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BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — On a cold, wet night, on the steps of neoclassical Belgian Stock Exchange building, a man with a gray ponytail was passing out antiwar, anticapitalist leaflets in French and German. A few other protesters milled nearby. If you were a CNN assignment editor, this tiny knot of old radicals was your story.
The black-tie event drew guests from both old and new Europe — from Britain and France to Montenegro and Poland. Indeed every European country now has a free-market institute or one in the works. (Tiny Albania is trying to get two think tanks off the ground.) And nearly every one of them sent a representative. The crowd would have been larger if the fire marshal would have allowed it. While a member of the Swedish parliament railed against the dangers of socialism and extolled the efforts of the former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar's efforts to liberalize his country's economy, Bill Dal Col, an adviser to Steve Forbes, turned to me and said: "I can't believe that I'm hearing this in Europe." He's not the only
one. In the past few weeks, the news from Europe has been packed with
massive antiwar protest marches, French diplomatic efforts to undermine
President Bush, German dithering, and endless helpings of political waffles
from Brussels. Even Britain's Tony
Blair governs to the right (he recently privatized the London subway,
among other things). So inside the EU, there are only three center-left
governments left: Germany, Sweden, and Greece. The German social democrats
are at their lowest levels of support in the polls since 1933. Less than
26 percent of Germans support Gerhard Schroeder's party. Sweden now has
the largest free-market party in Europe (think libertarians who don't
like drugs), which now commands the second-largest block of seats in the
Swedish parliament. Only Greece remains a socialist basket case. So 9
out of 15 EU governments have center-right governments (counting Blair).
Another two have large conservative movements that could throw the bums
out. More important than the politicians and electoral victories is the growing array of free-market think tanks and activist groups across Europe. They make up a swelling army of scholars and writers who appear in the European television or write articles for influential newspapers arguing for open markets, lower taxes, and less red tape. Many of these activists
belong to the Stockholm Network, a pan-European free market group that
recently hosted a conference entitled "Is Socialism Dead?" in
Brussels. Some 80 think-tank presidents, activists, and journalists attended
the conference. (To brighten your day, check
out this.) Slowly the network of free-market groups is changing Europe. There are many small, but hopeful signs of a conservative renaissance in Europe. Think-tank leaders say that conservative arguments are starting to resonate with ordinary people and are taken more seriously by the continent's op-ed editors. Small businessman and even executives are increasingly writing them checks. A new group seems to emerge in Europe every month. Traveling around Europe, one finds a sense of excitement among young leaders. Today the European free-market movement is roughly were the American movement was in 1977. The good news: It is no longer 1968 in old Europe. But it is not yet 1980, either. And no Thatchers or Reagans have appeared yet. Still there are many Europeans like Anderson. Too bad the American media can't seem to find them. — Richard Miniter is a senior fellow at the Center for the New Europe, a Brussels-based free-market think tank. He is also the author of The Myth of Market Share. |
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