Uncommon Decency

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear". This oft-quoted passage from Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks sounds eerily apt to describe Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine over the past week and its shock effect on the so-called rules-based international order. We at Uncommon Decency began our journey into podcasting a little over a year ago with an episode titled "Europe's Paradise Lost". In it, our esteemed friend Ben Haddad warned us that Europe had been enjoying a geopolitical bliss since the end of the Cold War that could not be indefinitely sustained. The European Union (EU), he argued, should urgently graduate from America's security patronage and become a geopolitical actor in its own right. Ben's argument has aged, well, spectacularly well. In response to a scale of violence unseen on the European continent since World War II, the EU's member states have beefed up their sanctions on Russia to what they hope will be a choke point, pledging to end their dependence on Russian gas and raise their defense spending up to the 2%-of-GDP required by NATO. In this latest bonus episode with our regular guest Juilan Graham, we ask: in what ways is the war over Ukraine reshaping the contours of the international order?

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In 1997, the Chicago School guru and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman eerily foresaw the challenges that a common European currency would eventually face through the following decade. "The drive for the euro", he wrote that year for Project Syndicate, "has been motivated by politics, not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks into divisive political issues." Fast forward to two decades later and the Euro, although severely challenged by the sovereign debt crises of the 2010s, is still alive and kicking. The "divergent shocks" that Friedman warned about have indeed caused tensions within the Eurozone, and yet the European Union (EU) has successfully overcome them through sheer political initiative. The Euro's landmark achievement has been to survive the 2008 financial crisis, the subsequent eurozone crisis and the rise of euroskeptic parties across the continent. But has it met the objectives it was set up to achieve? Has the Euro made Europe's economy more robust and more convergent? On its 20th anniversary, we reflect on the Euro's past and future with two eminent economists, both of whom have been writing about it since long before it reached our wallets: Jean Pisani-Ferry and Barry Eichengreen.

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Charles de Gaulle famously asserted that the French presidential election was an "encounter between a man and the people." This inherently Bonapartist spirit of the Fifth Republic lives on to this day, as illustrated recently by Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic offensive on behalf of the European Union (EU) over Russia's military build-up along Ukraine's border. In the span of just a few days, the swashbuckling French president met with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, hoping to simultaneously deescalate the perilous chicken game unfolding on the Ukrainian plains whilst also casting himself as a capable diplomatic entrepreneur ahead of the upcoming presidential race in May. Macron, who is yet to announce his run for a second term, faces a markedly different political landscape than in 2017, with no less than 3 major candidates to his right and an electorate that has shifted rightwards in significantly major ways. The proverbial Overton Window, in other words, has expanded so widely that concepts previously considered too right-wing such as Renaud Camus' Great Replacement theory have even crept into the rhetoric of the center-right candidate Valérie Pécresse. Can a Bonapartist Macron be reelected in a Zemmourist France? Midway through the episode, François refers to an essay he wrote on this very topic for Palladium magazine, which you can read here.

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

When exactly are electoral observation missions warranted in a democracy? Hungarians are heading to the polls on April 3rd this year, and a substantial share of the opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seems to fear that the election will be neither free nor fair. Last month, a coalition of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) officially requested that a team of election monitors be sent by the OSCE, which quickly acquiesced. Their call for applications, should you wish to help combat electoral fraud and ensure equal access to balloting, is open until February 11. By calling external observers, mind you, the opposition is making a larger point. Orbán, they claim, has spent the past 12 years in office amassing power at the expense of democratic institutions, silencing critical media, lining up the pockets of his cronies, buddying up to China and Russia, all whilst advancing an illiberal worldview that threatens Hungary's good standing in the European Union (EU) and the rights of vulnerable minorities. Now that's a thoroughly negative case, but what is the opposition actually for? Whilst Orbán is sure to run on his record securing economic prosperity for his people, it is far less clear what kind of government Péter Márky-Zai, Orbán's challenger, will form if elected. With us this week to discuss we are pleased to be joined by Boris Kálnoky, head of the media school at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), and Dalibor Roháç, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Ó mar salgado, quanto do teu sal São lágrimas de Portugal!" "O salty sea, so much of whose salt Is Portugal tears!" Verses like this one by the acclaimed 20th century poet and critic Fernando Pessoa were somberly recited in his native Portugal throughout the 2010s, as the country went through a bruising cycle of financial insolvency, economic downturn and fiscal austerity. Amidst the gloomiest outlook since the advent of democracy in 1974, Pessoa's melancholic poetry mirrored the mood of the crisis-stricken nation. Fast forward to this year, and the socialist government of Prime Minister António Costa has pulled off the unlikely feat of stabilizing the country's finances while sparing it the kind of draconian austerity enforced by his predecessor, the right-of-center Pedro Passos Coelho. Costa first rose to office in late 2015 propelled by a no confidence vote in Parliament, despite falling short of a majority in an election earlier that year. He fell short again in 2019, his parliamentary majority relying on the support of two parties to his left—the communists and Bloco de Esquerda. This left-wing united front disbanded last November when the government's budget, deemed not progressive enough by these two forces, was voted down, triggering a snap election scheduled for last Sunday. Earlier that week, we had sat down with University of Lisbon politics professor António Costa Pinto—no relation to the PM—and Peter Wise, the Financial Times' Portugal correspondent, to survey the electoral field as Portugal headed for the polls. We can now report the results. Costa pulled off a stunning victory with almost 42% of the vote, meaning it will no longer need a smaller coalition partner. We hope our guests' comments remain relevant now the suspense is gone. Namely, how has the country achieved financial solvency with only limited austerity? How come are the Socialists, sunk into irrelevance most everywhere else, still dominant in Portugal? And what does the rise of Chega, the upstart right-wing party whose rhetoric is at times redolent of Salazarism, tell us about the mood of the country?

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"When asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing the United States, you said Russia—not Al-Qaeda, Russia. The 1980's are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. The Cold War has been over for twenty years." The seasoned politicos in our audience might recognize Barack Obama's quip on former Governor Mitt Romney in a 2012 presidential election debate, back when America hoped to "reset" its relationship with Russia whilst pivoting towards the Asia-Pacific. Two years later, Russia annexed Crimea and sent "little green men" to back Ukrainian separatists, leaving that country in a state of perpetual civil war since. Over the past month, Russia has further escalated tensions, massing troops on its border with Ukraine. The Kremlin demands that the US never allow Ukraine or Georgia into NATO, and that all countries that joined since 1997 be expelled from the alliance. In other words, Vladimir Putin wants a Monroe doctrine of sorts enforced in its immediate vicinity that would leave Ukraine squarely in Russia's sphere of influence. As the possibility of war in the East becomes a distinct probability, we launch season 4 by taking stock of these tensions with the Atlantic Council's Vladislav Davidzon and Catholic University's Michael Kimmage—both returnees to the show.

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

If the European Commission (EC) had to be described in a single word, "technocracy" would come fittingly close. Commissioners and EU civil servants are selected on the basis of subject matter expertise to carry out the thanklessly tiresome tasks of patching together the bloc's budget, governing the single market and negotiating trade deals on behalf of the 27 member states. Culture wars, on the contrary, are too scrappy, too militant for the EU's executive arm to get embroiled in. Or are they? The notion that the Great Awokening unfolding across the West since the death of George Floyd on police custody in May last year may have spared the high echelons of the EU's bureaucracy was swiftly dispelled the week of November 28th with a scoop courtesy of Il Giornale. The Italian daily unveiled the Commission's so-called "Guidelines for Inclusive Communication", an effort spearheaded by Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli and meant to be binding on all of the Commission's internal and external communications. The document sought to forbid from use such unwoke expressions as "merry Christmas", "ladies and gentlemen", "homosexual" or even "citizen", deemed offensive to stateless refugees. This week, we explore whether and how wokeness has permeated the European Union with Rodrigo Ballester, a former career Eurocrat now directing the Center for European Studies at Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, and bestselling French journalist Brice Couturier, who is fresh off publishing Ok Millenials! Puritanism, Victimization, Tdentitarianism, Censorship… A Baby Boomer's Survey of the Woke Generation's Founding Myths (2021).

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Democracy always includes a form of incompleteness, it is not self-sufficient. The terror during the French Revolution dug an imaginary emotional, collective void: the king is no longer there!". Thus spoke then Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron in 2015. The French have tried to replace the king ever since the death of Louis the XVIth in 1793. General de Gaulle bequeathed to France its presidentialist system, essentially giving the citizenry the right to crown their chosen king every 5 years. De Gaulle's heirs on the center-right have since tried to honor this legacy but were blindsided in 2017 by Macron's win, failing to make it into the run-off for the first time. Nearly 5 years later, a weakened Les Républicains (LR) party is parrying attacks from all sides. On its left, Macron wishes to triangulate. On its right, the nationalist TV polemist turned feisty presidential contender Éric Zemmour just held his first public rally this week. Last Friday, LR nonetheless managed to elect their candidate for the 2022 race, the president of the powerful Île-de-France region Valérie Pécresse. The French right has thus been split into three comparably sized blocks: Pécresse, Zemmour and Marine Le Pen. Jorge, Julian and François take stock of this latest cycle in the race.

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

But for a handful of hardcore survivalists, the announcement caught most EU watchers flat-footed. Klaudia Tanner, Minister of Defense in the now disbanded Kurz government, alerted her Austrian compatriots earlier this month of the possible need to stockpile food if the blackouts that many fear end up materializing. Others have been hedging their bets for a while, too. Earlier in May this year, Spain's Minister for Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera penned a letter to Frans Timmermans, the European Commission's Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, pleading for EU-wide legislation to prevent power outages from disproportionately hitting the less well-off. These were merely the opening salvos in what has since shaped up to be a full-fledged energy crisis in Europe, with a skyrocketing surge in electricity prices across the continent hampering the prospects of a rapid post-Covid economic recovery. Will Europeans face a blackout this winter? Who should we blame for this surge? Russia, the EU, the emissions trading system? To talk about this issue we are very glad to have Aitor Hernández-Morales from POLITICO Europe and Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, director of the Institut Jacques Delors' energy center.

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"The judges of the nation are only the mouth that pronounces the words of the law, inanimate beings, who can moderate neither the strength nor the severity of the law." When Montesquieu wrote these words in The Spirit of the Laws in 1748, he laid out the ideal framework for the interaction between lawmakers and judges. Montesquieu's ideal vision contrasts with the messy reality of the judiciary, which has to deal with unclear laws or even contradictory ones, a tension enhanced by the emergence of a new legal order, the EU. Since the 1960s, the primacy of EU law emerged as the sine qua non condition for the good functioning of the bloc, but over the past months a series of political and judicial actors have challenged the notion head on. The most visible broadside came from Warsaw, with the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruling in its K 3/21 decision that 3 articles of the Treaty on the European Union were unconstitutional. In the French presidential election, the primacy of EU law has also been under heavy fire, including from former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, a sign that the discontent is even felt within more centrist circles. In this episode we tackle head on this controversy with two experts of EU law, Nicole Scicluna, Assistant Professor in Government & International Studies at the University of Hong Kong and Paul Craig, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Oxford.

As always, rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected]. Please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.