The single market in the evolving European economic crisis: the role of Wales

Pic: Alicia Villegas

The economic crisis has prompted an urgent need to increase Welsh competitiveness within the European single market to achieve growth.

Eluned, Baroness Morgan, former MEP and honorary distinguished Professor at Cardiff University, yesterday warned to the Welsh business community to face up to the current economic climate.
The single market seems to work better in other areas than in Wales but, for Eluned, Baroness Morgan, the issue is not the EU lack of support but a Welsh problem.

“In Wales we have three cases of top level EU funding and we are going backwards,” she said. “I am not sure where is the problem of the lack of growth, I am trying to work out what are we doing wrong, because whatever we are doing at the moment is not working,” she added.

Eluned, Baronness Morgan, who is now employed by Swalec, a company that is keen to look at opportunities for closer collaboration in innovation and research and development in Wales, said also that the Welsh business community should look into trade within the EU, as 15 per cent of Welsh trading good are in the European market.

“People speak about the importance of reaching out to countries like Brazil, Russia, India or China, which are all there with huge potential, but the fact is that Welsh businesses have more trade in Ireland that they do with all of this countries together,” she said.

During a roundtable at Cardiff University in which the future of the European single market in the light of the global financial and economic crisis was discussed, Eluned, Baroness Morgan explained that, at the time of the creation of the single market within the UE, the Welsh business community was very supportive of it.
“The single market in Welsh economy is key because a lot of investment came into Wales, attracting Japanese and Korean investors,” she said and, referring to the trading opportunities within the UE, she added: “I think it is fair to say that the opportunities offered to Welsh business are immense because of this market of 500 million people.”

The single market can offer benefits, but also some challenges and, with the current economic crisis, these ones are even more demanding.

“We are living in a global market where competition is fierce, facing the particular challenge that we have an aging population, so unless we are going to act together, we will not be able to pay for our older population, which could lead to a social crisis,” she explained.

Apart from the higher competition within the single market, there are other challenges that need to be addressed. Michelle Cini, European Politics professor from Bristol University, pointed out that gaps in legislation within the single market were a problem.

“Where the gaps are, tend to be the most controversial areas and the most difficult areas to legislate,” she said.

Ms Cini said that the businesses complained about the lack of legislation. Also the dynamic within the single market was another important issue that must be addressed, along with the lack of public confidence in the single market to deliver growth.

“It seems to be a tendency, at general level, to particularly look at the EU as a solution to the problems being faced in the financial and economic crisis, but perhaps the solution should be provided by the national governments,” she said.

Ms Cini also explained that opposition to the EU by some countries like the UK within the EU is a risk as it could trigger fragmentation and a shaper “two speeds EU”. She also worried about the critical voices who oppose a dominant role for the market.

“These voices perceive the single market as an example of the EU adopting a neoliberal approach, even if the language of the reports and the Single Market Act is very much the language of social Europe,” she pointed out.

To face these criticisms Henrik Morch, from the European Commission, highlighted the achievements of the single market, particularly in terms of opportunities for business within the EU, such us the huge potential of ecommerce. Mr Morch said that for the across border market, ecommerce is still insignificant, making up about a 3 per cent in the EU market, but if it were to double by 2050, the economic benefit of that would be huge, up to €700 billion.

“The single market is now part of the solution, is even more important now than ever because of the economic crisis, but at the same time, it is seen as part of the problem. This is the risk and I think it is important to highlight the very confident benefits that inter-markets give,” he said.

Mr Morch added: “There is not a single bullet to revitalise the single market and create thousands of jobs and economic growth in one goal. It doesn’t exist: the single market is built piece by piece.”

What's happening in England?

It's 11 pm and I'm so tired that I lay in bed, close my eyes, and I start to dream as soon as I fall asleep. Suddenly, I find myself in an old house, huge, I would say it's a mansion instead of an ordinary house. I know the people who live there; they are not from my real life, but from my dreams. I open a window and I see a green lawn and a few cows grazing in the middle of a gray day, what better image of England. However, a new element bursts into my idyllic landscape. It’s a helicopter, a metal bird that heads rapidly towards my window. I have no time to run. The helicopter is coming and its deafening noise prevents me from hearing my own screams...

I wake up feeling a great sense of relief after realizing it has been a dream. Quickly, I forget the details of the nightmare, but the helicopter buzz still resonates in my head. After 15 minutes of buzzing I realize it's not my imagination: a helicopter is flying over our neighborhood. Because of the helicopter, or the nightmare, since that moment I can’t fall asleep over the rest of the night.

The next morning I wake up with headache. I need a coffee. I go downstairs, to the kitchen and when I open the door I realize that TV is on, even though no one is watching it. I'm about to turn it off, but a succession images catch my attention and I forget even my coffee: streets on fire, hooded guys smashing windows, kids throwing bottles at a group of policemen, a gang of youngsters looting an electronics store… images don’t end and I can’t stop watching. Three days later, I still stay glued to television:

I see British Prime Minister David Cameron, not looking very friendly, saying that we have seen the worst of England.

I hear another woman, not looking very friendly either, complaining about the police budget cuts announced months ago by the British government.

I watch dozens of policemen fleeing from the objects thrown by a gang of young people.

I hear the possibility of bringing the army.

I see an old man wondering why all this has happened, trying to figure out the mistakes of a system that has allowed thousands of young people destroy their community.

I see a picture of a person, apparently killed by a policeman, and the reason of the beginning of the riots in the streets of London.

I hear riots have spread to other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Bristol.

I watch a couple of young men initially helping a bleeding boy and then stealing what he has got in his rucksack.

I see how Hindus clean their corner shops, shattered after the street riots.

I listen to a police officer advising parents to keep their teenagers at home during the wave of violence.

I read that three people have died during the riots in Birmingham.

I hear that more than 1000 people have been arrested.

I listen to another police officer saying that there were riots thirty years ago which raised the issue of racism, but the riots of these days are just criminal acts without any justification.

I see a man visibly shaken, crying on camera that riots means the insurrection of the masses in response to the yawning gap between upper and lower classes and to the social spending cuts.

I see a young boy hooded, leaving behind a ransacked establishment, with a plasma TV in his arms.

I hear dozens of times the words "gang culture" and "loss of values" in a materialistic society increasingly dominated by the statement "you are what you have".

I turn off the TV and go out. Walking through the streets of Bristol, I try to draw conclusions from what I've seen and heard, but everything is still unclear. My thoughts spin like the helicopter blades which didn't let me sleep a few days ago and the more aware I am that I do not understand anything, the greater the feeling of sadness that takes over me.

I feel sorry, very sorry to see how hundreds of young people destroy, steal and attack without the slightest hint of remorse or guilt. I feel sorry for all those who can't give nothing better of themselves. To see so many young people disoriented, with no voice and no future.

While the British political class, the "elite" formed in prestigious institutions like Oxford or Cambridge, is trying to decipher what is happening in their country; those juvenile delinquents who have been part of the riots still think they have nothing to lose. Ignored and now hated, perhaps this is more they could expect of themselves.

The threat of far right-wind terrorism

Norway rarely hits the headlines. Regarded as a peaceful country, a clear example of welfare state, with a thriving economy and an unemployment rate of less than 4%, Norway has remained far from bad news headlines. When last July 23 we knew about the car bomb explosion in Oslo and a mass shooting on the island of Utoya, many of us were surprised and we wondered, why Norway?

The constant media blitz on the threat of Islamic terrorism and the modus operandi of the first attack (explosion of a boom outside a government building in downtown Oslo) were more than enough to point out Islamic terrorist by those who are impatient to find answers –among which I include myself- . However, doubts started when we were informed of the shooting that had happened in the island of Utoya, where a group of young people was attending a summer camp organized by the ruling Norwegian Labour Party. A man –white skin, blond hair, Norwegian?- dressed in a police uniform opened fire and killed 69 people, mostly youngsters. Along with the explosion in Oslo, where 8 people died, the death toll was 77.

After the arrest of Anders Breivik Behring, the man who carried out the massacre in Norway, questions began to dissipate. The murderer, a 32 years-old Norwegian right-wing extremist and islamophobic, left the Islamist terrorism offside to show a new threat: the rise of the extremist right-wing as a new form of terrorism.

Although Breivik’s mental health is not yet known, it is evident that his plan was developed conscientiously to carry out a marketing campaign to
spread his fanatic right-wing ideas. His manifesto was posted on the Internet and sent by bulk email before the attacks, and it explains everything: from the justification of the attacks based on an imaginary Islamic invasion of Europe, how to make booms, to an interview to himself and a previous diary to the terrorist attacks. In this manifesto, the terrorist says he is not alone in his peculiar crusade against Islam, Which should alert the prospect of organized groups who share their hate for Islam, immigration and cultural conservatism taken to extremes.

The rise of xenophobic parties in Europe

The macabre ideology written by the murderer in his manifesto, takes its base in the right-wing parties which have proliferated in Europe in recent years. The rapid migration experienced in the economically developed countries (in some of them their ethnic composition has changed up to 30% of non-Western immigrants) and the lack of effective policies for integration, have resulted in an increase of fear, conflicts and rejection of “multiculturalism” as a response to strong demographic changes.

The radical right-wing parties in Europe have found its gold mine in this rejection of immigration and, by a populist and nationalist discourse, they have gained more and more followers. Thus, in Norway, the Progress Party (where the confessed author of the massacre was a member for several years) became the second largest group, winning one in five votes at the last election in 2009. In neighboring Sweden, the Sweden Democrat party membership increased by 4571 people in 1010 (26% more than the previous year) with a discourse which focus on the expulsion of immigrants.

In France, anti-Islam discourse has led to Le Pen’s National Front party to hold the third political force in the country. “Islamophobia” has also gained ground in the Netherlands and finds shelter in the third largest political group representing the country, the Party for Freedom. Far right-wing is also the third force in Finland and Denmark.

Right-wing extremist terrorism

Although it is not known yet whether the terrorist acted alone or not, it is clear that his ideology has found coverage in the far-right “institutional” parties increasingly visible in Europe and other “extra-parliamentary” groups: the so-called neo-Nazi groups or racist bands. The basic difference between them is that, while the first condemn violence, the neo-Nazi bands see it as the way to defeat the immigrants considered as the “enemies”. These violent groups have no institutional representation (since they just want to destroy democracy) and, because of their tendency to dissolve and transform themselves, it is very difficult to trace them. However, the radical right-wing is visible on the Internet, in some websites and discussion forums where they share their xenophobia, anti-socialist ideas and paranoid against a democratic government.

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway participated often in these platforms and, after his first appearance in court, he claimed of accomplices, which he described as “two more cells” in an organization. Does this mean that Breivik was part of an organized terrorist group? So far, police rule out this hypothesis and the latest information suggests that the murderer acted by his own.

Whether fear is unfounded individually or under the shelter of an organized terrorist group, does not change that this twin attack in Norway is part of a fanatic right-wing terrorism, which remind the shooting occurred on last January 8 in Arizona, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fired against a crowd of people in a Democratic Party event and killed 6 people and injured seriously more than a dozen, including the US Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffords.

So far this year, we have witnessed two acts of terrorism perpetrated by fanatics fed by the ideology of the radical right-wing. Will be needed more terror so that we begin to realize the danger they pose? As well as politicians and the media have warned us about the threat of Al Qaeda, they have now a golden opportunity to expose this new form of terrorism and foster public debate about the far-right parties responsibility when they launch their apocalyptic, xenophobic and anti-Islamist discourse.