Thursday 7 May 2015

Balkanisation of European Politics

Today there are elections all over the UK but what everyone in these islands really is talking about is Scotland. The reason for this is that it is likely that the Scottish National Party takes most of the seats from Scotland in the House of Commons.
Now, the SNP has a left wing speech that appeals to many people in Scotland. But its programme in most areas is not that different from Labour's, for example. What makes the SNP different is very much its nationalist rhetoric. And that's what it has in common to so many regional parties in Europe, in countries like Spain, Italy or Belgium.
These regional parties, however, are not the only ones with such speech. Another main actor of today's elections is the UKIP: an anti-immigration, anti-EU and anti-foreigners party. (Ironically lead by a man married to a foreigner, a German) Sadly enough, like the SNP, UKIP is not alone in Europe, with similar parties in France, the Netherlands, Finland and, more worryingly, in the government of Hungary.
These two trends show that thousands of Europeans are giving preference to nationalism instead of ideas when casting their vote. I know that ideologies were as dangerous as nationalism in the XX century, but I really thought that we were over those ideologies and this nationalism.
Apparently we aren't and Europe is becoming increasingly Balkanised by its parties.