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The EU – a slumber in the heyday of populism

Book review written by Nick Holdsworth
Democracy Ltd
Regissør: Robert Schabus
(Østerrike, Frankrike, Storbritannia)

POPULISM: Democracy Ltd is a wake-up call for Europe at a time when dark forces are flourishing.

In this timely study of
why the superficial charm of populist parties on the right
continues to seduce Europe, it gives the
rich filmmaker Robert Schabus gives us an insight into human stories
behind today's political and social upheavals in Europe.

In 2016 he debuted with the documentary Farmer ours (Our Farmer), where Schabus investigated the "faster, cheaper, more" mantra behind Austria's industrialized food production and the many links between economic politics, industry and society. With Democracy Ltd he expands the field of impact and takes a closer look at the sharp dividing lines in Europe. He spends time with striking French workers in Amiens, where thousands of low-skilled industrial jobs have recently disappeared. He also talks to the Poles who are now performing these jobs for the fraction of a French salary after multinationals have moved production eastward, and he is investigating the feeling of betrayal and degradation in the north-east of England – moods that contributed to the Brexit shock after the vote i 2016.

It's not just about the "yellow west" of the thousands who are protesting the savings policy, which appeared last fall in the streets of Paris, as Schabus points out at the beginning of the film. It is also about the ordinary Austrian grandmother who lives in a pre-war art-deco-inspired block of flats and who feels overrun in a society where changes have affected her as well as the Greek working class. Greeks Oxi! – "No!" – to the humiliating and rigorous economic measures imposed on them by faceless governing powers in Brussels when Grexit was threatened, screamed loudly long before Brexit appeared on the horizon.

ROBERT SCHABUS

Schabus also accommodates a handful
experts who are carelessly written off by British Brexit supporters,
and one faceless' EU bureaucrat, Günter Verheugen – former EU Commissioner for
the enlargement processes,. . .

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Nick Holdsworth
Holdsworth is a writer, journalist and filmmaker.

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Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

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