Europe’s leaders curtail summer holidays in light of crises
It would be an understatement of the obvious to say that Europeans cherish their summer break.
But after an intense spring of negotiations over Britain’s impending exit from the European Union, the incessant influx of illegal migrants, repeated terrorist attacks alongside banking crises and populist uprisings, can the Continent’s political class really afford weeks of slow and steady recharging?
Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain and much of the European Union leadership in Brussels have, as in years past, decamped for extended getaways. But others, perhaps more mindful of the negative optics of frolicking as crises loom, have left the long beach holidays of yore to quiver like mirages in the Mediterranean sun.
Emmanuel Macron, the newly elected president of France, who is already suffering a postelection plunge in the polls, will take but a “few days of vacation in France” after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, according to the Élysée press officer. Macron’s aide declined to specify exactly when or where the president would go, but insisted he would remain “available at any time.”
The daily Le Parisien wrote Tuesday that the young leader, who seeks to upend the nation’s labor code by September, must avoid the “bling bling” holidays enjoyed by his predecessors, and noted, “The president is applying to himself the same self-denial that he has demanded of the French people.”
Macron gave his cabinet ministers two weeks off along with instructions to remain within striking distance of Paris in case of emergency. They are apparently unaffected by a new law allowing workers to disconnect from work email when out of the office.
Belying the image of a France that is shuttered for all of August, Macron is in fact largely following in the steps of his Socialist predecessor, François Hollande. The butt of bad press over his seaside vacation during a French economic downturn in 2012, Hollande started whittling down his holidays to about a week per summer.
And France is not the only wine country practicing summer sobriety. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, facing a daunting migration crisis that intensifies with the summer heat, has kept his government cooped up in August cabinet meetings and has held talks this week with Libyan envoys.
Officials in Gentiloni’s office said this week that he has several public appearances coming up, including one on Monday, the day before the national Ferragosto holiday, which almost everyone in Italy observes as the linchpin of a long, long weekend. Meanwhile, Italian news reports of infighting and maneuvering among ministers, including its workaholic interior minister, continue apace.
The Italian gossip magazines, filled during Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s tenure with pictures of him donning bandannas in Sardinia, have had to content themselves with images of Berlusconi’s ex-wife in a boat and Berlusconi’s ex-minister of Equal Opportunities, a former Miss Italy, splashing on the beach with a politician.
In many ways, Rome is the spiritual center of Europe’s summer shutdown.
Public workers in Italy have 32 days off a year, according to the Ministry for Simplification and Public Administration. They can take off whenever they like, but many choose to escape the intense August heat.
As the city’s army of lawyers and bureaucrats deploys elsewhere, many government offices slow down. Coffee bars, gelaterias, cleaners, hardware stores and other small shops often cut their hours, too, or close entirely. Customer service slips into the abyss.
But even that is changing a bit. Denise Verdi, manager of a clothing store in Rome’s center, said she stayed open this season to cash in on visiting tourists when there was less competition.
What Americans might consider a Protestant work ethic also extends now to the Vatican, where Pope Francis, unlike his predecessors, does not go on vacation.
Still, many northern leaders, deprived of sun for much of the year, are refusing to let political and economic challenges get in the way of their rest and recreation.