Russian Federation, for eight years, from 1991. His excessive drinking became a public issue and a matter of international interest. Documents, declassified two years ago, showed that by the mid-90s, the UK government had drawn up contingency plans about courses of actions to follow if he were to die in office.

      Boris Johnson is today the most disliked, disrespected and ridiculed character in Britain. Even schoolchildren are laughing at himRussia’s NTV stationSome Russian media outlets sought to pillory Mr Johnson over the party allegations.The state backed Rossiya 1 channel claimed that his “anti-Russian hysteria” was “a way to divert attention from domestic problems” as he sought to “stifle” scandal. “Only anti-Russian sanctions can distract from Johnson’s protracted ‘Partygate’. ” NTV, owned by Gazprom, declared: “If it were in the power of Boris Johnson, [Sue Gray’s report] would have disappeared into the bowels of the Victorian sewers of the city of London. Boris Johnson is today the most disliked, disrespected and ridiculed character in Britain. Even schoolchildren are laughing at him.”Anatol Mischenko, a business partner of Mr Olynik, commented: “Yeltsin was very indiscreet, Putin is not like that of course, he is a very controlled person I think. Maybe he’ll try to use the issue of British weapons in a bargain with the UK. “But I do not think it’ll be possible even for world leaders of big countries to know what Putin is thinking until he does something : and for a place like this, that is quite worrying.”Slovyansk was the first city to be seized by separatists and experienced some of the brutalities of the conflict including extra-judicial killings and torture of prisoners. It was later retaken by Ukrainian forces. The Russian backed Donetsk Peoples Republic is a short distance away, and there have been frequent clashes since the 2014 war. “We’re quite a way away from Kiev of course, and only time we hear about international leaders is when they come for a few hours to say they have been to the frontline,” said Galyna Ostapenko, a ceramic designer. “Even then they normally go to Kramatorsk [a nearby city] rather than here, I think some British MPs went there recently. More

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      in World Politics

      Understanding Russia’s Logic Vis-à-Vis Ukraine

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      When it comes to Russia’s troop deployment near the Ukrainian border, many Western governments are left wondering whether the escalation is merely intended to underpin Moscow’s demands for an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and the withdrawal of NATO and US troops and military infrastructure from eastern member states.

      In Ukraine, More Than European Peace Is at Stake

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      However, it cannot be excluded that the failure of the talks with the US and NATO on security guarantees has been calculated by Moscow from the outset in order to justify an intervention in Ukraine that was being planned regardless. The Russian leadership is deliberately playing on strategic ambivalence to complicate Western decision-making. It criticizes reports about a possible Russian invasion as a Western conspiracy theory, but at the same time, it brings a military response into play should the talks with the US and NATO fail.

      In this way, Moscow is trying to further polarize the Russia debate in Europe and make a unified European and transatlantic response more difficult.

      Russia’s Military Logic

      Against this backdrop, it is worth taking a look at the Kremlin’s previous pattern of using the Russian military as a foreign policy tool. From this, conclusions can be drawn regarding the Kremlin’s cost-benefit calculations. First, the military show of force represents a firmly established instrument of Russian coercive diplomacy. For example, President Vladimir Putin achieved the first summit meeting with US President Joe Biden in May 2021 after moving Russian troops to the border with Ukraine.

      Second, Putin had kept Russia’s previous military interventions limited, either with regard to the duration or in terms of the number of forces deployed. In this way, he avoided causing resentment among the Russian population due to high casualty figures or massive economic costs.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Third, there has been only one case of military intervention leading to the annexation of territory — the conquest of Crimea in 2014, a mixture of military surprise, acceptable political and economic sanctions, and domestic mobilization potential that allowed Putin to raise his previously plummeting approval ratings to new heights.

      It cannot automatically be assumed that the previous logic for the military use of power will continue to apply unaltered. However, there are not yet sufficient indications that it has fundamentally changed. Based on this logic, three scenarios can be identified as more likely among the options being discussed in the media.

      How Will the Situation Develop?

      First, it is in line with previous logic to view the deployment on the border with Ukraine as part of a coercive diplomacy strategy to influence the US and NATO to make substantial concessions. The military exercise with Belarus scheduled for February is intended to increase pressure in the short term, given the stalled negotiations. If the talks fail, there is a risk of escalation. With its demands for a complete revision of the existing Euro-Atlantic security architecture, Russia’s leadership risks running into a trap of its own making and losing the possibility of a face-saving solution.

      Moscow regards the negotiations being offered by the US and NATO on arms control and confidence and security-building measures as merely complementary to its demands, not as a substitute for them.

      Second, Moscow could further underpin its coercive diplomacy by permanently deploying Russian troops in Belarus. As a result, Russia would be in a better position to close the so-called Suwalki gap — a strategically important land corridor between Poland and Lithuania — and thus cut the Baltic states’ connection to the rest of NATO. Moreover, with a permanent military presence in Belarus, Russia could make its threat of a major invasion of Ukraine more credible.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Since the stationing of Russian troops requested by Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko would not constitute a hostile incursion, Moscow would not be subject to political and economic sanctions, but it would have to expect increased military reassurance measures from NATO for the eastern member states.

      A third scenario is an open incursion by Russian troops into the separatist-controlled part of the Donbas region. The number of Russian soldiers massed on the border gives credibility to this version of events. The military costs for Moscow would be low, since pro-Russian forces and covertly deployed Russian soldiers already control the area. Russia would face sanctions from Western countries, but these would be limited compared to a full-scale invasion. To be sure, no surge of approval for Putin comparable to the one that followed the Crimean annexation is to be expected.

      Chain of Legitimacy

      However, a chain of legitimacy for the invasion could easily be constructed. In recent months, some 600,000 residents of Donbas have obtained Russian passports. The deployment of armed forces abroad is permitted under Russian legislation in order to protect Russian citizens against an armed attack. Some pretexts that could be used by Moscow for these actions include statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about wanting to retake the separatist areas and false flag terrorist attacks by supposedly Ukrainian or Western forces.

      According to the logic so far, Russia is not expected to annex Donbas but to recognize it as an independent entity. An initiative to this effect is already being prepared by the Communist Party of Russia, which is loyal to the Kremlin. By taking this step, Moscow would lose the opportunity to gain a political veto position in Ukraine by granting Donbas autonomous status. However, it is no longer putting much hope in it.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      With an open military intervention in Donbas, Russia would also put Zelenskiy in a precarious domestic and foreign policy position, in which he would lose room for maneuver and credibility between the demands for a military response and the warnings not to let the situation escalate. This would also further polarize the Western states.

      All other military scenarios — from the establishment of a land bridge to Crimea to the occupation of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast or other parts of the country — cannot be ruled out. However, they would then be associated with significantly higher military and economic costs as well as domestic political risks. This would be a clear sign that the Kremlin’s calculations have fundamentally changed.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Is the Decline of Democracy Inevitable?

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      Perhaps the most critical immediate question facing the world in 2022 is whether the decline and eventual destruction of democracy are inevitable in the next decade. Thousands of words have been directed to this question over recent years, intensifying after the ascendency of Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States, the propagation of “the big lie” after his defeat in the 2020 election, and the subsequent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

      Will the Pandemic Revitalize Ideas of the Global Common Good?

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      In the same period, Great Britain moved to the right under Prime Minister Boris Johnson while autocratic regimes in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines and Brazil tightened their grip on governance structures.

      What does the future hold for liberal democracies around the world in the next decade? Are current trends an aberration, or is Marc Plattner prophetic in noting in “Democracy in Decline?” that authoritarianism seems to have the “wind at its back even if it has not yet spread to many more countries”?

      Inevitable Decline Scenario

      Current trends produce compelling evidence that seems to suggest that the decline of democracies is an inevitability. In the United States, daily columns appear pronouncing that democracy is in peril and under siege, and asking whether another civil war is possible. The January 6 assault on the Capitol continues to be a flashpoint in what was already a very volatile political environment. Voting restrictions targeted at likely Democratic voters have been instituted in many pro-Republican states. Given the prominence of America as a symbol of liberal democracy, countries around the world are now thinking the unthinkable about the future of democratic governance.

      Last year’s Freedom House report, “Freedom in the World for 2021,” carries the subheading “Democracy under Siege.” It suggests that the aggregate decline in freedom has exceeded gains for the past 15 years. While much of the deterioration in 2020 was associated with regimes in Africa and the Middle East, European nations — Poland, Hungary and Turkey — recorded reductions in freedom. Moreover, the United States has seen a 10-year decline in freedom equivalent to that experienced in 25 other nations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Meanwhile, as the left-wing populist party headed by Nicolas Maduro has captured the headlines because of his dismantling of democratic institutions in Venezuela, right-wing populist movements are increasing across Latin America — Brazil, Bolivia and Peru are examples. More recently, following Jair Bolsonaro’s playbook in Brazil, the leader of the right-wing populist Christian Social Front in Chile, José Antonio Kast, forced a run-off in a recent election after voicing a desire to return to the autocratic regime of Augusto Pinochet.  

      Kast eventually lost in a landslide, which bodes well for the stability of democracy in Chile for the near future, but still raises the disconcerting issue of the popularity of authoritarianism among a sizeable minority of Chile’s polity. 

      Predisposition to Authoritarianism

      All of these recent events would seem to posit an argument that many citizens are susceptible to an authoritarian appeal. However, forecasting trends from recent events is always hazardous. Yet there is a more ominous source for predicting inevitability than the recent accounts and actions of political leaders and pundits. The writings of a number of social psychologists, historians and political scientists are extremely relevant to the question at hand.

      Karen Skinner argues in her book “The Authoritarian Dynamic” that autocratic tendencies are baked into the psychic of citizens of liberal democracies. Fear of change and diversity is easily transformed into a call by a politician for a return to the status quo of the past, like “Make American Great Again.” Long before the ascent of Trump, Skinner estimated that as many as one-third of the population in liberal democracies have a predisposition to authoritarianism.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Given that democracies encourage diversity, alternative interpretations of history and open dialogue on difficult issues, these strengths may exceed people’s capacity to tolerate difficult issues. A growing lack of tolerance toward immigrants, people of color or bureaucrats provides a platform for opportunistic leaders to activate that “authoritarian dynamic.”

      Roger Griffin offers a similar argument when he attributes modernity as a force for fascism. With the unfolding of modernity, populist interpretations of an idealized national past arise in response to the anxiety that citizens feel about a future where the only certainty is that it will be different than the past. Leaders with autocratic ambitions use “restorative nostalgia” — Svetlana Boym’s concept introduced in her book “The Future of Nostalgia” to describe a hereafter that replicates the past — to rally citizens to a populist political movement, a revolt against democratic institutions and their advocates, “the bureaucratic elites.”

      The arguments offered by Skinner, Griffin and others provide an important understanding of how the internal vulnerabilities of liberal democracies can nurture their own demise. However, despite the presence of an authoritarian dynamic within liberal democracies, a political leadership factor is part of the calculus for predicting the future of democracies. The past decade has witnessed the emergence of Plutarchian leaders who have learned to navigate the pathway that enables populist sentiments to be integrated with autocratic predispositions.

      While their hold on the masses is important, what is required to secure power is their ability to bewitch a small key group of capable and principled people in leadership roles and convince them to submit to the autocratic impulses of a prophetic leader as a means of achieving limited policy goals.  

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      A cadre of Von Papenites — those who have no autocratic predisposition but are willing to align with anti-democratic politics as a means of achieving specific policy goals or to ensure their own power base in the governance structure — is required. The important and notorious role that Franz von Papen had in enabling the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s must not be duplicated if democracy is to be resilient in countries experiencing populist movements. The dangerous combination of a charismatic populist leader and a sizable component of politicians willing to compromise their political ideals for transitory political goals would make the downward spiral of democracy inevitable.

      Yet in the United States, a contingent of politicians did defy the urges of the Trump administration to decertify the election results and preserve democratic rule. In Chile, citizens and political leaders rejected the call to return to the autocratic governance model of Pinochet’s dictatorship. In Europe, despite the political uncertainties created by the pandemic, right-wing populist movements have not established themselves as viable alternatives to current regimes. 

      Democracy will be resilient and survive the current wave of right-wing authoritarianism if leaders and institutions demonstrate their ability to solve critical social and economic problems, reverse the erosion of trust between themselves and the public, and put the safeguarding of democracy at the forefront of their political agenda.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Italian Lawmakers Say They Have Agreed to Re-Elect Sergio Mattarella as President

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      Mr. Mattarella has presided over a chaotic seven years in which the country swung wildly from the left to the right, acting as the guardrails of Italy’s democracy.ROME — After noxious and chaotic back-room negotiations, Italian lawmakers said on Saturday that they had reached a consensus to keep the status quo in place and would ask the country’s current president, Sergio Mattarella, to serve another seven-year term.The Italian Parliament is expected to re-elect Mr. Mattarella later Saturday, in the sixth day of secret votes that have revealed the fractious politics and crumbling alliances just beneath the surface of Italy’s national unity government.In Italy’s unpredictable politics, nothing is certain until the ballots are officially counted, and Mr. Mattarella, at 80, has been reluctant to serve again. But a week of inconclusive voting had already revealed the inability of the different political interests within the governing coalition to rally around a new candidate.The apparent choice of Mr. Mattarella essentially amounted to a punt — to avoid early elections and to prolong Italy’s current period of stability under Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who himself had coveted the job.But in a private meeting on Saturday morning, Mr. Draghi personally asked Mr. Mattarella to consider staying on because the political chaos over the inconclusive ballots had begun to suck in institutional figures, like the president of the Senate and the head of the Secret Service, two prominent women who were proposed as candidates only to be roundly rejected and tarnished.Mr. Draghi returned from the meeting and then called the governing coalition’s party leaders to try to broker a deal, according to an official in Mr. Draghi’s office who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly.By leaving Mr. Draghi in place, the lawmakers hoped to avert the political chaos of early elections that his departure may have encouraged. The choice of Mr. Mattarella instead increased the likelihood that Mr. Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, would continue to lead the unity government.Having Mr. Draghi’s hand on day-to-day affairs was certain to calm international markets as well as the European Union’s leadership in Brussels, which is counting on Italy to effectively manage hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic recovery funds and demonstrate the wisdom of the bloc’s experiment in collective debt.Mario Draghi, left, at the Quirinal Palace in Rome in February 2021.Francesco Ammendola/Presidential Palace, via ReutersMr. Draghi’s supporters would have preferred that he be elected president, hoping that his steadying influence, even in the often ceremonial role of the presidency, would provide Italy stability beyond the country’s next scheduled elections, in 2023.But for them, the re-election of Mr. Mattarella amounts to the second-best option because it freezes the current political situation in place and leaves open the possibility that Mr. Draghi could still someday ascend to the Quirinal Palace, the home of presidents and the past home of popes.While Mr. Draghi is expected to stay on as prime minister for the months ahead, speculation is rife that Mr. Mattarella would resign early from his second term as president and open the way for Italy’s next Parliament to elect Mr. Draghi at a less politically delicate time. The official in Mr. Draghi’s office said Mr. Draghi and Mr. Mattarella did not discuss anything of the sort on Saturday morning.Mr. Mattarella “understands that this is a critical time for Italy,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, an expert in the Italian political system at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. “And that the status quo needs to be kept.”But months can be an eternity in Italy’s volatile politics. Most experts agree that as the elections get closer, the political ambitions and gamesmanship of the opposing political parties in the government will make it increasingly hard for the government to act, to pass new legislation, or even to stay together.And there is no guarantee that Mr. Mattarella would resign, or if he did, that the new Parliament would be filled with electors partial to Mr. Draghi.Mr. Mattarella was first elected in 2015 when he was championed by the prime minister at the time, Matteo Renzi, and he enjoyed broad support across the political spectrum. Born in Palermo, Sicily, he is the younger brother of Piersanti Mattarella, whom the mafia assassinated in 1980 during his term as Sicily’s governor.Sergio Mattarella, a reserved lawyer who taught parliamentary law in Palermo, was elected to Parliament in 1983 as a member of the Christian Democratic Party, which dominated postwar Italy until it imploded after a series of bribery scandals in the early 1990s. He served in Parliament until 2008, holding a number of high-level government posts under the Christian Democrats and in later center-left governments. In 2011, he was elected by Parliament to Italy’s Constitutional Court.As president, the grandfatherly Mr. Mattarella, with his snow-white hair and quiet style, has demonstrated moral authority in his ceremonial role.But he has also presided with a firm hand over a chaotic seven years in which the country swung wildly from the left to the right and elected among the most populist and anti-European Parliaments in Europe before transforming once again into an establishment bedrock under Mr. Draghi, whom Mr. Mattarella personally brought in to end a government crisis last year.After populists scored large victories in the 2018 elections, Mr. Mattarella prevented from taking power a government that he considered in violation of the Italian Constitution for its anti-European character, resulting in leaders of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement calling for his impeachment. It is a mark of how much Italian politics has moderated around Mr. Draghi that those same leaders today urged their followers to vote for Mr. Mattarella. But many of them had a strong personal interest in stability, as early elections were likely to cost many of them their jobs and pensions.Counting votes on Saturday at Parliament in Rome.Pool photo by Roberto MonaldoMr. Mattarella repeatedly made it clear that he did not want to stay in the job and had moved his things to a new apartment in Rome. Memes swapped among Italian politicians and reporters this week showed Mr. Mattarella answering the phone and pretending he was not home, or tying sheets together to sneak out of a window of the presidential palace. After news of his selection became public, Italian commentators jokingly expressed solidarity with his plight of having to pack and unpack boxes.But over a week of disastrous negotiations that highlighted the lack of cohesion across the political spectrum, but especially in the country’s center right, which came into the election hoping to flex its muscles but left weak and splintered, he emerged as the only name anyone could agree on.Matteo Salvini, the leader of the nationalist League party who had hoped the election would act as a show of force for the center right and his role as its de facto leader, exited the week much weaker and politically bloodied. All of his proposed candidates, and there were many, failed to gain traction.“We’ll ask Mattarella to stay,” he said Saturday. “And like this, the team stays as it is. Draghi remains at Palazzo Chigi” in his office of prime minister.Silvio Berlusconi, who had himself hoped to become president before withdrawing his candidacy shortly before voting began, had put a veto on Mr. Draghi becoming president because it could endanger the government. Mr. Berlusconi had a “long and cordial” phone call with Mr. Mattarella “ensuring him our fullest support,” according to Antonio Tajani, a leader of Mr. Berlusconi’s political party, Forza Italia. Mr. Tajani said he was very satisfied with the choice of Mr. Mattarella.The centrist Italia Viva party, led by Mr. Renzi, applauded the choice of Mr. Mattarella. “We voted for him then and today we vote for him again enthusiastically,” the group said on Twitter.If Mr. Mattarella is the winner of the week’s voting, and Mr. Draghi remains a player and a potential president for Italy, the election had its fair share of casualties, too. While the Democratic Party got its chosen candidate, the center right emerged seeming battered and inept. Some of its biggest power players talked about resigning. The contempt and diverging interests among the nominal allies spilled into view.Mr. Mattarella on Saturday outside the Quirinal Palace.Massimo Percossi/EPA, via Shutterstock For days, the competing political parties engaged in all sorts of tactics to pursue their narrow interests, gain the upper hand or defend against partisan candidates. They cast blank ballots and floated symbolic candidates used to measure the compactness of their voting blocs. They timed their own voters to make sure they were not writing down names on blank ballots. They publicly offered what they called ideal, real, credible candidates, but in reality, they meant to burn those candidacies by merely articulating the syllables of their names.On Thursday, the threshold for victory went down to 505 votes, an absolute majority, and tensions increased. On Friday, the number of votes increased to two a day, and Mr. Salvini, tried to force a candidacy of a political ally, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, the president of the Senate, despite threats from liberals and his nominal partners in the national unity coalition that it would prompt the collapse of the government.Her candidacy came up far short and did not even succeed in winning all of the votes of the center-right bloc. Momentum began to move toward Mr. Mattarella, but on Friday night, desperate politicians, including the embittered former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, whom Mr. Mattarella had replaced with Mr. Draghi, expressed backing for a generic female candidate. The move was roundly interpreted as a last-ditch power tactic and merely claimed new political casualties. But on Saturday, all of those gambits seemed to end and the members of the national unity government decided to keep things exactly how they were, with Mr. Mattarella as president and Mr. Draghi as prime minister. But everything also seemed different. The election had taken a toll.The election, Enrico Letta, the leader of the Democratic Party, told reporters on Saturday, showed “a political system that is blocked.” He added, “This isn’t working.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      in World Politics

      In Ukraine, More Than European Peace Is at Stake

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      “Everything has already been said, but not yet by everybody.” This quote by the Bavarian comedian Karl Valentin applies also to the ongoing Russian threat to Ukraine, which has brought a new level of tension to Europe. Yet it provides no comic relief as the situation is far too dangerous for everyone, but especially for the people of Ukraine who have been widely excluded from the ongoing discussions about their future.

      The diplomatic failures of the Russian and American negotiators and the steady escalation in rhetoric indicate an unwillingness to compromise on both sides. Russia wants guarantees that neither Ukraine nor Georgia will accede to NATO, which NATO categorically refuses to do. But Russia’s excessive list of demands shows that it doesn’t expect the West to agree. It would, conversely, mean that Russia would have to remove its own missiles from the Kaliningrad Oblast that borders Poland and Lithuania. 

      Coming to Terms With the Game Being Played on the Russia-Ukraine Border

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      The failure of the Russian Federation to respect the sovereign will of its neighboring states demonstrates well its 19th-century view of geopolitics that if it doesn’t belong to us now, it will soon belong to our enemies. By raising the stakes, Russia has shown that there are now only three options for Ukraine — siding with Russia, aligning with the West, or permanent neutrality — and it is testing to see just how much the West really wants Ukraine. But time is running out. Maintaining a large standing army on such a long border requires significant resources. They’ll have to be moved eventually. The question is, in which direction?

      Geopolitical Chess

      Like pieces on a chessboard, Ukraine acceding to NATO would, from the alliance’s perspective, be like the West gaining a pawn. From the view of the Kremlin, however, Russia would be losing its queen. The movement of NATO’s eastern flank into Ukraine would increase the length of the NATO-Russian land border nearly fourfold, from 703 kilometers to 2,677 kilometers — an unpleasant prospect for security-obsessed Moscow.

      As such, we believe that there are several scenarios regarding how the situation could develop, with a multitude of compounding factors. Three of them have been described here, which we still believe could prove most likely.

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      While it is impossible to know what will actually happen, one thing seems to be perfectly clear: There is no peaceful solution for Ukraine. Regardless of what outcome the negotiations have, Crimea is still occupied and the war in Donbas is ongoing. The Kremlin wants security guarantees, but so does Ukraine. Kyiv sees its best option in NATO membership, which is mutually exclusive to Moscow’s objective.

      It’s at this point that the debate about Ukrainian neutrality gains momentum. Such a declaration of neutrality could also be welcome in Western capitals. Although this currently disregards the stated sovereign will of those Ukrainians who support a Western path, one could nonetheless imagine a tripartite (NATO/US–Ukraine–Russian Federation) treaty on Ukrainian neutrality would ease security fears, while also not excluding the prospect of future EU membership for the country, like neutral Austria, Sweden and Finland. Indeed, the stability provided by a neutrality treaty would afford Ukraine the necessary conditions for significant economic growth and democratization.

      Nevertheless, the Kremlin’s security concerns regarding NATO are, to our understanding, not the dominant factor in this situation. Apart from the fact that there is also a sort of collective security provision in Article 42 (7) of the Treaty of the European Union, the main concern for the Russian regime is a democratic and prosperous Ukraine. Because if a “brotherly” nation, as Putin has referred to it on numerous occasions, could thrive in a climate of social freedom, the Russian population could demand this as well, which would ultimately lead to the collapse of the current administration.

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      Neutrality, moreover, doesn’t also necessarily prevent a Russian military presence. In Moldova — a neutral country — around 2,000 Russian soldiers are present, 500 of them as “peacekeepers,” following the war in Transnistria in 1992. Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, asked (during a conference both authors attended) whether these and other Russian troops stationed in the former Soviet republics should not rather be referred to as “piece keepers” — pun intended.

      Umland is also the initiator of an open letter to the German government signed by 73 German experts on Eastern Europe and international security, among them one of the authors of this article. The aim here is to call for a German reaction to the threat the Russian Federation poses to the European security order.

      Europe’s Energy Leverage

      The new German government hasn’t changed its predecessor’s position regarding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would provide leverage in the negotiations but is constantly depoliticized by officials. Moreover, drastic sanctions, like excluding Russia from the SWIFT global payment system or even delivering defensive weapons to Ukraine, have been ruled out. The latter is based on what Berlin perceives as its historic responsibility toward Russia for Germany’s role in the Second World War, ironically ignoring that this should also include Ukraine as both were part of the Soviet Union.

      But a time is coming when Berlin must weigh up whether it is willing to stand in solidarity with its allies, Ukraine and the principles of international law and self-determination, or if its responsibilities for the past mean it would rather stay in the Kremlin’s good books. In any case, this German factor has long provided the Kremlin with the opportunity to pursue its divide-and-conquer strategy in the European Union.

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      Perhaps the greatest leverage the EU would have over Russia (and currently vice versa) is the control over the supply of natural gas. Moscow has for far too long fostered Europe’s reliance on Russian natural resources. Dependence works both ways, and if the EU, and especially Germany, were to take control and shut off Russian pipelines into Europe, the consequences would be far worse for Russia.

      Painful though it may be at first, it is entirely possible, and such a preemptive tactic — showing Russia that the EU is no longer dependent on its supplies — would have a powerful taming effect on Moscow. It would also spur on the increased diversification of European energy supplies, costing Europe less in the long run. This energy card is currently in German hands.

      Negotiations aside, one of the most striking things about this current escalation has been the sidelining of Ukraine’s position. If we’ve learned anything from history, it is that smaller countries should not be overlooked as their voices are silenced. We’ve seen this situation before: excessive demands, promises of being satisfied if conditions are met, protecting citizens, peaceful intentions but ready for war. All this sounds too familiar. Yet again, the wishes of the main country involved — in this case, Ukraine — are not being respected.

      We should not repeat the same mistakes from 100, 80 or even just eight years ago. Ukraine has made its move, and so has Russia. It is now up to the West to come together and show Russia that aggression no longer pays.

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      There is so much more at stake here than just peace in Europe. We need to understand that this is a direct attack on Europe’s collective achievements over the past decades. Ukrainians contributed to these achievements with the Maidan Revolution in 2014. The EU failed them then, so we must not fail Ukraine again. Otherwise, the hopes for democratic development in the east of the European continent will just be a piece of history, never to return.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Italy’s Presidential Race Puts a Strain on Political Balance

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      Italy’s parliament gathered in a joint session of both houses on January 24 to elect the country’s next president who will succeed Sergio Mattarella, whose term will end on February 3.

      A total of 1,009 voters, including 58 delegates chosen by regional councils and known as “great electors,” took part in the first stage of voting, which will be repeated every day until a consensus is reached. A clear vote is unlikely to be reached before Thursday as cross-party negotiations are still underway and the majority of lawmakers have decided to cast a blank vote as a delaying action amid intense backroom talks.

      From the Maghreb to the East, Poking the EU Has an MO

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      Usually a symbolic formality, Italy’s presidential election is this time a focus of special attention by media and citizens, as the country’s fragile national unity and political balance depend on its outcome. The vote comes at a pivotal time, as the country has recently agreed to an EU-sponsored €191.5 billion ($213 billion) program of economic and social reforms aimed at rebooting its national economy.

      Among the top contenders is Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, who has openly signaled his willingness to run for the job. For Draghi, a seven-year presidential term is undoubtedly more appealing than ending his mandate with a disorderly, mixed coalition ahead of general elections next year.

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      But parties are reluctant to vote for Draghi as his eventual election as president and resignation as prime minister could lead to snap general elections. His exit as head of government, a role he was appointed to by Mattarella in February 2021 after the collapse of the so-called Conte II cabinet, in favor of the presidency could bring Italy back to a new phase of instability and political uncertainty. 

      Why Does This Election Matter?

      In recent decades, Italy’s national politics has undergone profound transformation concerning the structure and ideologies of both parties, and the role of the president has become increasingly important. Beyond exercising moral authority, representing national unity and being the guarantor of the independence and integrity of the nation, as defined by the Italian Constitution, the head of state takes charge during a political crisis.

      The president has the authority to select the new prime minister, as Mattarella did last year in choosing Draghi to lead the country out of a political impasse after the resignation of technocratic Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The president also has the authority to approve or deny the appointment of ministers who will form the new cabinet, and they can refuse mandates to weak coalitions and dissolve parliament, setting the country on the path to national elections.

      Will the Government Fall Apart?

      The situation is particularly delicate as it involves the stability and longevity of the current government and the possibility of early general elections. The outcome of the presidential vote may lead to different scenarios, potentially able to shift allegiances, disrupt existing coalitions and alter the balance of power among Italy’s political parties.

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      If parliament fails to agree on a candidate, the vote will undoubtedly become a source of division between the left and the right, inevitably opening the path to a political rupture. 

      The government’s collapse would not only damage Italy’s political equilibrium, but also impact the European Union. Brussels has heavily bet on Italy’s ability to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic — which rocked the economy and markets — endorsing prime minister Draghi’s national recovery and resilience plan.

      What About Mario Draghi?

      The presidential election is also important because it could represent a turning point in determining the political future of Prime Minister Draghi, who has provided a period of balance and good governance in Italian politics.

      According to his supporters, choosing Draghi as the next president and having him in office for the next seven years would increase the chances to keep markets stable, which would imply the prospect of long-term economic recovery and, at the same time, give Italy more credibility at a European and international level.

      Yet, many lawmakers are pushing for President Mattarella to stay on for another year, arguing that this would be the best solution to guarantee the government’s stability until scheduled general elections in 2023.

      Who Are the Other Contenders? 

      As the prominent businessman and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi withdrew his candidacy, saying that Italy could not afford further political division, far-right leaders Matteo Salvini (Northern League) and Giorgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy) are considering a list of moderate right-wing figures. This includes former Senator Marcello Pera and ex-mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti as potential candidates, hoping to gain support from the center left.

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      Other possible contenders include Pier Ferdinando Casini, a long-serving centrist senator and former speaker of the lower house who reportedly has good cross-party relations, Marta Cartabia, a judge and former president of the Italian constitutional court currently serving as minister of justice, and Giuliano Amato, a former politician who served twice as prime minister and thrice as minister during the 1990s.

      After the first three ballots, where a two-thirds majority is required (673 out of 1,009 voters), an absolute majority of 505 votes is enough for a candidate to be elected. Yet if the voting process continues past the end of Mattarella’s term, it would be clear that the presidential election has paved the way for another unpredictable political earthquake.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More