Ever since voters in the United Kingdom decided to secede from the European Union, pretty much everybody has kept saying how dumb Britons are for wanting to leave the Promised Land. Putting aside the fact that even their most anti-EU politicians were unprepared for this outcome – Boris Johnson is not running for party leader and Nigel Farage simply called it quits – it would be a grave mistake to simply think that stupidity was victorious at the polls on June 23. Others say that the English always liked to be the independent ones, but they seem to have been OK being part of the European Union for more than 40 years. Another explanation is that the British Average Joe simply had enough of Poles, Romanians and Hungarians taking their jobs. But the unemployment rate in the UK is at 5 percent, practically the lowest since the 1970s. There is one thing that hardly anybody is saying: that this was the fault of Brussels; the ridiculous bureaucracy, the disability when it comes to decision making, or the attempts to turn the whole thing into a United States of Europe. Don’t get me wrong: I do believe that the EU is a good thing, but it needs some serious restructuring otherwise there will be trouble. I don’t believe that Brexit will have a domino effect, but based on a very recent decision of the Austrian Supreme Court, the second round of the May presidential election will have to be repeated, which means that the Austrian far right – which happens to be strongly EU-skeptic – gets a second chance at the presidency. Norbert Hofer lost by 31,000 votes so it’s entirely possible that the second round will have a different outcome. And if that doesn’t cause worries, here’s a fun fact for you: Austria is one of the very few nations that is a member of the EU but not a member of NATO. So if there’s a country that could easily become the second Switzerland, it’s our western neighbours. And if they decide to leave, well, let’s just say forget what I said about the domino effect above.
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