southeastern europe

The May and June parliamentary elections have returned Greece's openly national socialist and erstwhile marginal party to the parliament. Today 18 members of parliament have been elected under the party banner. Many more seem to share some of the views that have made the party popular; the demonization of immigrants, the assumption that crime is imported, an intense anti-europeanism. There is a lot that needs to be done to analyse and counter such discourses. But the phenomenon of Χρυσή Αυγή (Golden Dawn) is still unexplored beyond the journalistic work that has surrounded it.  Back in November 2011, I was invited to talk in a panel on the extreme right in Europe with Zeev Sternhell and Vassiliki Georgiadou. There I suggested that we need to see how the extreme right engages citizens at the micro level, providing local services that the state or civil society seem not to be able or willing to. At the time, another extreme right party, ΛΑΟΣ, had agreed to participate to a coali...

Excellent, sober analysis of the Greek (Eurozone) crisis by Kevin Featherstone Angela Merkel is pushing Greece beyond the pain threshold This is a crisis made in Athens, but it is in no one's interest to drive Greece into political chaos Kevin Featherstone guardian.co.uk , Friday 30 April 2010 13.00 BST This week Greece and the eurozone entered an unknown time zone, of uncertainty and failure. The international financial markets are increasingly convinced that Greece will default on its debt. In the City, analysts estimate Greece will need aid of about €70bn (£60.6bn) this year, €60bn next year and €56bn in 2012. In "hedge fund" offices, the task for the Greek government appears overwhelming: its no longer if, but when it will default. But no one knows whether a default by Greece would require its exit from the eurozone. In effect, Greece already defaulted this week. As soon as its bonds were declared to be "junk" – with no ...

ANOTHER EUROPEAN DEFICIT: IS THERE RESPONSIBLE SCHOLARSHIP? by Biljana Vankovska A spectre has been haunting the intellectual circles in the region of former Yugoslavia for years. It’s probably more appropriate to talk about a haunting fear of being seen as a follower of any of the nationalistic policies that ended in a Balkan tragedy. Even the new generations of scholars and intellectuals bear the scars of the “original sin” of their older colleagues, i.e. their passive stand or even active support of nationalistic leaders from the end of 20 century. The (un)conscious feeling of responsibility and guilt for the bloody Yugoslav turmoil is being constantly mixed with the fear of possible stigmatization as a “nationalist”. Milosevic’s or Tudjman’s ghosts are hanging as a Damocles’ sword over anybody who dares speak about “national issues”, or, even worse, if s/he dares to pronounce a critical opinion on NATO/EU/USA (especially having in mind that these international actors have...