Addressing Europe's National Populists: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Winds of Change

More than a year after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic 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 significant segments of blue-collar voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts 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 welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.