Navigating a World in Flux: Europe’s Shift to the Right

Introduction

In 1848, Karl Marx (in)famously proclaimed the existence of a ‘spectre’ that was haunting Europe. While he was, to date, wrong in his fatalistic assumption of the ascendancy of communism, the notion that some kind of spectre haunting the continent in 2024 may resonate with European citizens. It is worth remembering, however, that this resonance is not restricted to Europe; the entire world is exhibiting signs of political discontent as a result of multiple, pervasive challenges and people’s concomitant experiences and perceptions of them. 

This trend necessarily poses a problem for the EU as an institution, its Parliament and its individual member-states: how can the European polity address the social and economic privations observed across the continent, ensure individual rights, protect from geopolitical threats and do its part to both mitigate and adapt to climate change? This is no easy task; addressing it requires rethinking the causes of these problems, their solutions, and the role of the EU and its 27 member-states in these.

Shifting Sands: Europe’s Rightward Turn

IDRN’s special publication prior to the European elections articulated how a multitude of issues, broadly encapsulated by the four themes that constitute its research framework, were informing the importance of elections happening in 2024. In Europe, the predictions were broadly correct: populist-right parties achieved notable wins across the continent, most significantly in France, Germany, Italy, and Holland, as well as in Austria, Greece and Spain. 

France, Germany and Italy saw the most consequential wins for the populist-right parties of Rassemblement National and Marine Le Pen (Identity & Democracy, 31.37%, 30 seats), Alternativ Für Deutschland (Identity & Democracy, 15.9%, 15 seats) and Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (European Conservatives & Reformists, 28.8%, 24 seats), respectively. The success of both Identity & Democracy and the European Conservatives & Reformists in these states, while significant in its own right, is yet more consequential when we recognise that they constitute the majority of the EU’s economic output (measured in GDP) as well as its population. 

The outcome of the elections mean that, at the Parliamentary level, a transnational alliance of Eurosceptic parties and politics now represents a significant portion of these countries and, by proxy, of Europe. These represent an obstacle not only to the productive potential of the European project, but also to its survival, since the RN and AfD may seek to hold referendums on the membership of France and Germany in the EU. While these are unlikely, so too was Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Europe must, therefore, take the populist threat seriously. Failure to do so risks the terminal end of the EU, which would necessarily make any cooperative effort to address the challenges mentioned above immediately hamstrung. 

Now that the dust of the election has settled, the outcome is clear: Europe has turned to the right. While the ‘super-grand coalition’ of the EPP, S&D and RE remains (barely) intact, this cannot obfuscate the fact that the elections reflect an anti-establishment rebuke. Large portions of the European electorate are unhappy with what they perceive as political and economic (non)developments in the EU. This represents a seismic political challenge that the EU must navigate, else face similar and more consequential results in 2029.

The Return of the ‘Bully Pulpit’ and Populism

The leaders of the EPP, S&D and RE must reflect upon the results, and on themselves, in order to avoid a repeat of the results in the future. This starts by recognising that the results from June’s elections are not the end, but rather the starting point of a titanic political battle over differing visions of the European Union.

US President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) coined the term ‘bully pulpit’, connoting a tremendous and unique platform from which to present political and legislative solutions that address the problems of the day. Populist-right parties, implicitly at least, have seized the bully pulpit to great effect. Their use of it appeals to the construction of a unified, identifiable ‘people’ versus an external enemy (immigrants, supranational organisations). A critical perspective of this yields insights into two vital dynamics: first, that the strength of right-populist parties’ appeal by recourse to nationalism and nativism contains glaring weaknesses; second, by contesting the bully pulpit by offering real alternatives and solutions to improve economic conditions that are not based on platitudes, parties can offer clear contrasts to populist-conservatives and thus shed light on the weakness and emptiness of their platforms. These points require elaboration.

Regarding the first point, it has been said that the populist-right’s platform and its success is based more on feelings and less on facts or substantive policies. This took directly from the playbook of the Leave Campaign that successful brought about Brexit: ideas about what it means to be a Frenchman, German or Italian (for example) or indeed a European, as distinct from the EU as a political institution; appeals to cultural, historical and ethnic identities associated with a nation; pride in and defence of nationality and an appeal to patriotism; associated notions of sovereignty and control, especially over government and the nation’s borders; distinctions between generations and their association with positive and negative values, world-views, and political beliefs; and an ‘othering’ of immigrants and foreign countries and the concomitant (mis)understanding that they represent a threat to their nationally-defined interests. It is these dynamics that constitute the political and electoral appeals of populist parties and that opposition groups must contest.

Populism and its contents are not, however, anything new; throughout the last few centuries, demagogues have resorted to such appeals during difficult, uncertain economic and political contexts to increase their popularity and produce political gain. June’s elections demonstrate that in spite of the globalised world we live in today, the proverbial horse of nationalism is not, in fact, dead. 

Despite its efficacy, it is clear that the case presented by populist-right parties is fundamentally flawed. When animated on its particulars, it yields little substantive fruit other than to create the ‘feeling’ of national identity, premised on patriotism, anti-immigrant sentiment, scorn for minorities and younger generations of activists pushing for political rights and change that run contrary to such populist notions of national identity. 

Returning to Theodore Roosevelt, the young President took office at the turn of the 20th century following decades of economic turmoil, political incompetency and a pervasive sense of disquiet amongst the populace. His tenure as President inaugurated the Progressive Era, defined by an active role assumed by both government and legislature to address the economic and social privations of the time. This offers an example of the second point, in that contesting the bully pulpit can connect establishment parties and politicians to the electorate by articulating an agenda that they can vote for, contrary to the common establishment response to populism of merely representing them as something to vote against.

Sometimes, as is evident in the recent example of the efficacy of exploiting fear, history does indeed repeat itself. In response to the success of populist-right parties, the other parties, and especially the super-grand coalition, must seize or at least contest the bully pulpit. Doing so should seek to expose the depravity of the right’s recourse to patriotism as, in the words of Samuel Johnson, “the last refuge of the [political] scoundrel” and devoid of substance. This is, however, a shared responsibility; the epistemic community of researchers and academics must also contest the bully pulpit, advancing differing conceptualisations of the problems and accordingly different solutions. Failure to do so risks more success for populist groups.