Movimento 5 Stelle and Podemos: two sides of a different coin

Tomorrow in Italy it will take place the second round of the municipality elections in many important cities. In particular, Turin and Rome could become the first big cities with a major of the Movimento 5 Stelle.

In Europe there is already a similar case, in Spain where Podemos already governs Madrid and Barcelona.

Even if it would be easy to compare those two experiences, actually Podemos and M5S are very different.

Podemos is the political expression of the Indignados movement. They first created a network of  mutual support and then part of the movement entered in the political arena. Still now, Podemos is linked to the territory and it has a more left orientation.

M5S has a more top-down structure, where the leader Beppe Grillo plays a key role in all the main political decisions. Moreover, the political view is more ambiguous, touching issues of protest, and some typical perspective from the left and from the right at the same time.

Both Podemos and M5S did probably a mistake at the national level. They decided not to form a government when they could, as they didn't want to negotiate with other political forces. For the Madrid and Barcelona cases, Podemos had to do that, with good results.

We will see what it will happen in Turin and Rome, but for sure a huge change is coming in Italy and we cannot predict the consequences neither locally neither at the national level.

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Brexit: a Union based on the fear?

In few days we will know what British people want. If they see their future still in the European Union or not.

Media highlight every day the negative consequences of a Brexit. UK economy could be high impacted by this decision, with decrease of wealth, moving of major corporations to the "Continent" and loss of occupation. On the other side, a Eu without UK would be weaker and less balanced.

Every time there is a fact or event that can touch the basis of the European Union, the debate is always focused on the fear to lose something. It was like that for Greece, for the raise of Marie Le Pen in France, recently for Austria, and now for Brexit.

These local crisis can have huge impacts at the European level, but we don't know or we don't want to discuss about the reasons we need to stay in Eu.

We cannot simply justify Europe with economy.

The ruling class is not able to listen the symptoms of a deep disease that affects Europe. Those come from the raising of borders, the will to leave the Union, the win of xenophobic and eurosceptical parties all over the Continent.

European Union is dying and the most dramatic thing is that she tries to survive just on the fear and not with the idea to build a better place to live.

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