The European Union bears a large measure of responsibility - and along with it the two dominant political movements, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats - because, by their dogmatic adherence to the harsh financial policies of EMU, their dislocation of the welfare state and their deification of uncontrolled competition, they have pushed broad strata of society to the limits and made it possible for right-wing extremists of the Haider type to recruit support for their neo-Nazi ways.