The electoral result in Finland and its consequences for Europe.
While the situation of unrest in North Africa and the waves of migrant arriving in Sicily draw the international attention to the Southern bord of Europe, in the North of the Union some small political change can deeply influence the future of the Union.
Like the flap of a butterfly that can set off a tornado, the electoral result in Finland can have terrible consequences for the European Union. Not just for the economic recovery, as the True Finn movement (which has won 39 seats and nearly one fifth of the vote) has threatened not to support the EU bailout plan for Portugal, but also for the wider political scenario, as the new coalition government could turn Finland’s traditionally pro-EU politics on its head.
It would be a mistake to underestimate this result, just because Finland is not one of the main European countries (either for population or economy). Although it joined the European Union only in 1995, Finland has adopted the single currency since its first introduction in 1999 and as a consequence its economy is stringly linked to the euro-zone.
In addition the victory of an anti-Eu party in the county is a further signal of the difficulties that Europe is facing today: the rise of identity politics is steady. The Northern League in Italy, now firmly part of the coalition government, the growth of Geert Wilders’ PVV in the Netherlands, the success of the Democratic Party in Sweeden, not to mention the UKIP and the BNP that did remarkably well at the last European elections in Britain and the possible victory of Marine Le Pen at the first round of the French presidential elections in 2012.
All these facts show clearly that this is a pan-European problem. The more it is reduced as a national issue, the worste it will be both for the single states and for the Union as a whole. Europe has to face the rise of anti-immigration, anti-Islam, nationalistic political parties as a problem for its future and needs to find a new commmon narrative in order to defeat this phenomenon on the cultural level, not just as an electoral menace.
