Countering Europe's Populist Movements: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Winds of Change

Over a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have stagnated for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.