Salmon Pink Europe
The former preoccupation, with labour markets, was brought on by the onslaught of Thatcherism during the 1980s and early 1990s. But a strong trade union movement, deriving strength from nationalised industries as in France and Italy, acted as a counterweight to Thatcherism. Very significantly, it also testified to the slowness of industrial change in Europe where, unlike in the US, service industries consisting of non-unionised labour have been slow to replace the old industrial structure. This, and the worries over several soft issues like the environment, human rights, a place for the poor in New Europe etc, have combined at the end of the 20th century to put the Left back in the political picture. It will be interersting to see how the agenda for the first decade of the 21st develops from here onwards. The Left which has emerged from the trial-by-fire of Thatcherism is not the old unreformed Left but a more sensible and practical one. This will make a very big difference to its longevity in power.
In the immediate context, however, it has been the latter issue, the speed of European integration, which has caused the Centre-Right to yield ground. During the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the German unification and the US attempt to forge mammoth trading blocs like Nafta, the Centre-Right fought back by trying to coalesce Europe around the central idea of European integration and unification. This was eventually embodied in the Maastricht Treaty which was welcomed by everyone when it was first signed in 1993. But since then its costs have become more apparent, mainly to labour and nationalists. Both stand to lose a great deal. As a result, both in the UK and France the Left has gained ground. It requires no special wisdom to see that the movement towards currency unification in 1999 and other more amibitious programmes of unification later on will now slow down to a crawl. It will be interesting to see what this means for Germanys Helmut Kohl who has been the engine pulling Europe towards integration and unification.