in. the low end welcome to cross talk i'm teetotal about going to the extremes what is happening in europe french voters appear to be moving to the left while greece is leaning hard to the right what is causing the collapse of the political center of europe and does the european project have a meaningful and united future. to cross out the future of european politics i'm joined by rachel martin in paris

she's a political communications strategist and syndicated columnist in brussels we have graham watson he is a liberal democrat member of the european parliament for southwest england and gibraltar and in london we have dion he says the meter coppola's he is a senior lecturer at the department of politics at birkbeck college at the university of london all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want rachel you wrote a very interesting article why's that cause he was defeated in the presidential election what does this mean about centrist politics in europe in your opinion because as i pointed out in the beginning of the program we see going to the left in france we see going to the right in greece and we see a lot of governments following and a lot of people are dissatisfied with the center is the center collapsing. no not at all we have to be really careful how we interpret a socialist president or a socialist party president getting elected in france because. judging by his thirty years of public office and politics all we can really tell from that background is that he's a pragmatist best the best we can see there's really no hard evidence of. heavy

ideological socialist leanings of any kind and when they were stood next to paul the day of the election and they were able to find that fifty five percent of people who voted for longer didn't vote for him necessarily because he was loaned and they and they appreciated him but it was it was more because they wanted sarkozy out and i think in this age of. economic turmoil what we're seeing in france as well as in greece and other countries isn't necessarily people hungering for a change of ideology of any kind it's more just a cycling of government they want to just keep cycling through them here and francis as i like to say until they find. a crew that can do it right and i'm not really sure if that's the right strategy but. it could be a messy thing that's what we're ending up with ok graham but the crew that's been running the show for the last few decades has been the center ok and they're doing

very well i think that of course he was the tenth leader in europe since the beginning of the financial crisis to fall i mean the center is under threat i think many people source being on the right more than on the science center and in fact the last two weeks of the campaigning between the first round of voting and the second round he showed his true colors when he was trying to poach the votes of mr look the leader of the extreme right and i suspect the center in french politics might reemerge because i would expect mr sarkozy's policy. actually to break. that they are no longer running the country but if you look at a lot of elections we had last week we had national. elections in france in serbia in armenia we had local elections in germany in italy and in the united kingdom you see the center of the liberal democratic party's polling pretty well compared to

recent years what i think we are seeing in europe and this is a concern for all democratic parties is we're seeing a reduction in the vote of the established parties and we're seeing new parties emerge whether it is sometimes parties on the extreme left as in greece on the extreme right as in france or the pirate parties in germany and elsewhere and we're seeing a kind of at some of the political scene i think that is a reaction to economic distress and i think it's a reaction to the failure of established governments to deal with the problems that people perceive chinese's in london what do you think about that i mean look at it q ok i know i know rachel you wanted to disagree let me let me go to our other third guest and then we can have our. exchange here denise if i go back to you first go to you in london what do you think about that and i want to talk about your own country greece i mean where is the center there and we have a lot of extremes going on there. well the center is imploding greece and i think i

don't think that it is the center will give a response to the problems of europe is facing if there is one common thread that links development electoral development and policy development in the last few months across europe is that people who want change and there's a clear sense of that their action or that change change in terms of economic policy means some kind of not necessarily complete end to a split door slowly but some kind of active promotion of growth because we know that i should be there has been put in place in being utilized on that now actually is not working so i wouldn't necessarily link the kind of change that is happening to a particular aspect or of the political spectrum in the case of greece the main conclusion drawn from last sunday's election is not then hance mint off the far right and the emergence of the far right as

a party that is now represented in parliament but primarily the implosion of the two main centrist party this on the first hand and then hands front of the vote the share of the vote off there are because i left and people want change again in policy terms as well as in terms of personnel where there are established parties be they of that i'd the center or the left will manage to aid offer a credible alternative as in them's of policy and b. and that's another common thread across europe new faces that people need and want well maybe don't mean it again i mean new faces rachel if i can go to you i mean can you have a functioning democracy in the european union with the eurozone crisis ok i mean we think other means coming to power their hands are tied all right well. go ahead. i i view greece's elections a lot differently than die and he says he believes that there apparently a sign that people want change where i see is

a sign that people don't want change they want the maintenance of the welfare state and the need to ocracy party granted they were elected the first party in these in this last election but still they that's a party that. had to be had to be dragged had to be dragged kicking and screaming towards our sterrett is so there's no party that would be like that in greece today on a platform of austerity so i don't see how it's a big one the greeks want change they want they want the status quo ok it's very bad it's not going to london let's go back to london he looks to me rachel saying is everyone. really wants to go ahead in london i disagree with their age and said i disagree with the world richard said in the sense that people want at least in greece definitely to remain within the eurozone but they also want different sort of political leaders the old leaders are completely discredited the two main parties are completely disconnected and essential the direction important. that

they want a more rational approach to. the problems of greece is facing and one of them is a rational solution to that is why they are rational decision to let me finish this particular point which is important nobody's saying that they want to move away from the welfare state but the world for state of the existing greece is not effected that's why there is a real poverty in greece so i took my argument is basically people do change and that's expected what graeme jumping graeme jump in i was going to say this is one of the contradictions you have people in greece saying according to the opinion polls sixty percent of them saying they want to stay in the euro but at the same time sixty percent of them vote for parties which of policies that will make it impossible for them. to stay in the euro and when you when other europeans look at the greece the view that's taken is well look you know we've either had to go

through some very difficult years of getting the public finances back on track or we're having to do it no why shouldn't the greeks have to do it too you know the greek government must start to learn to collectives taxes the greek government must start to look at how many people are employed in the public sector and what salaries everyone else is having to do that we're not against helping greece we're not against bailing them out if need be but we want to see them taking those measures to deal with their own problems rachel you anybody who takes a bird's eye view on what is happening greece is bound to make an error of the make it the main there that is being made by by graham in this case is that he's missing not only the appetite for reform that exists in greece but also the fact that whatever reform is put in place has to combine two elements one is popular legitimacy the backbone of this legitimacy has to be participation in the eurozone

and there is there is broad consensus amongst greece greeks endorsing that and. political parties on this with some exceptions that were defeated last sunday and secondly a sense of justice what has been happening up on people now is very clumsy out there on the part of greece's partners to resolve a problem that has accumulated over many years in a couple of years this this will never going to work so in order to achieve the desired objective which is to improve relations finances and to bring it back from the the end. and the old basically living on dead one has to build a sense of justice that our senior members of the european troika or the troika should say the international troika the three lenders i.m.f. they c b and the european. contributes to this program and manage the program with a critical for this who has come out publicly along with good politicians and said

look some of the wage cuts and pension cuts we have implemented we have had to implement because there has been no progress in terms of structural reforms so very good listeners and then you should realize look if they don't want the structural reforms just leave the eurozone ok i don't see why everybody else in europe who has to pay for bad habits of a population like greece rachel go ahead jump in but it's not the population it's not no i mean it's just been a very i don't know me drags everybody else down rachel go ahead. you know i think i think the french people for example already tired of of paying for the problems in greece and i think that's the general concept of the eurozone is now everybody's frustrated paying for everyone else's mismanagement and i question whether any party in greece at this point is capable of making the drastic changes necessary for example hundred fifty thousand public sector jobs were supposed to have been cut and now we're dealing with what six thousand that have just had to have been if i was in i was already has about how lucian and i i think the fact that we're

seeing. the fact it's going to appraise i mean a lot of it is a simple excuse me sir i'm just can you give me sir can you just let me finish please i think the problem why what we're seeing right now with with extremist parties being elected is simply is symptomatic of the fact that people realize that let me jump in here we're going to have to go to was short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the european project stage are. the people of the states and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder is regime is an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons and let there be no doubt

about we know for a fact there are there. is we're just being carried out in the direction of dr david kay respected scientist and former u.n. inspector was leading the weapons search in iraq we are determined to take this apart you have a tremendous group of dedicated american men and women involved in this with the best assets of the intelligence community hampered by. david cheney is not going to be done with this for quite some time david kay wants more time. he says it could take another six to nine months to make a definitive finding ministration is asking congress for hundreds of millions more are six hundred million dollars to fund a continuing search have not yet shiny pointy things that i would call a weapon before we can draw from conclusions we need to let the iraq survey group complete its work. we were all wrong probably in my judgment. and that is most disturbing. sometimes the true

patriots takes the unpopular course but helps their country avoid the stakes and even if they come this way at least for patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels and i think these are scoundrels they have no argument now they have no defense for what they did the country is in a terrible international security situation and i think it's perilous so they're attacking the patriotism of other. wealthy british scientists and. it's not time to rise. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. and. see. if you want to. welcome much across talking to mind you were talking about the situation in here. anyway. ok i'd like to go back to graham in brussels you know graeme we've been doing on cross talk so many programs on the eurozone and the crisis over the last couple of years and you know i can't help but get the feeling that you know i've invented a new word kick can a stand that's what the european union is kick can a stand because i just see so little political will it to everyone wants to blame everybody but you know i you know and i don't always i very rarely agree with

rachel but on this one i really actually feel much closer to her i mean people know because you know you can't have something for nothing forever ok and this is the true this is the pain that you have to go through for a living off of the future ok now it's time to reckon with you know crossed the rubicon and it has it's going to be tough but nobody wants the responsibility right now we'll see what kind of relationship the difference president will have with the german chancellor but you know i still see kick can a stand convinced me i'm wrong well you know no i mean look i think if you look at much of what has happened most of what's happened here over the last two years it has actually been putting in place the kind of structures and mechanisms that will ensure that we never have to go through the situation of two thousand and eight ever again in other words that our banks do not lend irresponsibly that our governments do not spend more than they're taking in and go on and on increasing their debt but when you come to the case of greece you know greece can no law no more leave the eurozone than california and leave the dollars on both states are

bankrupt greece thankfully is only about two percent of europe's total economy i think california is probably ten percent or more of america's economy but leaving the eurozone would mean introducing their own currency. it is a very good. california i think. had to write off their debts you could see a series of banks no longer lending to each other it's you know we have to greece has to remain graham it's a totally process it's a totally different banking system ok rachel how would you respond to what we just heard from graham. well i'm hearing a lot of this scenario and it's the one that's most about the one about greece leaving the euro zone but what about two other scenarios i've considered the first being that germany stops paying for everyone and the second being that individual

countries decide to trade amongst each other and to to solidify pox between each other and basically ignore what's going on the other countries just for their own survival sake are those possible scenarios i mean i. and how feasible this grand think those might be of course has to deal with is our own public opinion and the germans don't want to have to bail out the greeks and then perhaps later on the spanish if the spanish government is unable to get a grip on its economy but at the same time germany recognizes that it has benefited tremendously from the introduction of the euro because it's been able to sell its high quality motor cars right across the european market without any difficulty in germany is going to and it's going to do it but it couldn't do without you i mean what do you know you could do with that let's go to london here and one of the things that the eurozone is based on it's based on protecting banks and that's what we've seen here is one of the most fundamental interesting things that have come

out of this crisis is the financial crisis is over for the banks but it's not over for sovereign countries i mean that's the irony of the whole thing is this wall street's the same situation you know bonuses are being paid again but there's not a lot of job generation so if you go back to london you know i mean it's the way that the eurozone is structured in the way it's around banks and not sovereignty. well i don't know whether these stuck to their own banks or do i agree with you in the sense that. there is an issue that needs to be is on the banking and element in my view has not been there's on the need to be his own look at what is happening in spain guess that then today as a good example i would like to go back toward graham said that he's completely right what many call me and they don't stand for get when it comes to the euro and the eurozone is a basically a year is a political project and many common theirs and then only two exceptions amongst economists say journalism or actually here the city who

realize that this is a political project that there are successive generations including the current one of politicians who have invested a huge amount of copy that in some here think this project does not want to keep it is not all it's like working but what it's not working. looking at it that there are there are six months of the eurozone has to be done not on the basis of what is actually happening today but all graham said a couple of minutes ago on the progress that has been made since two thousand and eight come on like this and we all say he doesn't help me etc money so i mean today that you don't make any sense at all rachel taking over. i mean this is the thing the whole project is you should render your saw this and we'll keep you safe we'll give you a job and we'll give you a pension ok that's a political project it's a failure across the entire year's budget if it's petering whereas the very very i think you need to remember and i think you know well there are a show first exactly and rachel first i think at this point you know the euro was

founded on a pie in the sky idea that ended up being an economic straight jacket and nobody can escape at this point that's the problem and working against the economy for political reasons just because everyone has a great political will i'm not sure how long that can last when people aren't working. there are going hungry you know what point is you know i think we're seeing it already with some of their the election results that the people of just how we don't we don't have people going hungry in europe in big numbers no no come on that's not there times are hard and we're really people are unable to find jobs believing there's nobody there's nobody research issues there's no e-mail really if you're willing to tell these anybody that there's nobody going on right now they're saying there's nobody in greely of the issues but we are not back into the one nine hundred thirty s. no no i really am going to say what was it of the recent greece of the value room were in trouble if you were in trouble it would be trading lower than the dollar

and it's not it's trading too high against the dollar in my view it's still about one thirty two against the dollar it was introduced to see if we have difficulties north america has difficulties and the rest of the world is picking up the chinese by buying our debt for example we have to resolve it just as the united states as the result of its problems. every day i think is amazing isn't necessarily measured by that value of its of its currency i mean a country can be for example canada and the us. didn't have as good trade is as one canada's dollar was weaker so i mean you can't really i think state the economic. value of a zone or a country on the value of its currency its go to london go ahead jump in. i think that graham is absolutely right he's spot on on this and one thing to say about greece specifically because there's quite a lot of talk about greece's problems being due to its membership or head

membership of the eurozone is anybody seriously suggesting that greece outside the euro zone would do better look at the history of the economic you say this has devalued the drachma before opting for the euro but i do in my view on a number of occasions the problems cause the problem have remained in place so outside of the euro zone greece that it will no doubt down even the chance that it has now ok ok well that is the this is going to let me ask you a question here martin i can i would agree with you that maybe greece would go through some very hard times if it left the euro but if it stays in the euro then we have this cascade effect we have to contain issue and we have spain we have the other pigs here i mean what some people are saying is that you should have left a year ago ok because you discontinue the contagion they are going with the entire argument with the banks again ok ok when they join the fray here we will materialize if you use withdraw from the euro zone that's when the contagion effect

will commence because the markets will commence will start saying well what about portugal what about spain what about eataly no but if you see if you were to leave there we cut that speculation rachel go ahead and jump in. i don't believe i don't he just use an analogy that maybe maybe the viewers understand if you have an unruly teenager who's really lazy and doesn't do anything and is draining your bank account what do you do you kick him out of the house and generally get his act together so that's the same kind of approach that could be taken to greece and i think they without this safety net that the eurozone provides they might actually get around to realizing oh my goodness we have an issue here and we can't just elect experiments we can't just screw around we have to actually get our act together and do something productive and tangible to change our situation ok. ok graham we really don't proposing to take him out of the house i'm trying to get him to mend his ways and try to get them to regulate he was also it was raised at

least simply. i was going to tell you what you were going to say with gramm here gramm something was mentioned earlier program and i want to i want to change gears here a little bit the advent of new political parties is that a good thing for europe's democracy because we started out by the program sort of the program out by looking at the political center and how it's changing and maybe dissolving in some ways but then there are some new trends and you see that as a positive thing we have to remember there are some on both extremes but maybe can the center reinvent itself. i think it is important because it shows that democracy is capable of dealing with people's frustrations and you have new parties emerge they will perhaps in turn be faced with the responsibility of governing or having a share in governing through coalition and they will have to deal with the real world that may change their policies but it's a healthy sign that democracy is able to respond to the frustrations people feel and of course it will mean that the established parties if they want to maintain

their position of dominance will have to look far more closely at what they're doing in office they need to you in london one of the biggest criticisms of the year is that euro zone is a differential the germans tell everybody else what to do with the new french president will that be different. i think it's likely to be different not only because the new president has different views on mr sarkozy and rightly in my view the changes we go in there and their action but also because a number of people who have not been speaking up up until now amongst political leaders will comment saying there are there are obvious thing that basically there is to be there has been put. what has been implemented thus far that has been used thus far is not actually working and what is interesting about this is that. the german opposition at the moment opposition parties like this social democrats or or the greens. will have another opportunity to express their own views in other words

what we are beginning to see is yet another step in the direction of the explicit politicize ational the european project the european project has never been value free has always been value laden and it is time and i think this time commenced back in two thousand in may two thousand specifically to begin to discuss the broad ject the european project in terms of unless i run out of time folks i was really hoping for a regional rebuttal thanks very much to my guest today in paris brussels and in london thanks to our viewers for watching if you are to see you next time remember .

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the united nations urges all parties in syria to implement kofi annan peace plan condemning the latest bombings is a terrorist act dozens were killed and hundreds injured. search and rescue teams reached the site where the russian airliner crashed wednesday morning with forty five passengers aboard no signs of survivors among the wreckage. jailed russian businessman victor boot speaks exclusively with our team from his new york prison he says his case is politically motivated and talks of his disappointment with the u.s. justice system. capital account next stay with us here on r.t. . good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. these are headlines for may tenth two thousand and twelve a group of u.s. house republicans are calling for the department of justice to open.