Immediate implications are likely a move away from Austerity measures and to increasing investment and stimulus in order to jump start economic growth.

Short terms implications suggest as distancing between French-Germany relations as a political necessity. This will weaken Germany's ability to push austerity onto countries such as Greece or Italy.

Long term implications may include a general hostility to right-aligned parties in the EU.

Sounds good. I wasn't exactly a fan of the very right-wing Sarkozy. A more labour-oriented government will probably be a boon and I'd be in favour of the announced taxes and investment, especially in education.

I'm optimistic, I just hope he doesn't discover that Sarkozy has been cooking the books and that the French debt is twice as big as people thought it was like when the Greek left won.

I believe this may just be the final nail in the Euro's coffin. Hollande is against austerity measures and paying back EU debts right? Well, if he doesn't pay, then you can sure as Hell bet that countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece etc. will be much less willing to pay. France is one of the major players in the EU, if they don't follow its rules, no-one else will.

Still, better than Sarkozy or *shudder* Le Pen.

On a side note: Merkel will have to be up for election in just over a year. Does anyone here think this may result in a change in German fiscal policy in order to avoid a similar event in 2013?

Lets just hope that Mr. Hollande will be as pragmatic as he needs to be in order to solve the problems of his country as well as the entire Euro Zone.

The Gentleman:
On a side note: Merkel will have to be up for election in just over a year. Does anyone here think this may result in a change in German fiscal policy in order to avoid a similar event in 2013?

In short: probably not. Governments around here usually care far too much about keeping the books in order - Merkel won't give into a hugely expansive stimulus, too, her being as pragmatic as she is. In fact, Merkel already did make some rather small tax reductions if I recall correctly, which, ironically, are due in 2014 i.e. when the elections over. But stuff like that suggests that she tries to appease part of populace calling for more state money to be handed out while not straying too far from her austerity policy. Not to mention the whole picture conveyed by the media which painted Germany as one of the sole creditor nations in the Zone which, in contrast to the Greeks for instance, succeeded to keep its books in order - I suspect Merkel won't try to contrast too hard with that picture while risking to alienate the majority of German voters.

To connect that to the topic at hand: My hope is that Mr. Hollande finally succeeds in getting Mrs. Merkel to support some joint liability measure like Eurobonds and in turn doesn't oppose a general fiscal compact, maybe with slightly different rules regarding economic stimuli in times of recession.

Am I the only one concerned that socialists are winning power in all Europe and that the far right is winning votes? ( look at Greece , the "normal" parties cannot form a majority anymore).
Nothing against socialists ( Hell , I am one ) , but their campaign is formed around stimulus.

Skeleon:
Sounds good. I wasn't exactly a fan of the very right-wing Sarkozy. A more labour-oriented government will probably be a boon and I'd be in favour of the announced taxes and investment, especially in education.

If you don't mind me asking, from the European media that I've been reading/watching, the impression I had was that some people in Germany were concerned about what would happen if Mr. Hollande won. Any truth to that, or was it all hype/hysteria?

Well taking a look at Yahoo's comments, people are freaking out.

Republicans are predicting it as the "End" of France because they dared to elect a socialist as a leader. Something tells me that if by some sheer stroke of bad luck Mitt Romney or some other Republican wins the presidency, we're going to see an embargo against France.

Seriously, just go look at those comments. ALL of them believe that the Rich are either going to move to America or Germany where they wont be "Bogged down by a dictatorship."

Anyways, I wish the best of luck to Mr. Hollande and hope that France can recover from this recession quickly under his administration. Who knows, maybe it could give a few of my fellow Americans the idea that maybe the Rich wont strike us down like a wrathful God if we tax them a little more. (Though knowing Republican propaganda, they'll claim that the "Socialist" economic recovery in France was the work of Black Magic and Violent Videogames)

Hollande isn't especially left by European standards, more centrist. They're called socialists, but its kind of the same thing as Labour in the UK or PASOK in Greece. Hollande supports the same kind of cuts of Sarkozy, just a bit less cuts because he'll raise taxes a little.

The Left Front was the actually kinda socialist party and only got about 9% of the vote in the first round of voting.

Interesting.

I am hoping that Hollande will be able to enact many of his policies, and do so successfully, proving to the (what seems to be) right-dominated governments of Europe that austerity simply isn't working.

I remember a case being made (though for the life of me I cannot remember who by) that during a recession is one of the worst times to be enacting austerity measures. It seems far better to spend in order to create job growth, both in the public and private sector, to keep the cash flowing through the economy - after all, the more people that lose their jobs the more people collecting benefits rather than paying taxes, and less money they have to spend on luxuries which further depresses the economy. Once the economy is back in recovery, then you tackle the debt, which naturally will have increased more during the recession-spending. That is not to say that you cannot make some cuts during a recession, nor that you can spend insane amounts of money (correctly-targeted spending and precision cuts seems to be the order of the day, but I'm no economist).

If a more Socialist France proves to be a success, then hopefully it will give British and European politicians some more ideas about handling the current financial crisis - because it seems that Osborne has about as much grip on the UK economy as he would on a particularly enraged greased-up pig doing it's very best to maul his face off and escape from an angry mob with branding irons.

I also hope that it doesn't crash France - either through being an abysmal failure in its own right, or (more likely, I suspect) reducing foreign confidence in French markets.

Hazy992:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17975660

The Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has won the French presidential election against Nicolas Sarkozy with around 52% of the vote.

What do you think the implications are for France and for Europe as a whole? I don't know much about French politics, but I know that there are a lot of smart people here on The Escapist so I thought I'd get your opinions on this.

Let's see. A weaker euro zone due to inbound disagreements between france and germany.
A french economy that is going to go under the drain because of overzealous spending and taxation. 75% for those earning more than 1 million euro a year? Well i guess i should thank Hollande for pushing capital out of France and potentially to Belgium.

Hollande is the worst that could have happened to France (well no the "Front de Gauche" are worse). His plans are full of holes and lies. He says he's going to reduce the deficit and also spending, yet i never heard about any proposed cut all he mentions are taxes and more spending. On top of that if he runs France like he ran his region they are going bankrupt. And he always talks about "growth" as if he was the only one who wants growth... which is silly beyond belief. All the time he said "i want growth, growth is important, etc." Well DUH, i don't think any politician would disagree...

Superbeast:
Interesting.

I am hoping that Hollande will be able to enact many of his policies, and do so successfully, proving to the (what seems to be) right-dominated governments of Europe that austerity simply isn't working.

I remember a case being made (though for the life of me I cannot remember who by) that during a recession is one of the worst times to be enacting austerity measures. It seems far better to spend in order to create job growth, both in the public and private sector, to keep the cash flowing through the economy - after all, the more people that lose their jobs the more people collecting benefits rather than paying taxes, and less money they have to spend on luxuries which further depresses the economy. Once the economy is back in recovery, then you tackle the debt, which naturally will have increased more during the recession-spending. That is not to say that you cannot make some cuts during a recession, nor that you can spend insane amounts of money (correctly-targeted spending and precision cuts seems to be the order of the day, but I'm no economist).

If a more Socialist France proves to be a success, then hopefully it will give British and European politicians some more ideas about handling the current financial crisis - because it seems that Osborne has about as much grip on the UK economy as he would on a particularly enraged greased-up pig doing it's very best to maul his face off and escape from an angry mob with branding irons.

I also hope that it doesn't crash France - either through being an abysmal failure in its own right, or (more likely, I suspect) reducing foreign confidence in French markets.

But there is a problem with that whole way of thinking. It is based on the Keynesian economic policies, which are great, but don't apply in our current situation. Keynes stated a government has to accumulate resources during booms which it has to spend during crises. But governments don't have resources anymore, they already spend a huge amount of their budget on paying the interest on their debts. And if they keep on increasing their debts the risk becomes higher that they will go bankrupt because they won't be able to pay their interest.

Nikolaz72:
Sarkozy has caused France to become one of the most inequal countries in the world in terms of economy (The most in terms of Europe) And his last campaign was largely funded by the very dictator he overthrew. xD. Good riddance, this guy will hopefully work for the good of the majority rather than the rich minority.

I will need some evidence of that. France still is a country with a very strong welfare and protects the lower classes a lot. On top of that it is one of the fiscally least attractive for rich people. And that "despite" a centrist Sarko (i can hardly call him right wing tbh). And a lot of EU governments were on the same side as Gadhaffi so really i don't see the issue. Politicians are opportunists when it comes to FA and if you think a Francois Hollande will be less than you're dreaming.

The Plunk:
Hopefully it will work out well for France, and the rest of Europe will realise that Democratic Socialism is a good thing. Maybe Ed Miliband will adopt some of Hollande's policies.

Here's the irony. Even Hollande doesn't believe that. It is funny how during many debates he cited countries that are very far to the right from France as countries that are doing well again in an attempt to criticize Sarko's results... "Europe is the slowest growing continent with its austerity, even the US knows growth now", let's see: USA is very much to the right of the EU and so is Asia (other growing continent). So what if the problem is that the EU is still too much to the left?
Or when comparing to other european countries he cited Germany as a reference to the poor results of Sarko. And Sarko owned him by making him clear that Germany took a lot more right wing measures than France and nothing that Hollande agrees with. So citing a country following policies you disagree with as an example is Hollande's tactic. I think he was openly admitting that he would ruin France but people who watch debates apparently don't notice such high levels of irony and fail.

Yeah, France income inequality is eh. Not doing fantastic but compared to other countries it has been getting worse quite slowly:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/51/16/49177803.pdf

Not to say Sarkozy wasn't an awful right wing arsehole, just that income inequality wasn't that bad under him.

generals3:

But there is a problem with that whole way of thinking. It is based on the Keynesian economic policies, which are great, but don't apply in our current situation. Keynes stated a government has to accumulate resources during booms which it has to spend during crises. But governments don't have resources anymore, they already spend a huge amount of their budget on paying the interest on their debts. And if they keep on increasing their debts the risk becomes higher that they will go bankrupt because they won't be able to pay their interest.

I think it does still apply. Particularly here in the UK, which is why I am interested in seeing if this works in France.

The problem we have is that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition is implementing severe cuts (the worst are yet to come, worryingly, as the country has just dropped back into a double-dip recession despite growth in the construction industry). This has directly reduced public-sector jobs, as well as impacted front-line services. Corporate confidence in the economy has been shaken, meaning the private sector simply isn't hiring (we were assured that the public-sector cuts would be made up by private sector growth). As there are less jobs available, as well as more people out of work, the public are not spending money - which is reducing product demand and further shrinking the amount of jobs available. With less people in work there is less tax revenue to be collected (on top of the recent 5% reduction in income tax for the wealthiest in society), more people having to claim unemployment benefit (thus directly costing the government money) and more people suffering from things such as depression due to the hideous job market and the soul-crushing despair that comes from applying to so many jobs and not getting a single response (either putting them out of work, or making it harder to find employment again; at the same time as directly costing the government money via the NHS).

As such the debt situation isn't being helped at all by the austerity measures, and if anything the government is having to borrow even more money to cover the welfare benefits for those that are losing their jobs and, in some cases, their homes. The economy is simply too poor to start cutting away to reduce the debt, because their simply is not enough revenue coming in - austerity, right now, is a downwards spiral.

Despite what much of the media is saying, most European debts aren't too bad (relatively) - over here we are constantly told we're a hairs-breadth away from being like Greece, but that is a crock of lies. There's a long way to go before many of the European countries are in a situation similar to Greece's. Yes, the government doesn't have a stockpile of resources to call on to pay for the spending - however, without proper investment the economy simply isn't growing, which is only compounding both international concern about the state of British markets and is having a direct affect on the debt in and of itself. There's a genuine risk that, rather than becoming Greece, we might become Japan - that is, having an entire "lost decade" of growth due to a stagnant economy and poor political leadership.

Britain, and many European countries, desperately need growth in their economies. The only way to get that growth, what with the low level of private-sector confidence, is through government spending - even if that means yet more borrowing. Otherwise the UK, and perhaps the rest of Europe, is going to sit in a stagnant economic quagmire whilst the growing economies of India, Brazil and the like sail on past and only further our problems.

Overhead:
Yeah, France income inequality is eh. Not doing fantastic but compared to other countries it has been getting worse quite slowly:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/51/16/49177803.pdf

Not to say Sarkozy wasn't an awful right wing arsehole, just that income inequality wasn't that bad under him.

But how was he a right wing arsehole? I mean sure he gave some tax breaks to the rich (but minimal and the taxes are ludicrous in France for rich people) and yes he tried to get people to work longer and a bit more. Is that so evil?
Or is it his half pussy approach on immigration? (he was much less tough on it than i would have expected him to after his 2007 campaign)

Magichead:

You have no idea how refreshing it is to read that, so many people have bought into this crock of lies in my area that it's impossible to even buy a paper without hearing some uninformed cretin parroting the latest bullshit the government have vomited up onto the pages of the tabloid and right-wing press.

Christ, if you think you have it bad, you should try living in Gove's constituency. I swear, I'm a stomach ulcer waiting to happen.

Superbeast:

I think it does still apply. Particularly here in the UK, which is why I am interested in seeing if this works in France.

The problem we have is that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition is implementing severe cuts (the worst are yet to come, worryingly, as the country has just dropped back into a double-dip recession despite growth in the construction industry). This has directly reduced public-sector jobs, as well as impacted front-line services. Corporate confidence in the economy has been shaken, meaning the private sector simply isn't hiring (we were assured that the public-sector cuts would be made up by private sector growth). As there are less jobs available, as well as more people out of work, the public are not spending money - which is reducing product demand and further shrinking the amount of jobs available. With less people in work there is less tax revenue to be collected (on top of the recent 5% reduction in income tax for the wealthiest in society), more people having to claim unemployment benefit (thus directly costing the government money) and more people suffering from things such as depression due to the hideous job market and the soul-crushing despair that comes from applying to so many jobs and not getting a single response (either putting them out of work, or making it harder to find employment again; at the same time as directly costing the government money via the NHS).

As such the debt situation isn't being helped at all by the austerity measures, and if anything the government is having to borrow even more money to cover the welfare benefits for those that are losing their jobs and, in some cases, their homes. The economy is simply too poor to start cutting away to reduce the debt, because their simply is not enough revenue coming in - austerity, right now, is a downwards spiral.

Despite what much of the media is saying, most European debts aren't too bad (relatively) - over here we are constantly told we're a hairs-breadth away from being like Greece, but that is a crock of lies. There's a long way to go before many of the European countries are in a situation similar to Greece's. Yes, the government doesn't have a stockpile of resources to call on to pay for the spending - however, without proper investment the economy simply isn't growing, which is only compounding both international concern about the state of British markets and is having a direct affect on the debt in and of itself. There's a genuine risk that, rather than becoming Greece, we might become Japan - that is, having an entire "lost decade" of growth due to a stagnant economy and poor political leadership.

Britain, and many European countries, desperately need growth in their economies. The only way to get that growth, what with the low level of private-sector confidence, is through government spending - even if that means yet more borrowing. Otherwise the UK, and perhaps the rest of Europe, is going to sit in a stagnant economic quagmire whilst the growing economies of India, Brazil and the like sail on past and only further our problems.

On the other hand when governments spend too much and don't control their deficit/debt the financial markets go berserk, interest rates rise and the stock markets go down. Which is extremely destructive and has a potentially more negative effect than the reduction of govt spending.

On top of that a lot of governments still spend uselessly, they spend on immigration, foreign aid, etc. Stuff that should be scrapped quite quickly in a crisis. On top of that they usually fund their spending with increased taxes, which again slows down investments. Capital flees the country, people go look for other places, etc.

Now off course the govt shouldn't cut all its spending but it has to cut wherever it is the least efficient.

Volf:

Skeleon:
Sounds good. I wasn't exactly a fan of the very right-wing Sarkozy. A more labour-oriented government will probably be a boon and I'd be in favour of the announced taxes and investment, especially in education.

If you don't mind me asking, from the European media that I've been reading/watching, the impression I had was that some people in Germany were concerned about what would happen if Mr. Hollande won. Any truth to that, or was it all hype/hysteria?

Germany is currently led by a center-right coalition, so that might have something to do with it. Were our center-left parties in charge, maybe the reaction from the media as well as the politicians they interviewed might be different.

More importantly, though, from what I gathered, folks worry that the new French president will take a different course on the whole EU, Euro, currency stabilization, Greek debt etc. issues which might cause problems further down the line of the recovery.

Personally, while I can understand those concerns, I'm not too worried. France is very important for EU politics, obviously, but I don't think they'd crash the entire recovery package. They'll probably make tweaks to it, though, which might actually be for the better. Honestly, we'll have to wait and see.

generals3:
On the other hand when governments spend too much and don't control their deficit/debt the financial markets go berserk, interest rates rise and the stock markets go down. Which is extremely destructive and has a potentially more negative effect than the reduction of govt spending.

Not really. At worst, the negative effect of a drop in the stock market is instability, not simply a drop. Market's thrive on predictability. Sudden, large drops also tend to be accompanied by sudden, often equally large increases as the opportunists attempt to buy up at lower prices. In the end, the overall change is often rather banal (i.e. the 30-day drop/rise may be lower, but isn't such a large drop to really warrant the panic that ensued).

Second, what markets and businesses want most is demand, all other interests are secondary at best. When governments spend on anything tangible (roads, bridges, arms, police, hospitals, bread), it increases demand in those areas and, if well targeted, increases paying jobs, some private, some public, which in turn, creates subsequent demand in the areas of necessities (food, water, shelter, entertainment, etc.). While this is generally financed by borrowing during economic downturns, tax revenue from incomes and VAT/Sales taxes generally reduces the overall burden.

Conversely, if you withdraw austerity, you usually don't save money due to those who loose their jobs receiving welfare, who both no longer pay taxes and aren't working. You still have to borrow to support them (if only a little less), but now there's no actual employment which would help with economic development.

generals3:
On top of that a lot of governments still spend uselessly, they spend on immigration, foreign aid, etc. Stuff that should be scrapped quite quickly in a crisis. On top of that they usually fund their spending with increased taxes, which again slows down investments. Capital flees the country, people go look for other places, etc.

Again that's an over-simplification. If you look at the countries and areas that give the most foreign aid, you're likely to notice that they all happen to be arms-producing countries (France, US, Russia, England, etc.). That's because the bulk of the aid is spent on arms from those countries. For example, Egypt, while not a communist state by any stretch of the imagination, received a lot of aid from the Soviet Union, including a massive hydroelectric project. This gave Russia Egyptian good will and, more importantly, a sovereign consumer of Russian Tanks, guns, and other heavy industries.

Foreign aid still works on the same principle. In exchange for what is relatively small amounts of aid (outside of Afghanistan, that is), countries investments in foreign aid often help grease the wheels for exports to those aided countries, particularly industries that can't be outsourced like weapons.

This is the lie of austerity: that reducing debt by cutting creates a stable market. In reality, austerity neither reduces the debt nor stabilizes the market, and in exchange, the reduced demand makes economic development more difficult and is often slower.

The best way to visualize it is to think of a economic downturn as the flu of the economic body. Austerity is trying to got to the workplace to pay off the credit card while sick. What little productive work is offset by the stress put on the body lengthening the healing process. What you're supposed to do is to stay at home and spend a few unpaid days getting better, putting expenses for things like medicine and food (i.e. stimulus) on credit to pay back when you can return to work.

Nikolaz72:

Sarkozy could have been worse yes, could have been worse doesnt mean good. He was corrupt and first hand accounts from France tells me that he only really attacked Quaddafi because he threatened to cut out his vacation-fund for Sarkozy and his buddies ((No, not because of the vacations. Probably because Quaddafi stopped playing ball. Up until the Libyan war Quaddafi had paid vacations for the bunch, aswell as funding for the guy. Not so bad my arse))

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r247/DrSteveB/Inequality/IncomeInequalityacrossOECD.jpg

You seem to be taking the -Seekster- approach to saying that income inequality doesnt matter and the rich having all the guana is a good thing. So it will be hard convincing you of 'anything' Before we move on, im center-left. In terms of Scandies, so im probably pretty far to the left of you, but I will try to leave this post relatively unbiased although thats impossible considering the subject matter. You are gonna have to choose if you believe what I write or not. If you dont, please do not get hostile.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-france-election-libyabre84219i-20120503,0,2087893.story

You believe that rightwinged nations in the world do well because they are rightwinged, ofcourse thats I think you've misunderstood how they work bigtime, but heck. I've heard of worse.

(( This last one is a blog but he puts up some good points)) http://thedepressingtruth.blogspot.com/2007/07/worlds-best-economyisnt-china-or-usa.html

Honestly, Europe's growth is fine. We've just gone through a financial crisis and guess what? Despite what you think about Growth, the US and the UK. The most Rightwing western country and the most Rightwing European country, pretty much got hit straight in the stomach with a hammer. ((IM gonna miss Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy here because corruption doesnt neccesarily mean it was their systems fault. It just means some politicians were willing to ruin the lives of millions of people for their own gains)

As for the top one, before you reply. I realize France is really low on the list of worlds so I take that back, but they are still one of the highest in Europe, And Sarkozy made it so. They are to the right of Germany. Germany currently has a more lefty focused primeminister while Sarkozy is, without a doubt rightwing.

Ah, and a simple explanation for Luxemborg doing well, because you 'do not' understand economics. It is quite simple, they lowered their taxes to the point that all the rich old people who didnt wanna loose their money in the inevitable tax-crusade postcrisis moved there. And so did quite a few businesses, thing is. Luxemborg gets rich by mooching off the rest of Europe ((China gets rich off of having a large workforce that doesnt require salary)), so both those solutions wouldnt work if all of Europe if they all adobted the same thing, people would simply not move to start with. And for the economy to grow because of it well, you would require businesses from several different places to move to you. And that aint gonna happend if evveryones the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy

Its as if you never even bothered to study the guy.

And before you even begin to doubt that Social-Democratic countries do well. Look at Denmark.

Rich country, and seventh most attractive place in the world to start a business (Worldwide research) Sometimes economic-security and a productive workforce means more than low taxes when you decide where to settle down. Or at least it does for those who took business-courses past the first year.

PSS: Please look up this stuff yourself next time, it actually took quite a while to dig it up but im sure you wouldnt have a big problem doing it.

1) Well i think he was pretty good actually. Everytime Hollande tried to point towards his failures he could pull numbers showing France performed pretty well compared to others, except germany that went even further to the right. So i don't see how he did a bad job. He had to face a huge crisis and off course that means the numbers will be bad.

2) Believe me that's not true. I despise how CEO's and other "Elites" milk the lower classes dry. HOWEVER, we live in a globalized world with open markets. This means if the elites feel they can get better in other places they will go there, and this creates a loss-loss for everyone. (Hence why balance is needed , and a Francois hollande who wants to push one of the most left wing countries in europe even further there is all but "balanced")
The day all the countries follow a similar Social Liberal path we can start truly work on that without suicide-bombing the economy. Heck the US has been syphoning wealth and investments fron europe for god knows how long thanks to their much lower tax burden. As a European country it's self destructive to exacerbate that phenomenon.

3) Actually it depends on how you look at it. From a strictly economic point of view that article is wrong. And tbh i don't envy neither the chinese nor US economic system. If i were american i'd vote obama straight away and there is a reason for that. However the gap in social justice between those countries and EU countries (except the UK) is enormous. So while i would be a leftie in the US i'm a very strong righty in the EU. Our socialism is self destructive and all it gets us is people leaving abroad and the same goes with companies.

4) i cannot really comment on the UK but looking at Germany's way of reacting and their performance all i can say is that their right wingism is helping a lot. But than again the UK was already really far to the right to EU standards before. And pushing it even further wouldn't really be ok. But France is a whole different story, they have the 2nd highest employment costs after Belgium, we can hardly say that's because Sarko was pushing it so far to the right.

5) And i really doubt germany, which doesn't even have a minimal wage, is more to the right than sarko. Sarko even copied certain of the german right wing measures and was planning on copying more if re-elected.

6) And your explanation of Luxembourg shows exactly why going more to the left is self destructive for a country such as France. As long as such "Havens" exist you will lose capital by increasing taxes and that kind of beats the purpose. To quote Sarko "Hollande wants less rich people, I want less poor people"

And nice to bring up Denmark... which has a lot of natural resources to get money. And their Corporate tax lies at around 25%, now i'm not sure about France but in Belgium it's 34% so in my opinion it's not that social liberal, or well no, they simply have the means to finance their system by selling resources and they don't need exorbitant taxes

generals3:
And nice to bring up Denmark... which has a lot of natural resources to get money.

Wait. Is that sarcasm? Maybe my info is wrong, but isn't Denmark's foundation literally made of sand? I thought they barely have any natural resources to speak of.

EDIT:
Okay, so there's oil and gas to drill for and they obviously have access to the ocean for fishing. Still, I wouldn't exactly call that having "a lot of natural resources", especially when it means they need to import so many other basic resources to cover their economy's demands.

"The country's natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, fish, salt, limestone, stone, gravel and sand."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Denmark

Skeleon:

generals3:
And nice to bring up Denmark... which has a lot of natural resources to get money.

Wait. Is that sarcasm? Maybe my info is wrong, but isn't Denmark's foundation literally made of sand? I thought they barely have any natural resources to speak of.

EDIT:
Okay, so there's oil and gas to drill for and they obviously have access to the ocean for fishing. Still, I wouldn't exactly call that having "a lot of natural resources", especially when it means they need to import so many other basic resources to cover their economy's demands.

"The country's natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, fish, salt, limestone, stone, gravel and sand."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Denmark

Well they are net exporters of oil, and that can make a huge difference, most EU countries are net importers and that's a heavy burden. Now of course it's not like Canada that has god knows how many resources everywhere but it still is a substantial advantage that provides them extra means to carry out more social policies. From what i heard Denmark was even really poor before they started tapping their Oil and it provided them a big boost. (might be mistaking on that last one)

QUICKLY! Stop calling fries "french" again, them damn commies!

Um, yeah. Will have to see how the guy performs, of course. My gut says that he won not because they wanted him in particular, but because they wanted someone who isn't Nicolas Sarkozy.

As for austerity? Well, problem with that is that you can't always pull it off. Would work much better as a preemptive measure, not a reactive one.