“Europe and populism” is the title of a page dedicated by Le Monde (26/11) to an analysis of the recent elections in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, characterized by a general “decline” of political parties of the extreme right (with the sole exception of Switzerland). In Austria, where Haider’s party lost over 16% of its vote, “the conservatives break the populist dynamic”, writes Joelle Stolz commenting on the most important result of the ballot, which saw the triumph of Schuessel’s party, with 42% of the votes (against the 10% of Haider’s ultranationalist party). “Usually so prompt in mobilizing the media, notes the French journalist referring to Haider the populist leader had still made no comment on these catastrophic results by Monday morning”. “Democracy has won in Austria”, headlines the Washington Post (27/11), according to which “Joerg Haider, who erupted onto the political scene a few years ago denouncing immigrants and skilfully launching messages of nostalgia for its nazi past, is a spent force”. Haider himself, according to the American daily, “helped to destroy the party he himself had created. His propensity for conspiracy and for party infighting helped to bring down the coalition with the Austrian centre-right and his taste for perverse policies led him to seek the confidence of Saddam Hussein, to the disgust of many of his compatriots. While many once feared him, in the long run he became a figure of fun. His black t-shirts are ridiculous, not sinister”. The elections in Austria are variously commented on also by the German press this week. “ Last Sunday, Austria experienced a truly pluralist election for the first time since the war“, says Ulrich Glauber in the Frankfurter Rundschau ( FR) of 25/11. “ After long years of agony of the party system, the electors have redistributed their populist power: to profit from it was only the chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel“. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of 26/11, Reinhard Olt comments: “ The victory of the president of the people’s party is more than a vote of endorsement of his reformist line, begun in 2000: it also has its historic value“, since “ thanks to the country’s powerful involuntary action, Schüssel has freed Austria from Haider and from the psychosis generated by him“. The FR of 26/11 comments: “ Apart from the formation of the coalition, Austria, to its European neighbours, remains a lesson on how to contain the populism of the right, achieved by Schüssel: to combat it evidently means becoming populist.” “ The Austrian people’s party has regained what the FPÖ, Haider’s party, had constantly wrested from it since 1986“, notes Michael Frank in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 26/11, adding: “ The incoming government must redress many misguided innovations and ideologically concealed counter-reforms of the last three years“. On the recent Nato summit in Prague, Horst Bacia writing in the FAZ of 22/11 comments: “ With its first summit in the new century, Nato has firmly turned its back on the concepts and forms of organization that it had in part retained from the cold war era“. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 23/11, Stefan Kornelius comments: “ Without the USA, Nato is nothing, only with the USA can it be everything. In substance, Nato is an alliance for the USA, not just an alliance with the USA“. “ The end of Nato“, is the headline carried by the FAZ of 23/11: “ In the new constellation, the ascendancy of America is even greater than in the past“, writes Karl Feldmeyer. The weekly Der Spiegel of 25/11 also comments on the Prague summit: “ On the stage of Prague, the heads of state and of government celebrated a harmonious family party. But behind the scenes there’s a fire. Although Nato asked for assistance on behalf of the USA after September 11, the distance between Washington and its European partners has ever since been growing“. The Spanish daily La Vanguardia (25/11) publishes an article by Josep Miró i Ardèvol in which he insists on the necessary dialogue between Christianity and secularism in Europe today: “We cannot forget that present-day Europe arose from the will of Christian reconciliation of its founding fathers, Schumann, Adenauer, De Gasperi. Their results make evident the value of dialogue, reconciliation and the shared commitment of everyone”. The Madrid paper ABC (25/11) interviews the historian Alberto Iniesta, adviser of Cardinal Tarancón, a key figure in the democratization of Spain. According to Iniesta, “the Church is suffering from a new and unjust form of anticlericalism. It’s unpopular to speak of the Church. In response to this situation, we Christians must do all we can to curb aggressiveness and intolerance”.
