{"id":390155,"date":"2018-12-22T16:48:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T15:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-euro-establishments-fear-of-populism-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-12-22T16:48:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T15:48:35","slug":"the-euro-establishments-fear-of-populism-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-euro-establishments-fear-of-populism-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"The Euro-Establishment\u2019s Fear of Populism \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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French protesters are furious with EU champion Emmanuel Macron while Rome battles Brussels over its budget. Amid all this, Andrew Spannaus discusses why organized labor isn\u2019t seizing the moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yellow Vests, Italian Budget
Battles & Silent Labor Unions<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Andrew Spannaus<\/a><\/span>
in Milan
<\/strong><\/span>Special to Consortium News<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Since mid-September, the European Commission, the EU\u2019s executive body, has been battling with Italy over its budget.\u00a0<\/span>The populist government in Rome\u2014led by the Five-Star Movement<\/a><\/span>, orM5S, and the League<\/span><\/a>\u2014have decided to stimulate the economy by giving money to the poor, lowering taxes and increasing public investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

With an assist from financial markets that are penalizing Italian government bonds, the Commission has been threatening an \u201cexcessive deficit procedure\u201d if Italy doesn\u2019t reduce spending and resume measures to balance its budget. In theory this austerity policy will make the country more stable and efficient.\u00a0<\/span>But the last 10 years have demonstrated that cutting the budget and raising taxes have depressed economic activity, with the effect of making people poorer.\u00a0<\/span>Italy\u2019s new political leaders are determined to show they can break through the resistance to public stimulus of the economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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