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indignados
'Occupy' Spanish-Style... Big Lessons for Us?
Sep 27, 2015
Back from the first global conference on money in politics in Mexico City, I'm bursting with stories that might carry messages of possibility that Americans need right now. Sure worked for me.
In Spain, with one-fifth of its population jobless, the Indignados movement--that paralleled our Occupy-- erupted with protests in 2011. But instead of fading from sight, by early 2014 the Indignados had set the stage for the birth of a new political party: Podemos, "We Can."
In only a few months, Podemos surprised everyone by winning 8 percent of the Spanish vote for the European Parliament, giving it five of 54 Spanish seats. One year later, in coalition with other grassroots movements, Podemos won mayor's races in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities. Today it is Spain's third largest political party. "Unprecedented" declared the pundits.
The Party's aim has been to "capture a desire for transparency and participation in politics" stirred by the Indignados movement, Miguel Ongil, 35, Podemos' point person on finance and transparency explained to me. During the Mexico City conference, I scribbled furiously as he laid out three ways his new party stands against corruption and for social equity.
"Crowdfunding." Miguel described the Spanish system of public campaign financing in which parties typically take out bank loans to pay their bills that are largely refunded later by the government based on the parties' showing at the polls. "But when the parties don't get the expected results, they cannot pay back their debts," Miguel explained later, so the banks then "get more credits to pay for credits..." In effect, these Spanish banks become "shareholders of political parties," another conference attendee quipped to Miguel.
But not Podemos. It wants no "bank donors" to whom it might feel an obligation, Miguel told conference attendees. His new party relies instead on "microcredit" from citizen supporters who are later repaid with public funds. This is our "innovation," he wrote to me later: "how to make your way around without state funding or bank credits, and our answer is simple: collaborative finances, crowdfunding and fresh ideas."
"Radical transparency." The party publishes all its accounts online in real time, Miguel told his audience which represented several dozen nations. Plus, "we are the only party with three external control mechanisms: the Court of Accounts, a second formal external audit, and citizens' control."
"Citizens' control": What does that mean? I asked.
Podemos' "accounts include so much detail, including the actual tickets, that an external audit wouldn't really be required," Miguel wrote later. "Anyone can do it, and they do. One of our publications of accounts had 138,000 views. Newspapers have been trying to nail us. We have so much citizen supervision it becomes a control mechanism in itself."
Radical equity. Miguel didn't use this term but for me it fits: Podemos requires that none of its elected representatives--from the local to the European level--earn more than three times the minimum wage. Any income above this level goes to the Party, where we "spend 50 percent in the Party and 50 percent goes to a fund to which anyone can apply for social projects. The sympathizers of Podemos decide in a 100 percent-participatory mechanism which projects are to be funded."
Clearly, commitment to participation runs deep in Podemos, and that includes some direct guidance from citizens. Podemos uses, for example, web tools to enable people collectively to develop its key documents, with party "synthesizers" weaving together the final versions.
At their height about a thousand Podemos "circles" connected citizens and their party in regular, horizontally-organized, local meetings. Miguel notes that in growing as a party, Podemos is working to find a new balance between in-person and virtual participation, "including electronic mechanisms of direct democracy." For example, citizens have the "possibility to propose 'legislative citizen initiatives,' which require the support of a minimum number of votes or circles. These give circles some weight."
Aligning action with its philosophy, another Podemos touch boils down to postage stamps. The head of the party is long-term activist Pablo Iglesias whose campaign letters were hand delivered to mailboxes, with this explanation:
This letter did not reach you by post, because mailing a letter like this all over the country costs over 2 million Euros. Ask the parties who sent you an election letter by post where they got the money to do so and in exchange for what. "We don't ask for favours from bankers or corrupt [politicians]... If you are reading this it is because someone who lives near you wants to change things for real.
Podemos policy positions range from strengthening the public health system to halting evictions over mortgage defaults to promoting clean energy. But, "underlining the entire platform is a proposed change in political culture, bringing transparency and participative democracy to all institutions," notes what's called a "Dummies Guide" to Podemos--making it as much about how we do politics as about any specific issue.
Since it's the takeover of our democratic process by big money that makes most Americans angry, Podemos is a story from which Americans could take heart. Saying good-bye to Miguel, I sensed his determination and clarity of purpose. I felt fortified to do everything I can to pick up where Occupy left off and to help build a passionate US democracy movement.
Now I hear Miguel whispering in my ear: The Indignados "created a new social majority that no party was able to represent." And now Podemos is determined "to turn that new social majority into a new political majority." Even three years ago, he could not have foreseen how far Podemos has already come. Hmm. Maybe it's not possible to know what's possible.
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Spain's Democratic Spring
Parties linked to Spain's "Occupy" movement now lead governments in the country's three largest cities — and they're already ruffling feathers.
Jul 09, 2015
Imagine that the Occupy Movement stood for election in New York and won, or that anti-gentrification activists took over the city hall in San Francisco. That's what just happened in Spain, where citizens' groups with roots in the anti-austerity indignados movement performed so well in recent municipal elections that they now lead governments in the country's three largest cities -- Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia -- along with several others.
The epicenter of this political earthquake is Barcelona, where the new mayor is Ada Colau, former spokesperson as the Mortgage Victims Platform, or PAH. She stood as the candidate for a newly formed citizens' platform called Barcelona in Common (Barcelona en Comu), whose immediate priorities for the city include stopping foreclosures.
The capital, Madrid, had been governed by the right-wing People's Party (PP) for 24 years, but the new government is led by another citizens' platform called Ahora Madrid, which came a close second in the elections and succeeded in securing enough votes from other parties to form the city government. The new mayor is Manuela Carmena, a 71-year old former judge who cut her political teeth opposing the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s.
Radical citizens' coalitions or "popular unity" candidates now also now lead city administrations in Zaragoza, A Coruna, Pamplona, Cadiz, and Santiago de Compostela. All of these involve candidates from Podemos, an anti-austerity party founded in 2014. But the impetus mainly comes from the social movements that took over public squares across Spain in May 2011.
Symbolizing change
Spain's new mayors took office on June 13 -- and they've already ruffled more than a few feathers.
Some of their first acts have been symbolic, including the new mayor of Cadiz's much-publicized replacement of a picture of the former king with that of a 19th century anarchist republican. The new council of Madrid has given up its boxes at the city's bullfighting ring and royal theater, as part of a manifesto pledge to cut expenses.
In Barcelona, Colau's first interventions have also symbolized a clear break with the neoliberal, tourism-at-all-costs "global city" model of previous administrations. She made international headlines by promising to withdraw a EUR4 million subsidy given to the race circuit that hosts the Spanish Grand Prix, suggesting that the money could instead restore school meal subsidies for poor families. Barcelona in Common has also promised to review the lease of the Port Vell Marina, which has recently been converted to accommodate the luxury yachts of the world's super-rich in the heart of the city.
In Madrid, meanwhile, scenes of panic were reported at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, a high-society country club built on city-owned property, when Manuela Carmena promised to re-designate the area as a public park.
The right to housing
Behind the symbolism, though, the first priority of many of Spain's new mayors is to end home foreclosures. In her first day on the job, Colau intervened to stop an eviction in the poorest district of Barcelona, while promising to look for "a more stable solution." The mayor of Cadiz and four of his councilors were dragged away by police while attempting to prevent a foreclosure.
There have been close to half-a-million home evictions in Spain -- a country of around 18 million households -- since the economic crisis hit in 2007. The victims were caught up in a housing bubble, fueled by sub-prime lending and a construction boom.
With the onset of the crisis, the construction industry ground to a halt, leaving over 3 million empty properties and many more half-finished, which precipitated the collapse of many of the banks that had financed Spain's building boom. At the same time, with successive governments pursuing harsh austerity measures, the labor market fell off a cliff, with unemployment peaking at close to 27 percent in 2013. Many of those who lost their jobs lost their homes soon after. But under Spanish law, they must still pay back the lender even after foreclosure.
The rise of the PAH, with Colau as its spokesperson, came in response to these foreclosures on an industrial scale. The group adopted militant tactics: physically blocking evictions, occupying bank branches, surrounding the homes and workplaces of politicians, and squatting in empty housing developments. Since its inception, the PAH has successfully blocked over 1,000 evictions and negotiated debt cancellations for many households.
The PAH also pursued legislative initiatives and legal challenges to Spain's housing law, with limited success. With prominent allies in city halls now, that could change.
One option to address evictions is to establish a public office that would negotiate agreements between banks and defaulters -- a model that's been successfully tried in the Spanish Basque country. It may also be possible for the city council to be given first refusal on the purchase of evicted properties, which it could then rent out to the evictees or other tenants. Zaragoza in Common has proposed a hybrid of these schemes, setting up an anti-foreclosure office and asking banks to make empty housing available for social housing at affordable rents -- a proposal that's received a positive response from some major banks. Ahora Madrid is considering similar proposals.
In advance of such measures, one thing that's already changed is the attitude of property speculators. The day after the election, a private investment firm that less than a year ago spent EUR90 million on a site for a proposed Four Seasons hotel in Barcelona announced that it was abandoning its plans.
Then, on May 30th, a high-level conference of bankers, private equity firms, and investment funds in Madrid was reported to have become an impromptu debrief for firms concerned about the future of their Spanish investments. The new mayors of Barcelona and Madrid have backed the PAH in pledging to fight off vulture funds that have bought up large portfolios of rented properties from the city council and bailed out banks, hiking up rents and evicting tenants.
Emergency plans
The priority given to stopping foreclosures is just one element of the "emergency plan" that Barcelona in Common announced that it would implement in its first months in office.
Other flagship measures include a review of contracts for sub-contractors working for the municipality (whose terms of work are often highly precarious), stopping the privatization of daycare, handing out fines to banks that leave multiple properties empty, refusing to grant new hotel licenses, and subsidizing energy and transport costs for the unemployed and those earning under the minimum wage. Colau has already appointed a new city police chief with a mandate to reform the "bad practices" of the city police force, and promised to review the contracts of multinational service providers. Similar provisions are planned in other cities where "popular unity" candidates lead the government.
The new council will also employ fewer political appointees at lower salaries than their predecessors. Colau herself will take home EUR2,200 per month -- compared with the EUR8,800 paid to her predecessor Xavier Trias -- in accordance with Barcelona in Common's crowdsourced code of ethics, called "governing by obeying." In Madrid, Manuela Carmena has promised to halve the nearly EUR100,000 annual salary of her predecessor.
Passing these measures through councils that require cross-party support won't be easy, with the fragmentation of Spain's two-party system and resurgent nationalism in some parts of the country meaning that city halls across Spain are now ruled by minority administrations. Nowhere will that be more difficult than in the Catalan capital, where Barcelona in Common holds just 11 seats in the 41-member city council. It's dependent upon the support of most of the councilors from two center-left parties and a smaller, left nationalist bloc.
The experience of building an electoral coalition out of social movements lends itself to a more nuanced conception of power than just the forging of political pacts, however. In her first press conference after the election, Ada Colau affirmed that she would talk to all left and center-left parties, but stressed that she would continue to attend neighborhood assemblies from the civil society groups that helped propel her to power.
The clear message is that Barcelona in Common will look to active social movements and associations as a means to win legitimacy for its proposals, which would then put pressure on other parties to allow it to pass legislation. That's a marked shift from the usual model of horse-trading between parties behind closed doors.
A political springboard
Taking control of Spain's largest cities is just the start of a journey that leads to general elections in November.
Along the way, Barcelona will go to the polls again in September, when regional elections will be held in Catalonia. The regional government, a nationalist coalition led by CiU (Convergencia i Unio, or Convergence and Union), can currently block attempts by Barcelona in Common to expand public health and education facilities in poorer neighborhoods since it plays the lead role in providing these services.
CiU is a coalition of two parties, who have governed Catalonia in a pact for most of the period since 1980. But that coalition is in disarray. The coalition held for as long as it was winning elections and leading polls, but on June 17 the two parties split.
That leaves an opening for the left in Catalonia. A region-wide coalition of the groups that joined Barcelona in Common is currently under discussion. If the talks are successful, they could produce a popular unity list with a viable shot at becoming the largest bloc in the regional parliament.
Success in regional elections would open the way to a bigger prize. A strong showing for the left in Catalonia -- Spain's second most populous region and a former stronghold of the Socialist Party -- is vital if the left is to triumph nationally. The prospect of a popular unity platform for Spain's general elections is now being openly discussed. The leadership of the United Left, wiped out when standing against popular unity coalitions but increasing its representation when incorporated within them, is virtually pleading for a pact. Equo, the country's Green party, is similarly open to a common list.
These calls are increasingly find an echo within Podemos, too. Pablo Echenique, one of the party's first members of the European Parliament and its regional leader in Aragon, and 22 prominent activists have also called on Podemos to embrace pluralism and open the party to electoral pacts in the general election. Pablo Iglesias, the party leader, has opened the door for joint candidacies with other parties, but only in three of Spain's 17 regions (including Catalonia).
Calls for unity are obviously far easier to make than to achieve, but they could be heard if they help to create a bloc that could outflank the center-left Socialist Party in the general election. That would be enough to fundamentally reshape the politics of Spain, claims Iglesias. Even if the conservative People's Party remained the largest single party, Podemos could negotiate from a position of strength. As Iglesias puts it, the Socialists would be forced into a choice of either "undertaking a 180-degree turn and rejecting austerity policies, so that we could reach an understanding with them... or commit political suicide by submitting to the PP."
It's a tantalizing prospect for the fall, but for now Spain is entering the summer still reveling in its democratic spring.
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The Left's European Conundrum
With last week’s elections, commentators are heralding the “end of Europe,” but the evidence tells a different story.
May 29, 2014
Everyone has something sweeping to say about last week's European elections. And, indeed, from a glance, it's easy to make pronouncements about the state of politics on the continent. Most emphasize mass abstention, the rise of far-right eurosceptic parties that oppose the EU, the crisis of social democracy, even some gains by the radical left.
A careful look at the data, however, invites more caution. The most important questions to be raised are whether these elections univocally show an increasing disaffection of citizens towards the project of the European Union and whether the European political establishment is facing a deep and general crisis.
My answer on both counts is no: the electoral results show a growing discontent caused by the five year-long poisonous combination of austerity and crisis, but this is not sufficient to speak of a deep political instability and even less of a legitimacy crisis. Moreover, except for the rise of eurosceptic parties, it is difficult to identify a strong common trend. The results seem to largely be the outcome of diverse political dynamics in each country.
To understand the elections, we should do something rare among the chattering classes: start with the data. For example, the rate of electoral participation and its trend in the last decades contrast claims that mass abstention is proof of the EU's increasing loss of political legitimacy. Despite predictions of a collapse due to the increasing disaffection of European citizens towards the European Union and its institutions, voter participation has been significantly higher than expected (43%).
In fact, the last elections have been the first ones since 1979 in which the trend of declining voter participation has reached a halt. This has been due in particular to the rate of voter participation in some of the largest countries. Massive abstention at these elections can hardly be proof of a growing loss of EU legitimacy -- not only because voting rates are steady, but also because this halt to the trend of declining voter participation cannot be explained only through the strong presence and affirmation of eurosceptic electoral lists.
While it is true that among some countries with the largest eurosceptic forces there is an increase in electoral participation -- for example, in France (+2.9%), UK (+1.5%), Greece (+5.6%), and Lithuania (+23.9%) -- this is not the case for Italy (-7.7%), Denmark (-3.1%), or Hungary (-7.4%). In the case of Germany, the increase could even be connected to a growth of a consensus in favor of the European Union and satisfied with the domestic economic situation. Moreover, from 2007 to 2014, the fall in the level of support for the euro has been relatively modest: from 69% to 66%.
It would, therefore, be more prudent to speak of a plurality of factors that have impacted voters' behavior in various countries. We can identify at least three of them: the rise of eurosceptic forces, mostly on the far-right; the presence of radical left organizations that have managed to express a strong opposition to austerity policies, a factor that has been decisive in countries such as Spain and Greece; and finally, an increase in trust towards governing parties that have taken a critical stance towards an excessively rigid interpretation of the fiscal compact and have advocated for a new season of taxes cuts and public spending.
These three factors hold different sway depending on the situation in each country.
A similar variety of situations characterizes the electoral results. Take the EU's five biggest countries: the severe defeat of the Tories in UK and of the Socialist Party in France, both soundly beaten by the two rising right-wing eurosceptic parties, UKIP and Front National (FN), has drawn much of the public attention. But this has obscured the fact that in Germany and Italy, the two countries led by a Grand Coalition government, the electoral results seem, on the contrary, to indicate a renewed trust for the governing parties.
Despite significant growth in voter participation, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) managed to maintain a stable position, winning 30% of vote. But the party that took advantage of the larger electoral participation, winning 2.5 million votes more than in 2009, is the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which got 27.3%.
In Italy, the Democratic Party (PD) was the protagonist of an astonishing recovery. Only a few months ago it was shaken by a deep leadership crisis, which then led to the rise of Matteo Renzi first as leader of the party and then as new prime minister. And just a year ago Italian voters seemed to be losing any trust in governing and traditional parties and in the political system as a whole, and the rise of the Five Star Movement, the new anti-establishment, populist and post-ideological formation guided by former comedian Beppe Grillo seemed irresistible.
On the contrary, on Sunday both Berlusconi and the Five Stars Movement were soundly beaten: the PD gained three million more votes than in 2009 and 2.5 million more votes than in the national election of 2013, reaching an impressive 41%.
Finally, in Spain the governing conservative People's Party (PP) got only 26% of votes (against 42.1% in 2009) and the Socialist Party (PSOE) got only 23% (against 38.8% in 2009). Contrary to UK and France, however, the opposition to the austerity policies implemented by the EU and the Spanish government has favored not right-wing eurosceptic parties, but rather left-wing coalitions: United Left (IU), which won 9.9% of votes (compared to 3.7% of 2009) and Podemos.
The latter is one of the biggest and most encouraging surprises of these elections: Podemos is a new embryonic political organization, based on grassroots participation and inspired by the indignados movement, that managed to win an astonishing 7.96%.
If we look at the aggregate results, the claim that these elections show the European social democracy's further loss of support seems to be ungrounded. Of course, one may contend that the social-democratic label does not apply anymore to parties such as the Italian Democrats, and one might question what we mean by "European social democracy" today. And granted, in France and Greece the center-left has collapsed.
However, on a European level the real loser of the elections are center-right parties: the European People's Party (EPP) fell from 35.8% to 28.4% of the seats, while the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) had their share hold steady: 25.4% (it was 25.6% in 2009).
If there is a common trend in these elections, it is the rise of forces that are strongly critical of the European Union. "Eurosceptic", however, is a wide and ambiguous umbrella category covering political forces as diverse as the Five Star Movement in Italy (21.1%) and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece (9.4%). Nationalist, xenophobic and Islamophobic far-right parties litter the European landscape. Beyond just Golden Dawn, there's Jobbik in Hungary (14.7%), the Swedish Democrats (9.7%), the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands (13.2%), Freedom Party in Austria (19.5%), Vlaams Belang in Belgium (4.2%), Northern League in Italy (6.1%), Finns Party in Finland (12.9%).
This definition, however, does not so easily apply to other right-wing and reactionary formations such as UKIP in the United Kingdom (27%), the newly formed Alternative for Germany (7%), the libertarian Party of Free Citizens in the Czech Republic (5.2%), or the populist People's Party in Denmark (26.6%).
In the last period, Marine Le Pen has carried on a significant restyling of the Front National. Without entirely breaking with the fascist inheritance of her party, she has consistently pursued its partial institutional normalization and focused the electoral campaign on a combination of Islamophobic and anti-immigrant policies, economic protectionism, and opposition to austerity and to the loss of French national sovereignty.
This blend managed to convince a large part of working class and young voters, but as a matter of fact only one in five FN voters declared that they opposed the EU. Being the major winner of these elections, in the days after the vote Marine Le Pen launched the idea of regrouping the eurosceptics of the European Parliament under the FN leadership. However, UKIP, Finns Party, the Danish People's Party, and Alternative for Germany have declined the invitation, judging a regroupment with the FN out of question, while the FN itself refuses any official association with the neo-Nazi Jobbik and Golden Dawn parties.
Finally, on the Left, the GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left) won 5.6% of the seats, 1% more than in 2009. The most promising and positive results are certainly those of Greece, where Syriza won the ballot with 26.6%, creating the conditions for a call for anticipated national elections in the fall, and in Spain, with the rise of IU and Podemos. Another interesting novelty is the affirmation of the Swedish feminist and anti-racist organization (Feminist Initiative) created in 2005, which won 5.3% of the votes.
Less reassuring are the outcomes in France and Germany. The French Front de Gauche (FG) paid for the choices and behavior of the Communist Party (PCF). At the local elections of some months ago, the PCF decided to privilege its alliance with the Socialist Party over its involvement in the FG, causing a major crisis within the left-wing coalition. The ambiguous association of the PCF with the Socialists hurt the FG, in an election characterized by a vote of protest addressed mainly against the inept Socialist administration of Francois Hollande.
While the FN stormed among working-class voters, the FG did not manage to attract disappointed socialist voters, getting only 6.3% of the vote. In Germany, Die Linke did not manage to grow in comparison with the 2009 elections, winning basically the same score: 7.4%. Finally, the anticapitalist left in France, Greece, and Portugal got disappointing results: Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste and Antarsya are under one percent and the Portuguese Bloco de Esquerda got only 4.6%, dropping a full 6% compared to their 2009 total.
What does this data all mean?
While it is certainly true that this vote expressed a clear discontent about the deterioration of conditions of life caused by the combination of crisis and austerity policies across Europe, the political translation of this discontent varies according to the different national situations. As I suggested earlier, we can identify three different political translations of this discontent: rising support to far-right or populist anti-Euro parties; rise of left-wing opposition to austerity policies; and renewed trust in governing or establishment political parties that have expressed the intention of interpreting the fiscal compact in a looser and more flexible way.
It would be a mistake to think that the main outcome of these elections is simply a vertical crisis of governing and pro-Euro parties, and it would be an even greater mistake to think that the most important match in the next months will be the one played between the formations of the radical left, on the one hand, and those of the far-right, on the other. While this scenario may partially apply to some countries, such as France, it does not apply so easily to the European situation in general.
Germany and Italy's electoral results should be taken seriously. The Italian Democratic Party, which has now thirty-one seats in the European Parliament (only three less than the German CDU), will most likely play a major role in the coming months, due to the collapse of the French Socialist Party. Moreover, starting from July, Italy will have the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months.
The success of the Democratic Party is due to a combination of various factors, some of which are peculiar to the Italian political landscape. One of the factors, however, is particularly relevant for the European scenario: Matteo Renzi, the new leader of the party and prime minister, has taken a critical stance towards a rigid application of the fiscal compact. As Perry Anderson noticed in a recent article on "The Italian Disaster":
[H]is opening package of social measures combines legislation making it so easy for new workers to be fired that even the Economist has raised its eyebrows, with a handout of EUR1,000 tax cuts to the least well-paid, unabashedly presented as a plum for the polls.
Italian voters proved to be sensitive to the idea of bending EU rules, partially redistributing income, while at the same time not questioning the EU neoliberal paradigm, including a further de-regularization of the labor market.
Could this become the European Commission's response to the threat of a legitimacy and anti-European crisis? And is there a space for an increase of public spending and a policy of partial expansive reforms? This is likely to become the open question of the coming months.
In the meantime, on Monday, one day after the election, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi, declared that the electoral results are worrying and that the moment has arrived to give concrete answers to the European citizens. He will likely release further press statements in the coming days, and on June 5 the ECB might announce not only the cutting of interest rates, but also a bond-buying program, with no conditionality attached, to supposedly avoid deflation, overcome credit constraints, and support economic growth.
Finally, the second likely scenario will be a further drift of democracy into technocratic soft despotism. The European Parliament has already quite limited decisional powers relative to the European Commission and the European Council. The current presence of 143 eurosceptic representatives and 42 members of the GUE in the Parliament will likely push the governing parties to a further displacement of decisional power to the Commission and the ECB, particularly in a situation as complex as that of the next months, which include the negotiations on the TTIP (Trade Transatlantic Investment Partnership) between US and EU.
A significant event in the coming months will be the summit of the European heads of states on youth employment, which will take place on July 11 in Turin, Italy. This may become an important occasion for a discussion among governments on a new course of European policies: a greater flexibility in the application of the fiscal compact and in public spending combined with a further erosion of social and labor rights.
A network of Italian and German political and social organizations is already organizing a day of protest against the summit. This might be the first opportunity for the Left to forcefully oppose this new course.
Finally, Podemos's surprising electoral success in Spain should be taken as an important lesson for the European Left. We will have to confront a complex situation combining rise of nationalist and populist parties, a possible reformulation of European economic policies capable of institutional stabilization, and a further drift to new forms of technocratic authoritarianism.
The combination of social conflict and radical democracy should not only be a key goal of the Left, but also the "way of life" for all radical formations. As Perry Anderson wrote, "Europe is ill." And we're the only ones who can cure the disease.
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