Also, a note is to not focus overly on the most egregious extremes (Hungary and Poland keep getting put forward as these) when there is a populist wave across Europe.
Poland and Hungary's populisms are significantly different from Germany's, Sweden's or the UK's, even though the "only profit from the EU" state of mind is there.
I think that those rose in part because of Russian politics. Both countries suffered a lot behind the Iron Curtain, and in their case, the nationalism and patriotism might not have started as an answer to a perceived "invasion" or "replacement" by non-European people, but by a fear that a rise in Russian nationalism would threaten their border. They were more akin to GWB's neoconservatives, than they were to Trump's.
In Germany, France, Sweden, it's run-of-the-mill xenophobia that led to their rise. There's really not much more to look at. Sure, some of their voters might not be racist, and might just want change, but the parties themselves were created by racists.
That's why the issues with Orban and (seriously, his name is horrible to spell) Polish PM came before the migrant crisis. They are closer to Erdogans, ie they came into power from "respectable parties", ie not some far-right bunch of loonies like the Front National, were the right-wing of those parties, and progressively moved more and more on the right to improve their hold on their position. It's really similar: they don't get control of all state media, they "fight against the traitors to the nation". It's what Trump would really love to do given some of his stances, but the US are an older democracy and the safeguards are stronger against such behaviors (also, there is no state media to speak of, making it harder for elected officials to interfere).
It was supposed to produce a convergence with Western and Northern Europe in terms of standards of living. But it hasn't. At most, it appears to have moderately slowed down the trend of population relocation.
It has slowed down because quality of life has become better, which is a tradeoff many are okay with. And the more quality of life increases, the more brain exodus will slow down. And the more quality of life increases, the more you'll attract brains from other European countries.
It's probably a demographical reality, but I have never heard about it as a serious issue in EU politics. Because if it keeps going on, you'll have two solutions: 1 - quality of life stops increasing, and it will rise to prominence and actually make people angry, 2 - quality of life keeps increasing, and as mentioned above, it will naturally die down.
I found
this link, it's in French, but it's pretty telling (the greener, the higher the GDP growth in 2017). Eastern Europe countries are getting closer to Western ones.
Buried in that is even some information about why Germany and Sweden and the UK and the already richer countries are also going through populist spurts. Immigration, yes, but their growth has also been exceptionally anemic. Some growth is better than no growth or outright recession, but anemic growth still comes with a host of problems and is usually caused by some severe underlying structural issues.
Yes, that's the second kind of populism rise. Overall, you have what happens in "rich countries" (France, Germany, Sweden, UK, even Italy), and what happens in "2nd tier countries" wealth-wise (Hungary, Poland, Turkey). The mechanisms are quite different. Poland and Hungary are just using migrants to rile up their base, but unlike in the UK, France, Germany, immigration is not what they built their politics on.
As to what the problems are, it varies from country to country.
1. There's a long distance between dissatisfaction and wanting to permanently wash your hands of something. 2. The politicians believe that leaving the EU would mean short-term economic disaster for the country and would thus ruin all their prospects for reelection, so you'll see even ostensibly Euroskeptic governments dragging their heels, or even governments with an explicit "leave the EU" mandate (Britain) drag their heels. 3. Something you've already pointed out, basically security. 4. The prospects of whether the remaining EU will treat them with anything like charity once they leave or go out of their way to make it harder for them.
1. Again, there's a marked difference between the East and the West. In the West, anti-EU movements are far more bullish when it comes to threatening to leave (or actually leaving, see the UK), because for them, the EU brings nothing and they can be fine on their own. In the East, they realize what the EU brings, they just don't want all of the rules being part of it entails. I think Di Maio has already tried to strongarm the commission into giving him what he wants by threatening to leave, something Orban has never done.
2. Obviously. Note that it didn't stop UKIP and the Brexiters like BoJo.
4. Especially as the one good thing that seems to come out of Brexit (for us, not the UK) is that, unlike what Farage and his friends predicted, the other EU countries are pretty much all on the same page when it comes to negotiating deals. So while they hoped to be sowing dissent and profit from the chaos to negotiate individual deals...well, it doesn't happen, and May is forced to negotiate with a block that's far more powerful than her, and that has far more cards in hand than her.
So unless a miracle manages to make the UK the winner of the Brexit (which virtualy nothing indicates at that point), all other potentially-leaving countries will have that example as a basis of what happens if they threaten to leave - and most of them are not nearly as wealthy or influential as the UK.
FrozenShadow wrote:Ah, newest from Trump. When Spain Foreign Minister Josep Borell asked Trump how Spain could deal with Europe migration crisis, Trump simply suggested that “Build a wall across the Sahara.” And when Borell told Trump that it ain't viable option because scale is totally diffent, Trump disagreed by saying “the Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico."
Naturally White House hasn't commented this yet, as even they must be speechless after yet again witnessing Trump's total stupidity and lack of knowledge.
One link.
I assume his base will react by saying "look at all the triggered libtard geographists who care about borders and international right and such, what a bunch of cuck losers".
I'm pretty sure that's an answer any 10 year old would know is completely dumb, by the way.
