Thursday, October 02, 2008
More on the Austrian election results
Today's Wall Street Journal Europe, a newspaper, I am sorry to say, that is infinitely superior to any British one, largely because it opens up its Opinion pages to many writers instead of having a rota of hacks, carries an article by an Austrian journalist, Christian Ortner [Wiki entry is in German but easy to read].
Under the title "Austria's Unreconstructed Welfarists" he has an interesting slant on the election result that, once again, seems to have shocked the great and the good in Europe. Curiously enough, we never hear anything about unreconstructed Communists coming to power or, possibly, holding the balance of power as they might well do in parts of Germany.
To be fair to Herr Ortner, he dismisses the idea that the two right-wing parties are somehow neo-Nazis. Nor does he hold much truck with the notion that somehow or other the old Nazis have miraculously survived in Austria and are threatening to come to power again.Because the Freedom Party and Mr Haider's Alliance for Austria together garnered almost 30% of the votes, thus becoming as large as the Social Democrats, left and left-liberal politicians and media are once again sounding hysterical Nazi alarms. The Vienna magasine "Profil" ran the headline "Sieg ...", as though the German Wehrmacht had just conquered Paris.
Setting aside Herr Strache's ideas on foreign policy, which may be completely whacky, there is a great deal here that needs to be taken into account, not least by Herr Ortner himself.
The socialist mayor of Vienna, Michael Haupl, even warns of a "neofascist" threat.
But the diagnosis that Austria has shifted to the right falls short. It's true that the FPO and BZO exhibit the problematic characteristics of right-wing extremist parties: They appeal to xenophobic institncts, tend towards economic isolationism, preach a ridiculous brand of nationalism and of course consider the European Union to be the source of evil.
Mr Strache, especially, has tried with all his might to play Austrians and foreigners off one another. While warning of Muslims at home, Mr Strache defends the mullahs in Tehran - who want to wipe Israel off the map - against economic sanctions.
And yet neither Mr Haider nor Mr Strache owes his electoral victory primarily to these traditional ingredients of right-wing politics.
The two parties won the election because they behave like Oskar Lafontaine's "Left Party" in germany. To an electorate deeply unsettled by gloalization, rising inflation and the financial crisis that escalated in the weeks just before the election, they promised a strong state that would drop money from helicopters. Cheap gas from government gas stations, price ceilings for the oil industry, free university education, a check from the state to compensate for inflation, a perceptible rise in pensions - these and many other bribes were the bait used by Messrs Haider and Strache to gain votes.
Both right-wing populist parties thus successfully adapted to their clientele's needs. In the past , they were more "national" than socialist, but today they act more "socialist" than national". Incorrigible old Nazis are no longer their primary target group - they're dying out. Instead, they have fought successfully to recruit modernization's losers, in whose eyes the Social Democrats have made too many concessions to the necessities of a globalized world. Both the BZO and the FPO have therefore sought to overtake the SPO from the left.
Why, precisely, is he so surprised that the the extreme right-wing shows itself to be similar to the extreme left-wing? Has that not always been the case? Both sides are believers in the state solution to everything, in protectionism and, if necessary, economic isolationism. In fact, it is not just the extreme left-wing that believes that but also the more moderate groups.
The European Union, after all, clearly rather liked and admired by Herr Ortner, preaches a modified version of that, as the same newspaper discusses in another article today, one that is devoted to the issue of anti-dumping rules on imported shoes. After all, what is the much vaunted "European social model" but unreconstructed welfarism based on the assumption that money can be dropped from helicopters?
Immigration is rather a difficult issue in Austria, with many problems on all sides (the home team not behaving as well as it should in refusing to grant citizenship to people who have lived, worked and paid taxes in the country for many years). There is a strong feeling that the political consensus has avoided discussing that as well as many other issues and what we have seen is a rebellion against that consensus on the part of the people of Austria, something that Herr Ortner prefers to ignore.
He does, however, point out that, realizing the way voting was likely to go, the Socialist Party tried to undermine the two right-wing ones by espousing many of their policies thus, one assumes, encouraging more people to vote for Herr Haider and Herr Strache's parties.The Social Democratic party made a significant contribution to the success of the BZO and FPO. When the SPO polled just over 20 percent in June, it spectacularly revised its heretofore constructive attitude toward the EU and demanded that referendums be held on future union treaties, just as EU skeptics Haider and Strache had been preaching.
Setting aside, once again, the rather dubious euroscepticism of the two right-wing leaders (Herr Haider changes his mind on that even more frequently than he founds new parties) we can see why the people of Austria might feel just a bit frustrated politically.
It seems that in order to be a respectable political party you should have a "constructive attitude toward the EU", which means not bothering to ask the people whether they want to have their country integrated even further into that particular political structure. Really, it is a little surprising that only 30 percent voted for the two right-wing parties.Another bit of light relief
Over the winter, as we contemplate the wreckage of our economy and wonder where the money is going to come from to support our daily needs, we can at least take comfort in an imaginative EU initiative to save on electricity bills – power cuts.
According to The Times, that prospect has moved a little bit closer, with the report that wholesale electricity prices surged higher yesterday "amid mounting fears that the UK could face a supply shortfall next month."
The forward price of electricity for November, we are told, hit highs of £133 per megawatt hour, up more than £10 since Friday, when the same contract was trading at about £122.75.
The price of power has risen sharply since National Grid published figures last week, predicting an unusually thin margin between electricity supply and demand.
Now, we are told, for the week starting 10 November, the National Grid is warning that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.
The Times then cites Andrew Horstead, of the energy consultancy Utilyx, saying: "The market is very close to its safety limit … In an average week in March, the margin of spare capacity is more than 12 times higher - about 10 GW - rising to more than 16 GW in July or August."
As you might expect, the National Grid is denying any risk of domestic consumers facing blackouts next month, asserting that there is "a built-in cushion of capacity below the stated safety margin."
However, this organisation has a history of making reassuring noises even when the system goes belly-up.
Mr Horstead, on the other hand, is less reassuring. He reminds us that the unexpected loss of a plant because of a technical glitch (as happened in May when two major plants dropped out unexpectedly for precisely that reason) "could expose industrial customers to the threat of temporary power cuts". We will be very lucky if the disruption is confined to industry.
Peter Atherton, a Citigroup utilities analyst, is also cited. He says that the squeeze next month had arisen because a large number of ageing UK power stations were out of service for maintenance - a growing trend in the industry. Three older nuclear plants operated by British Energy at Hartlepool, Dungeness, in Kent, and Heysham, in Lancashire, are undergoing repairs and are not scheduled to return to full service until the end of the year.
Then we come to the punch line. "European rules restricting the use of some of Britain's biggest coal-fired power stations," says The Times, "are an additional factor."
But no! They are not an additional factor. They are the factor. We are talking about the Large Combustion Plants Directive here, which is already restricting the output of seven major plants. By 2015, they will close because it is too expensive to meet the requirements of the directive, knocking out a vital 12 GW of generating capacity.
But in the here and now, the directive limits the output of each plant to 2,000 hours a year (out of a theoretical 8760 hours) effectively taking out three-quarters of this capacity.
This, admits The Times has "increased instability in the network by reducing the margin of spare capacity and the ability of the National Grid to respond rapidly in times of crisis."
Of course, we might just get away with it but, if we do, it will be no thanks to the EU. There again, the Met Office is forecasting a mild winter, which probably means we'll see snow on the ground by Christmas. However, studying the household bills by candle light is soooo romantic.
Thank heavens we are members of the European Union.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
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