Things started to change at the end of his first government. His coalition collapsed and began to rely on a far-right party for occasional support when needed. Internationally he moved Fidesz from the liberal family to the European People’s Party. Internally he started seeing Fidesz as not only the biggest party on the Right, but as the party capable of monopolising the Right. Heading into the 2002 elections, he gladly absorbed his coalition partners into Fidesz. Then he improved his results, became the biggest party in parliament, nonetheless got stopped by Socialists and Liberals forming a coalition.

Like many figures in the authoritarian Right, he learned lessons from his first time in government. Much like Trump or Netanyahu, he would come back stronger.

From 2002, Fidesz - now leading the opposition - became a populist party. The financial crisis of 2008 and the Őszöd scandal helped him greatly. In 2010 he returned to power, this time with a two-thirds majority in parliament. He radicalized further and changed the constitution without public debate. Fidesz monopolized power and became Europe’s first far-right government. The independence of the judiciary and of the media would later become victims.

Péter Magyar: dismantler or heir to Orbán’s regime?

The “illiberal democracy” that Orbán proclaimed in 2014 had one problem: you can tilt the rules in your favour all you want, but ultimately the only way to guarantee power is violence. Orbán made sure to build his autocratic state but, this Sunday, the Hungarian people were finally offered a clear alternative and mobilized in historical numbers to kick Orbanism out. The scale of the mobilisation made it impossible for Orbán to even try to claim power.

The Orbán regime has fallen. But the autocratic architecture remains in place. Péter Magyar - the prime minister-elect - will be, on day one, the leader of an autocratic regime and will be up to him to dismantle it, knowing that at each step of that process he brings himself closer to losing power.

The pressure on Magyar must be maximal, yet progressives are now not only absent from the Hungarian Parliament but also marginal in the political landscape.

The challenge is enormous, and the EU won’t be much help either. Given today’s right-wing dominance of European institutions, Magyar’s support for Ukraine and the lifting of the constant vetoes will be enough to grant support from the EPP and its right-wing allies. Magyar can become an Eastern Meloni and Von der Leyen will be the first one to applaud.

The European People’s Party is key in this story. The EPP was the home of Fidesz for many years and is now the home of Péter Magyar. In the last decade, and especially under the leadership of Manfred Weber, the EPP seeks power for power’s sake, and has no problem if democracy is a victim of it. In Hungary it only broke with Fidesz and Orbán when the illusion of Péter Márki-Zay seemed like an alternative to power. In countries like Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria or Croatia it is still the EPP that leads the destruction of liberal democracy.

Eastern Far-Right Keeps Growing

The legacy of Orbán is also the destruction of the progressive camp. The new Hungarian Parliament has zero liberals, zero social democrats, zero Greens, zero leftists. Hungary has become a two-party system by necessity, and that has meant the progressives had to fall in line with the conservatives. But this extreme weakness of the progressive camp is not a Hungarian phenomenon.

If we look at the old Warsaw Pact countries, a region that spans from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, going through Poland, East Germany - and later the eastern states of Germany, - Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, we have a region of more than 100 million citizens, or around one quarter of the entire European Union.

Since the return to democracy in the early 90s, the authoritarian Right has constantly grown all over the region. While in Western Europe the growth of the far-right is mostly a newer and more intense phenomenon, in this part of Eastern Europe it has been a steady growth over the years. Part of this has also been the radicalization of specific political parties, like Hungary’s Fidesz or Poland’s Law and Justice who bega gathering support while being democratic parties and then evolved into far-right parties later.

The authoritarian Right has lost its poster-boy in Hungary, just two years after losing control of Poland, yet they are not defeated. Across post-Warsaw Pact Europe, 39% of voters support authoritarian right-wing parties, while 40% vote within the democratic Right camp - including Conservatives, Christian-democrats and Liberals. Altogether, the Right has 80% of the electorate.

The broad Left gets less than 20% of the vote, with half of it being traditional social democratic parties, a third being other left-of-center parties - including Greens and leftists - and the remainder are authoritarian left-wing parties like Slovakia’s Smer or remnants of Eastern communist parties.

Across the whole region the choice is between authoritarians and the democratic Right. Progressives are merely an accessory. Parties like Nowa Lewica or Razem in Poland or Piráti in Czechia are themselves forced to cooperate with the right-wing to guarantee democracy and basic rights while making it impossible for them to push for more progressive policies or gain from being in government. A strong election result means being locked into government with conservatives, which in turn demobilises the progressive electorate and leads to weaker results next time.

This disappearance is obviously, from a progressive standpoint, negative for these countries and for the people in them. It’s also objectively bad for democracy: if the Overton window has been pushed so much to the right that the only difference between parties is democracy, then it’s democracy that is at risk. But it’s deadly for progressives in the whole of Europe: with zero strength in Eastern Europe, there is no path to a future progressive majority in the European Union.

Now, Bulgaria Votes Again.

Bulgaria goes to the polls this weekend, and I can’t blame anyone who isn’t paying much attention. I’ll be honest, I also wasn’t. The country has been in a deep political crisis since 2021, when popular mobilisations brought down the corrupt government of Boyko Borisov and his populist GERB party, an EPP‑member, which governed the country for most of the last 12 years. The election that followed renewed the parliament, with 40% of MPs coming from new parties of differing ideologies claiming to bring the demands from the streets into parliament.

The political fight between the old parties and the parties of change made stable coalitions impossible, and in the last five years the country has held eight parliamentary elections and seen ten governments.

This Sunday, finally, a major change might deliver a government. The popular Rumen Radev who was until now President of Bulgaria elected with a two-thirds majority and with the support of the parties of change and the BSP, resigned as President and formed his own political party. Polls show his party as the most popular force reaching up to 100 MPs, and being able to choose any of the other parties as allies.

As we’ve seen repeatedly, the problem with personalist parties based around a strong leader is that they are malleable to the ideas the leader chooses at any given moment. Rumen Radev benefits from his independence: since the end of Communism he has never been a member of a political party, he was supported by the Bulgarian Socialists to reach the presidency but never joined them, and has openly opposed all parliamentary parties at various points during his term. He has been the arch-enemy of Boyko Borisov, and criticised his corruption giving him the mantle of anti‑corruption. At the same time he has supported anti-refugee policies, taken softer‑on‑Russia positions and pushed for a harder Bulgarian line against North Macedonia. His new party - misnamed Progressive Bulgaria - draws support from VMRO, the traditional far-right party which left parliament in 2021.

As we celebrate the end of Orbán, Bulgaria goes back to the polls and even after seeing the results on Sunday it might still be hard to grasp what the results actually mean. It could be a reformist government that restores stability, with a majority of Progressive Bulgaria and the liberal coalition PP‑DB. Or it could be a left-nationalist majority of Progressive Bulgaria and the BSP, which mirrors Slovakia’s government, and establishes another headache for European support for Ukraine. Or it could simply be another election whose only result is the scheduling of a new vote in a few months.

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Today he gives his first international interview, to Hexagon.

[full transcript below]

In 1991 an Islamist party won the first round of the Algerian parliamentary elections, and in response the army staged a coup d’état to seize power and stop the creation of a theocratic state. The result was a bloody civil war that lasted more than a decade.

In the middle was Aimen Horch and his family, who fled Algeria’s second city to a Brussels suburb. That suburb was Vilvoorde, which at the height of ISIS (or Daesh) was its favourite hunting ground in Europe for radicalized young men to join its army. “It was happening around us. One day you’re talking with somebody you just met [...] and then before you know it [they] take the first ticket away to Syria”, Horch recalls. The solution was a society-wide deradicalization program which included everyone: “We actually took in the Muslim community as part of the deradicalization program. So [everyone] worked with the police, they worked with local authorities, they worked with secret services, with [the] army”.

Now, Horch just won the leadership contest for Groen, Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Green Party. And he won with an absolute majority against two more centrist establishment candidates. At 30 years old he is Groen’s hope to recover ground after the deep losses of 2024.

‘We are in an energy crisis because of Trump but also because of our dependency on oil and gas’

With Trump’s war in the Middle East raising energy prices, Horch focuses on breaking the oil-addiction. “The countries who are least dependent on oil and gas [...] feel the energy crisis the least”, says Horch. Back in 1999 the Greens in Belgium joined government for the first time and one of the key policy wins was nuclear phase-out, something right-wing parties keep attacking them on. But for the new party leader nuclear is not the solution: “we had seven nuclear plants in the last crisis, we had seven nuclear plants in the crisis before that, and it didn’t change anything”.

On defence the key is Europe First. The American nuclear umbrella has got to go, but Europe needs an alternative. French nukes in Belgium? “I am anti-nuclear weapons [..] but in the current context, with the crazy Putin and the crazy Trump, if we want to have nuclear weapons in this country, maybe they should be European”. Buying American fighter jets? “It’s stupid. [...] [L]et’s go for the European solution. Even if it’s not the best, we’ll make sure it becomes the best by investing in it”.

“In my party there will be zero room for antisemitism”

His first week in office was marked by a first controversy, over an old tweet where Horch had written “Fuck Israel”. He stands by it, but without the f-word, and if he was Prime Minister would treat Israel like Belgium treated apartheid South Africa. Faced with accusations of antisemitism, he’s clear that in his party there won’t be any allowance for any type of hatred, including antisemitism, and that conflating Jews with Israel helps no one, especially not Palestinians.

‘I’m not Belgian Polanski, I’m Belgian Aimen. If I could be the Belgian Zohran Mamdani, I would say yes”

England’s Zack Polanski who has brought the Greens to fight to be the country’s biggest party has Aimen Horch’s attention: “I love Zack. I look forward to meeting him and to work with him”. But he also admires Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Denmark’s Green-Left SF.

“I’m a republican by reason and monarchist by heart”

Pragmatism above all. Belgium’s linguistic conflict doesn’t really faze the bilingual new leader of Groen, and for him the Greens are Belgium’s most Belgian party working across the linguistic border while respecting the differences. For 2029 he hopes to bring back 2019’s Green wave and mobilize the country in a wave of hope.

Full Transcript

Aimen Horch, thank you for sharing your time

Thank you.

Let’s start with your younger years. Where did you grow up? What kind of environment was that? How was the life of young Aimen?

I had like a double youth, basically, part of it was in Algeria until I was six, and part of it was in Belgium, here around Brussels. I grew up in Algeria in a relatively cozy household with two parents who worked quite hard. My father came out of poverty, worked very hard, and we had a good life to be honest. He had a good job. My mom was a teacher,

and we fled because of war. We didn’t really flee because of economic issues or anything, which makes me in a lot of ways a privileged refugee. Some would say an expat, but that was not really the reality of it. We were refugees, but in certain ways privileged.

I grew up in Vilvoorde, around Brussels, in a harsher context. One of the poorest cities in Flanders, in the middle of a radicalization wave when a lot of young Muslim men radicalized and decided to go to Syria to fight with ISIS. Some of them were people I grew up with that I know personally – or I knew personally. So it’s a very different context. Not a lot of public services. Nothing for the youth. We are the youngest city in Flanders – younger than Antwerp, younger than Ghent. But we had zero for the youth. So the only place you could hang out was the street corner with everything that comes with that.

Vilvoorde was known as the most radicalized city in Europe. It was the city where more per capita young kids went to fight for Daesh in Iraq and Syria. How did you see that as a young man, and how did it change since then?

It changed a lot, and the way it happened was also crazy. Because, you know, youth – people like me – we were not in the boardrooms talking about the issue coming up. We didn’t know about it, right? So it was happening around us. But one day, you’re talking with somebody you just met around the corner in Vilvoorde in the city center, and they start saying the craziest stuff about religion. Things that the people that he was talking with – me and other Muslim guys – were really shocked about like “whoa this is not the way we look at people or how we want to behave with them”. And there was no way to make them reason, in a certain way, or calm them down. That type of stuff starts happening more, and more, and more. You see people you don’t know hanging out with your friends under the bridge in Vilvoorde. And you think “who are these people with long beards talking about Islam?” and they never talk about the radical stuff, right? They always talk about nice stuff in the beginning like “let’s go and search for some food for homeless people and do something with your life, don’t just hang out” and then before you know it, some of them radicalize and take the first ticket away to Syria or to Türkiye to go to Syria.

How did it change the city? In every way possible and imaginable, especially for young Muslim men, but in general for Muslim families and young people in Vilvoorde. Some families broke because they had the same family name as somebody who left. People lost their jobs – a friend of mine lost their job at the airport because you can’t work at the airport anymore [if] your family name is linked to some other guy who did something. There was a stigma around these families. A lot of young people in Vilvoorde started getting, it’s stupid but, they started getting blocked at the entrance of clubs because there’s Vilvoorde on the ID. Stupid things like that and bigger things that created a big complex for a lot of people. And a couple of years later, and I’m part of that generation, you see a lot of young people from Vilvoorde attaining certain positions in society, whether it be on television, writers, choreographers, politicians – we have quite a lot of national politicians from Vilvoorde for such a small city, I think seven or eight for fifty thousand people. It’s quite a lot in Belgium.

That’s the reaction to all of that. That’s a lot of people that at some point decided “okay, let’s change the image of the city, let’s show that there is something more that we can offer than those people who left Belgium for Syria – for Daesh” and that’s what you see today. A lot of young people started to invest in the city. [Yannick] Carrasco, one of the Red Devils, the Belgian national team, he’s from Vilvoorde and invested in a youth sports complex there. Things like that changed the image of the city. But we worked very hard. It is not only politics, but we worked very hard.

Now, if you want to ask more about the political question of how come that today I can say, with a lot of certitude, that radicalization in Vilvoorde is not going to happen that quickly? It’s because the way we as politicians and as members of the city tackled radicalization. The national discourse was very anti-Muslim, very anti-Islam. Which is very stupid, because most Muslims don’t want radicalization, and most victims of islamist terrorism are Muslims. So what we did in Vilvoorde is we actually took in the Muslim community as part of the deradicalization program. So yes, we put in more police. Yes, we put in a police station where people were getting radicalized, absolutely, but we invested in that plain terrain under the bridge where nothing happened. If you go today, you’ll see a basketball court, you’ll see a skate court, you’ll see nature, places where families can go and picnic. Those dealers, those people who went and radicalized the youth, they cannot come there anymore because their family is there, there are young people doing sports there, so there’s no room for them anymore. And we also engage the Muslim community in their radicalization because they understood that it is in their favor to go and work with them. So, the Muslim community worked with the police, they worked with local authorities, they worked with secret services, with whatever army was deployed at that point in Vilvoorde. They gave everything they had, from the smallest imam in the city to a random family who was affected by the situation, everybody worked and made sure that radicalization is just not possible. So the right-wing idea that we’re going to put a police station and then it’s going to get fixed, it’s bullshit. We have police in Vilvoorde, we have more than enough police stations. We invested in the people, and we engaged people who were touched by the situation first, instead of demonizing them, that’s what helped.

There’s quite a big wave of radicalization, especially of young men, and nowadays most radicalized young men are not Muslim, and they are not radicalized on the streets. How can we translate these learnings from this specific context of on-street radicalizations, particularly of Muslim young men, to the more broad radicalization of young men, which happens more online?

The anti-terrorism cell of Belgium wrote a report, a couple of months ago, about the radicalization of young people. More and more young people, especially young men, get radicalized. Part of its religious radicalization – religious, not Islam alone. Islam is a big part of it, you can’t hide that there’s still a problem there. But a lot of its far-right radicalization, and then you have this very new trend of anti-state radicalization. And the red-line between all of them, the thing that connects all of these is a fundamental hatred for women, for minorities, and the idea that these people are coming to replace you. So, Muslim radicals think that gays are going to come and replace them. Far-right radicals think that women and gays are going to come and replace them. It’s the same dynamic and it happens online. A lot of it happens online, people don’t get radicalized on the streets anymore. How do you tackle that? It’s the same recipe but put in a different way.

First thing is to regulate these platforms. We have to understand that Mark Zuckerberg right now is becoming a millionaire, he’s making money on the radicalization of young people because his algorithm is pushing radicalized content. So that’s the first thing we have to do, tackle these companies and make them understand that either they pay for the damages that are done to society, or they stop with the algorithm. Second thing we have to do is to bring back these people within society. The reason why a lot of them, especially young men, radicalize is because they don’t feel well in their body as young men, and because a lot of things that we as progressives said that are true about toxic masculinity, about the patriarchy, are being interpreted in a certain way that is very negative to us and beneficial to the far-right. So if you have to change the discourse, you have to be very upfront about it. One of the most important things for me as president of a party – I’m a young president of a party – is to show what non-toxic masculinity can mean in the context of politics. By being it, not by telling what it is, but by being it. By showing that you can be very comfortable in your skin as a man – I’m a man, I’m very happy to be a man, there’s no problem with that – without having to take the place of women in society, or using the same patriarchal structures that were used in the past to undermine people.

So there’s a lot of work that we have to do as progressives to bring back these men, obviously, and we have to take that very seriously, because in no way will I give half of society to the Right just like that. Just not going to happen. And yes, we have to be critical about ourselves, but we have to, first and foremost, to tackle these structures, these social media structures that make this radicalization possible. It’s a business model, not just a coincidence.

You’re 30 years old. In most countries in Europe, it would be quite a novelty to have such a young party leader. But in Flanders, it seems quite normal: the Flemish Socialist leader was 26 when he took power, the Flemish far-right leader was 28 and the Flemish Christian Democrat was 33. Do you see your age as an issue at all?

Here and there, but it’s not an issue anymore. I think my background, the fact that I was a migrant is more of, not an issue, but more of a story today than my age, to be honest.

You were recently elected as leader of the Flemish Greens in the first round against two more centrist status-quo candidates and with historical turnout for leadership elections. Were you surprised by the victory? Was this the plan for all along?

Listen, I was in that room over there when I got the results, and me and my vice-chair Lien [Arits] were preparing the second round. We were literally briefing the campaign for the second round next week when we got the results that we don’t have to do a second round anymore. I was very surprised. I’m not shocked about the result. I’m surprised that so many members went and voted. I am surprised that I got elected in the first round. That is something very special in the party, it doesn’t happen a lot, but I’m not surprised about the results, because when you look at the broader progressives today and what they need, what they are looking for, it is that sparkle of hope, that new energy, the feeling that you can win again, that it is possible, that we don’t have to be afraid by the framing of the right in the far right that we are in the right as well, and that’s the story that we were telling, close to people, close to our ideas and our ideology, but also very proud of what we are doing and who we are.

Belgium, Flanders and Progressive Majorities

Most of the people that are going to read this interview are not from Belgium. So let me make a bit of a provocative summary: Belgium is an extremely divided country. There’s two main languages, and there’s a border halfway through. People in the north and the south consume different media, different TV, different newspapers. They have different political parties, different politicians. Political life is as different between North and South as between two separate countries. We sometimes talk about countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lebanon as very ethnically divided countries, but at least they share the same media, same language. Belgium is also a country where a journalist asked the Prime Minister to sing the national anthem, and he sang the French one. Where the current Prime Minister and the minister of defense refused to say “long live Belgium”, and where a train conductor from Vilvoorde got found guilty for saying a bilingual “Good Morning” to welcome his passengers. My question is, does Belgium have a future? What’s your vision for this country?

All of those things that you name are things that were put in place by separatist politicians to create the sense that this country is divided. But if you look at it from a certain distance, I come from Algeria where there are three or four big language groups, maybe 80 or 90 ethnic groups – 80 or 90 in a country that is what 40-50 million people – maybe four times, five times more people than here with a surface that is half of West Europe. Come on, there’s worse in the world than Belgium. Yeah, we have different languages. Sometimes we don’t understand each other, sometimes we do. Sometimes we fight over things. Sometimes we think the same about stuff. Italy is also divided between the North and the South. France is also divided between the North and the South, and Spanish people seriously should not start talking because their country is as divided as can be. So I’m very happy that this weird country exists, that I’m a product of this weird country, and I like it that we have two languages here, I like it that we have two media landscapes, I don’t have a problem with that. At least we have only two, some countries have twenty.

And it seems that some of the few things that unite the country are the royal family and football. I will not ask you about football, but Belgium is one of twelve monarchies in Europe. Are you a monarchist?

I’m a republican by reason and monarchist by heart. I don’t believe in heritage as a way of giving power, that’s one of the worst ways that we can organize a society. Thank God that the king doesn’t have a lot of power, so he’s not getting a lot of it. But I also understand that in this very precarious country where there is a big group that wants to divide this country without a plan – without knowing what to do after – like we saw with Brexit, that there is at least one of these symbols that unites us as a country. That’s the King, fries, waffles, Brussels, and the fact that we don’t understand each other. So that’s what connects us.

In the middle of all this division, [the francophone Belgian Green party] Ecolo and Groen are, together with the leftist PTB-PVDA, the only party that in the Belgian Parliament has a common parliamentary group across the linguistic barrier. How do you see this cooperation with Ecolo, the Francophone Green Party, and how much of a Belgian Green project can we have?

For me, it’s the most unique and authentic work relationship this unitary group, because the PTB-PVDA is different. The PTB-PVDA is basically an Antwerp party that puts lists everywhere, but it is run from Antwerp. The leaders of the PTB, historically, are Flemish people from Antwerp. Raoul [Hedebouw] is the first one who is not and he’s also controlled by Antwerp. So it’s not a unitary party in the sense that it’s unitary towards Belgium. It’s a unitary party in the sense that they are Communists and they always have the party fetish. We don’t. We have two different parties – Groen and Ecolo. We work together a lot. We talk with each other. Tonight, I’m going to go on the French-speaking television to have an interview with my colleague from Ecolo, together. So yeah, we have on some points, different positions, and we discuss a lot, we negotiate with each other a lot about positions, especially when it comes to the state and how to organize the state, and the fact that we can come to a compromise, that is the strength of Belgium. It’s not that “you’re not right” or “I’m not right”, it’s that we’re both right and we’re both wrong, and we work both together. So that’s why, for me, it’s authentic. It’s really Belgium. Belgium is not ignoring the differences, is looking at them at face value, grabbing them, trying to fix it and make it more complex.

We already talked about the radicalization of young men, and one of the ways we see this is the growth of the far-right, which has been happening all over Europe, but in Flanders it seems a bit more structural. There has been a strong Flemish far-right since the dark Sunday of 1991 and on top of this, since 2015, the N-VA has radicalized itself. This means that almost half of Flemish votes go to the radical-right. It’s one of the most radical regions in Europe. On the other side, between Socialist, leftists and Greens – more or less progressive each may be – there’s less than one third of the vote. And the Flemish Socialists are deeply embedded in right-wing governments, both in Flanders and at the federal level. How are you going to deal with it? How do you plan to build progressive majorities in this scenario?

Maybe first, just a nuance, but the N-VA is not far-right. There are far-right elements in the N-VA, for sure, Theo Francken [current minister of defence] and other people who have very hard rhetoric and who are running after the far-right. Maybe Theo Francken is like Sarkozy in France. He’s pushing towards the far-right constantly, trying to look for a way to grab these voters. But whatever he does makes the far-right stronger. The reason why the far-right was so strong in 2024 is because of people like Theo Francken who copied their rhetoric and just made them bigger. If Theo Francken copied the Green rhetoric, we might have had 20%. So, no, it’s not all lost. No, Flanders is not completely fascisized and far-right. It’s absolutely not what Flanders is. But yes, we have a big problem with coalition-building in Belgium. The Socialists went to the Right, completely lost the progressive fundamentals and ideology, and the PTB-PVDA has this strategy of being in the opposition forever, so it’s just a lot of work. Still, I understand that. I don’t have all the solutions right now, but I’m thinking about it quite a lot.

How do we make this happen without infighting for the next 20 years? Because what happens right now is us, the Socialists and the Communists – or us, the Social Democrats and the Socialists, let’s say, so that they’re not too angry when I call them Communists – we are basically infighting constantly over the same 20-25% and none of us tries to broaden that spectrum. And then sometimes, the Greens go with the right-wing government or sometimes the Socialists go with the right-wing government. Whatever they do, they [the Right] always has either one of the Left parties who is willing to lose all their voters for them. We can’t accept that. I’m not willing to go in that dynamic anymore.

Would you join a coalition that includes the N-VA?

Yes.

And would you join a coalition that includes the PTB-PVDA?

Yes.

Both together I will not ask, seems quite unlikely.

Quite unlikely. The first is, by the way, more likely than the second.

War, Energy, Nuclear and Defence

The war in the Middle East has put energy prices back at the center of the debate. Germany and Italy have announced plans to burn more coal. Do we need to sacrifice the planet to make life affordable?

It is one of the most ridiculous things in the world to open coal mines, burn more coal and then think that life is going to be more affordable. The reason why we are in an energy crisis is because of the illegal war that Trump is doing, but because of our dependency on oil and gas as well. I mean, the countries who are least dependent on oil and gas, let’s look at Spain and the investment that they did, they feel the energy crisis the least. So the idea that “let’s burn more coal, let’s burn more gas, that’s what’s going to help us in the future to be less dependent of coal and gas” is ridiculous. It’s one of those far-right logics that, I’m sorry, I think I didn’t read enough books to understand it. Very sorry, might be my problem. No, we need to invest in green energy, and we need to make sure that we get out of this gas and oil addiction that European leaders are in.

We have the same here in Belgium, [Prime Minister] Bart De Wever, it took him one week and a half, two weeks of energy crisis, to come up with a beautiful idea of “maybe we should talk again with Putin and buy his cheap gas”. Is that going to make life in Europe better for us to go and buy Putin’s gas, make him richer? No, it’s just going to fuel a war that is today threatening our safety and that of the Ukrainians. So no, the best way looking forward is to work on an affordability agenda and to get out of those crisis after crisis is to get out of gas and oil as quickly as possible.

Belgium decided in 1999, when the Greens were in government, to phase out nuclear energy. Then after 2020 it was Groen that held the Ministry of Energy and there was a decision, after the war in Ukraine, to delay that phase-out for 10 years. Would energy be cheaper today if the Greens hadn’t turned down nuclear energy?

Energy has never been as cheap as before this crisis. Renewable energy is going below zero sometimes. So no, and we also have to understand the argument of the far-right and the right. They don’t want to talk about climate. They’re not interested in that. So what do they talk about? Nuclear power. It’s a big industry, it’s a big lobby. It can bring a lot of voters in, it can bring a lot of attention. So they talk only about it. They never talk about climate. “And if we have seven nuclear plants in Belgium, the climate will be saved”. I have bad news for them: we had seven nuclear plants, we had seven nuclear plants in the last crisis, we had seven nuclear plants in the crisis before that, and it didn’t change anything. So we have to understand the problem is not how many nuclear plants we have. The problem is not, where can we open a coal mine in Europe. The fundamental question is, where does our energy come from? From the strait of Hormuz, from Putin, from an uranium mine in Congo, or from the sun, the sea and the wind. We’re trying to make it come from the sun, the sea and the wind, because it’s the only thing that we can control.

From nuclear energy to nuclear weapons: Belgium has 10 to 15 US nuclear bombs, in Flanders. In 2020 there was a vote in parliament to remove these nukes from Belgium. It was voted down, but Groen voted in favor. Is that still your policy?

Yes. Because these are American weapons, that’s the big issue. So the question of nuclear protection in the middle of a crisis, you have to be realistic about that stuff, right? You need nuclear dissuasion in this position that we are in right now, it would be very stupid to unilaterally bring down the nuclear persuasion. The problem is, is it persuasive when it comes from the US? And who is it persuading? Who is protecting?

Should we move to a French nuclear umbrella?

I know there are talks about that and we’re still looking at how to position ourselves when it comes to that. I’m going to be very honest with you, it’s not an easy issue for us. It’s not an easy issue for me personally as well. I am anti-nuclear weapons. I am for stopping the proliferation, and I feel it’s a very bad thing that the deal went out. We really need a new anti-proliferation deal, but in the current context, with the crazy Putin and the crazy Trump, if we want to have nuclear weapons in this country, maybe they should be European.

Three quick-fire questions about defense: there’s been a debate in Belgium over buying more American F-35 [fighter jets]. Should it?

It’s stupid. But let me quickly add on that: I know what the argument is. The argument is that the Rafale [fighter jet] from France is not as good as the American. I have bad news for you: It will never be as good as the American ones if you don’t invest in it. So if you want to invest in European defense, invest in European material, even if it’s less good than the American one. And by the way, that’s for me a thing for everything: we have a problem with Microsoft when it comes to our security, our safety, and where we give our data. Governments in Europe have Microsoft back-offices. It’s crazy. It’s ridiculous. If you don’t take Chinese ones, if you don’t take Russian ones, why would we take American ones? So even there, let’s go for the European solution. Even if it’s not the best, we’ll make sure it becomes the best by investing in it.

Should we increase military spending?

Today, in Belgium, no. They have 10 billion this year and they don’t even know what to do with it.

Should we continue to give military support, including weapons and ammunition, to Ukraine?

Yes.

Israel, Antisemitism and the F-Word

As soon as you became party leader, there was some controversy over a tweet you did which said, and I quote “Fuck Israel. Fuck the companies that sponsor Eurovision and are on the BDS list”. Do you stand by that tweet? How do you see the controversy around it?

I won’t use the f-word, but I stand by everything else I said there.

Groen and you have been quite vocal and clear about the genocide in Gaza, so I will not ask you about it. But if you were the Belgian Prime Minister today, what would you do regarding Israel?

I would fight tooth and nail to break the economic deals that we have today with Israel, first of all. Second of all, I would make sure that the Israeli state understands that business and money is not the only drive of Europe, that we also look at human rights and international law, and that a genocide and illegal wars is not something we just forget. We severed ties with South Africa. After a long fight of a lot of activists and progressives, we severed our ties and economic ties with apartheid state South Africa. I don’t see any reason for us today to not do the same with Israel.

After the 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels, there was a big increase in hate crimes against Muslims. Similarly, after the genocide in Gaza, there has been growing antisemitic attacks in Europe. There was a forced conflation between regular Muslim citizens and Islamic terrorists, and now there is a forced conflation between regular Jewish citizens and the State of Israel. There are around thirty thousand Belgian Jews, mostly in Flanders. Antwerp is one of the few cities in Europe that has a very visible community of Jewish population. [interrupts] Some of them were at my wedding. Last month there was an explosion in a synagogue in Liege. In response to that, the government has placed the military in the streets to supposedly protect Jewish places. How do you see the rise of antisemitism? How do you plan to tackle it? And how do you see this militarization as the response to it?

The first thing that we have to make sure is that people understand that being a pro-Palestinian activist, understanding what is happening today in Palestine with regards to Israel, does not give you a freeway to be antisemitic. And being antisemitic, if you’re as stupid as to think that it’s a good thing to be antisemitic, if you say that stuff and do those things – antisemitic stuff – even for the Palestinians is not a good thing. If you don’t care about the dignity of people because they’re Jewish, at least understand that even for the Palestinians it’s a bad thing. It’s the stupidest thing you can do. And please don’t conflate people who fight for a fair world, against apartheid, with people that hate Jews because they’re Jewish. We have a very well documented history of antisemitism in Europe, a very problematic history, and I understand the ramifications of that. So in my party there will be zero room for antisemitism, and especially under my leadership. I have a lot of Jewish friends, a lot of Jewish people around me that I appreciate, that fight with me, that I would never let them get marginalized.

So how do we see it? We see it in the rise of antisemitic hate crimes. We see it in rhetoric that is used online as well. Some videos that – I’m sorry it [makes my skin crawl] – about how people miss Hitler and things like that. That’s the type of stuff that you see online. Again, we have to tackle these social media platforms that make it happen, make it possible to spread this type of misinformation, this type of hatred. Second of all, we have to protect our Jewish citizens, obviously, and I hope we can have the same energy for our Muslim citizens as well, because they also got attacked, but there was no military and a lot of Jewish citizens who get attacked don’t get military protection. It’s only the big institutions that get it. So we have to protect them. We have to make sure that our police and our police forces understand what the ramifications of antisemitism are, and that people, when they go to the police, a police officer can answer in a good way and can help them. And we have to strengthen the laws, because we have to understand that Belgium is one of the few countries that signed the Dublin deal in 2000 that said that we’re going to put an anti-discrimination office in place and we never did it. We have anti-discrimination, anti-hatred, anti-antisemitism laws, but we don’t apply them. Judges don’t know about it. Police officers are not well trained, so we have to invest in that as well, in strengthening the law. There’s a lot of ways to fight antisemitism, and I’m willing to completely go for it in this country.

Polanski, Mamdani, Sánchez and 2029

Internationally what are some current political figures that you admire or take inspiration from?

I have Zack [Polanski, leader of the English and Welsh Greens], obviously.
Everybody says Zack. I love Zack.

Are you the Belgian Polanski?

No, I’m the Belgian Aimen. But I look forward to meeting him and to working with him. So yeah, Zack Polanski, for sure. Hannah Spencer, by the way, as well. Come on, that was a revelation, wow. But I’m a big fan of Pedro Sánchez, actually. I think it’s an interesting Prime Minister. I think he shows in a lot of ways what leftist coalitions can do. I don’t think he’s doing everything he can do, to be honest, within the majority, and I know it’s always complicated in Spain, but he’s showing whatever he can do, and he’s showing what the alternative can be for a progressive coalition in Europe with the strongest, one of the strongest, growing economies right now. It’s quite a good argument. I’m very interested and I look forward to people, not especially to people that think the same as me, or go in the same way, but people who decided a way, decided the lane, and are very good with it.

That’s what I think is interesting with the Danish Greens [SF] and what they are doing. It’s not the way that we are going with Groen in Belgium, but it’s interesting to see how strong they are in what they are doing, and how they were able to make this big governmental Socialist Party afraid during the elections, really afraid for their seats. So with a good alternative and a good story, not 100% my story, but an interesting one.

So yeah, there’s a lot of examples. Zohran Mamdani. Yeah. If I could be the Belgian Zohran Mamdani, I would say yes.

The English strategy of Zack Polanski has, on one side, according to the latest polling, reached 20% of voting intentions and positioned itself as the clearest alternative to a far-right government. On the other side, there’s been some polling showing that more Green voters support drilling for oil in the North Sea than oppose it and also fracking has quite a big support among Green voters. Both when the Greens go left or when they go centrist, there seems to be a debate about sacrificing core policies. What are, for you, the policy areas that you will not budge for the sake of growth?

For me, it’s a question of health. That’s the fundamental aspect, because you can resume a lot of power dynamics to health. We can talk about, do we choose drilling or do we choose the health of nature and of the people around it. But it’s a power dynamic. It’s a political choice that you make. So in these power dynamics, I’ll never sacrifice on health. I can compromise, we can have discussions, we can have debates. I was in a majority before at local level, we were in a majority at the national level. So I don’t have a problem with that, but I’m not going to just give it up. And yeah, drilling, fracking, those are red lines for me, and I think my voters know that. And a lot of voters, and that’s interesting, might be for fracking but it’s just not their number one priority. And maybe health, environment, social issues, public services are the number one priority of these people.

You’re leading Groen into 2029 when there are European, federal and regional elections in Belgium. Groen got 8% in the last elections, and polls until now have shown it stagnant around that. What are your goals for 2029?

There’s very smart people around me who told me not to pin myself on a number in public. So I’m not going to pin myself on a number, but I do have a good idea of what type of campaign I want to run. And to be honest, in this society where the Right is strong we need to bring a little bit of hope and movement on the progressive side. So if I’m able to run a campaign that looks like the Green wave of 2019 with a lot of people on the streets, a lot of people who are fed up with the Right, with the far-right, and who want a progressive future, and I can show that to this country, that we are with a lot and we have a lot of energy, I would be super happy. And whatever the result that will be, will be a good result to finish.

To end this interview, I have a challenge for you. I have here a political compass and I want you to place Groen, and also the other Flemish parties, so we see how you see the Flemish party-system.

In a European context, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats are heading to be the fifth weakest ruling party in a EU national government. Weaker than them only the parties of Sébastien Lecornu and Rob Jetten in the minority governments of France and the Netherlands, the Flemish nationalists leading ethnically divided Belgium and the complicated Sweden where the third biggest party rules the country with the support of the second-biggest.

The Danish Social Democrats are weak, keep losing and yet they - and Mette Frederiksen - are the undisputable leaders of the country. How? What can possibly explain how such a losing leader can actually be victorious in seemingly keeping power without much hassle?

The decline of Scandinavian Social Democrats

In Scandinavian post-war politics the Social Democrats have been dominant: in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, the Social Democratic parties have always been the biggest party in the country, except for a short period in Denmark from 2001 to 2011. The big change has been their decline: they went from parties capable of fighting for a uniparty majority to parties around 20 to 30% of the vote. The decline has been constant.

While fragmentation of party-systems has been a common trend around Europe, in Scandinavia it’s more obvious as it comes from such a dominant-party situation.

In the case of Denmark, while the Social Democrats have lost ground, the parties that today are part of the red bloc have remained mostly stable. Composed of social-liberals, social democrats, socialists, Greens and leftists, the red bloc is not a fixed or historical entity. The Social-Liberals of the Radikale Venstre have historically been part of the right-wing of politics, and even led a government in the late 1960s. Yet since the 1990s they have stood with the left. To the left of social democracy, the Danish Communist Party was a key part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement and even participated in the first national unity government in 1945, yet was generally kept away from power due to their links to the Soviet Union. When in 1956 Soviet troops invaded Hungary to depose the reformist government of Imre Nagy, this led to a rupture of the Danish Communist Party with Aksel Larsen leading a split and forming the Socialist People’s Party or SF - Socialistisk Folkeparti, today officially translated as Green Left - on the basis of folkesocialisme, an ideologic current of democratic socialism. In 1966 the SF was first part of a governing majority, giving parliamentary support to the Social Democrats in what was called the Røde Kabinet or Red Cabinet.

While the Social Democrats lost ground, the parties of the center and left that have reducing social inequalities in their ideologic basis have kept the progressive camp intact and quite stable close to the 50% barrier.

Centrism is Nothing.

Mette Frederiksen is mostly known abroad, and used abroad, as the example of a leader of the left that “has understood” the growth of the far-right. The Danish Social Democrats have become an outlier not only in the European socialist family but on the left as a whole: their “tough migration stance” (aka anti-immigration racist narratives normalized) are only matched on the left with parties like Slovakia’s authoritarian Smer-SD, Germany’s left-conservative BSW or Czechia’s national-communist KSČM.

After the 2022 elections she took another page of the same book, and despite having a majority to continue the broad left government that she had led since 2019, she decided to create a government based on the three biggest parties. Together with the center-right parties Venstre and Moderaterne, a centrist government was formed, with a majority of ministers from the right-wing of politics, and where Frederiksen’s party felt zero pressure to apply progressive politics.

The 2026 election brought the result. The Social Democrats had their worst result in more than 100 years. They lost more than 100 thousand voters to the parties of the Left and almost 90 thousand voters to parties on their right, mostly to their partners of Moderaterne and directly to the far-right. Frederiksen led the Social Democrats to a double bleeding: to her left due to the lack of progressive policies and to her right due to her normalisation of far-right policies.

Social Democrats lead the Left. The Right is Chaos.

So in 2022 Mette Frederiksen broke the majority the Left had gained and built a centrist government, refusing the support of those who had brought her to power four years earlier.

Yet, in the run-up to this election, all other parties on the Left saw Frederiksen as the potential leader of a left-wing government. When asked, the Red-Greens said they weren’t sure about Frederiksen due to her right-wing government, and maybe they preferred SF to lead a new government. SF’s answer was that their bet was for a Frederiksen-led government, not for them - the main opposition party - to challenge her. After the election the Red-Greens had one single demand in return of nominating her to the King: tell the country you prefer a red government to another centrist coalition. All other Left parties did the same.

Meanwhile on the Right, there were five parties with similar vote shares. One of them - Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Moderaterne - refuses to be seen as a part of the right-wing bloc. Another - the Liberal Alliance - didn’t hide their aim to lead that bloc, instead of the traditional leader Venstre.

On the day of the elections the right-wing parties - including Moderaterne - had a theoretical majority. The far-right Citizens’ Party refused to nominate Venstre’s Lund Poulsen as formateur. Then on March 28th the Citizen’s Party expelled one of its 4 MPs. Later the same day, it was the Liberal Alliance that expelled one of its 16 MPs. The theoretical majority was gone.

The chaos of the right makes it difficult to even think of an alternative government. The unity of the Left makes it the most viable solution. The King nominated Mette Frederiksen as formateur with the condition of forming a government with Green Left SF and the social-liberal Radikale Venstre.

There are small things in life that, at the same time, cause complete indifference to most people and intense happiness to a minority. We all have such things that touch us in a childlike way that it’s difficult to explain. Personally, I have a few. One is snow. Being raised in Europe’s most snow-adverse capital, I now love the yearly snowy days where I live. Fireworks also thrill me in a special way. The loudness and brightness make me happy. And… airplanes. Seeing a rare airplane captivates me. Once I flew on a Sukhoi Superjet 100 from Copenhagen to Brussels, and I swear I spent two hours just looking around this Russian-made jet that only sold seven units in the West.

That same childlike thrill returned as I started this trip, boarding a beige-and-blue Saudia Airbus A330-300R. For you, the reader, it might mean nothing, but for me, the traveller, it was extremely exciting. The A330 is a European-made long-haul airplane, but the Saudi national airline refitted them with extra seats for shorter flights. This flight from Cairo to Riyadh, similar to Brussels-Lisbon or Madrid-Warsaw, could have been done in your typical Ryanair 737 or easyJet A320, but here I am entering a 300-passenger airplane.

Flying into a new country, in its national airline is in itself a unique experience. Flying is, in many ways, the most standardized way of entering a country, where rules are followed globally and behaviour is expected to be similar. But that uniformization makes the small differences come out quite quickly.

This time, the destination is Saudi Arabia. My expectations are not broad, as the country is a mystery to me and mostly based on stereotypes. The flight itself is the first time I’ll be confronting those expectations and prejudices. Some flight attendants don’t speak Arabic, most of the female ones don’t wear a hair-covering veil. The flight entertainment seems as normal as everywhere else, except for the constant Trump real estate ad.

As we find our seats, a group of three niqabi women ask to move so no man sits in their row’s fourth seat. Gender segregation is one of my expectations of Saudi Arabia, yet the flight attendant answers in this Saudi plane the same I heard countless times in so many airlines: seat where your boarding pass allocated you, and after takeoff you can look for any free alternatives. My first impression of Saudi Arabia is thus its sheer normality.

The flight is not long, but enough for a movie. Quareer, a Saudi award-winning movie, is an anthology of five shorts by five female Saudi directors, each starring a Saudi woman protagonist. And the stories are those of their fights against a patriarchal conservative society in their own Saudi Arabia.

Women in Saudi Arabia experienced one of the quickest processes of legal recognition of rights. Only in 2005 were forced marriages banned. In 2017 women got the right to drive and to enter sport stadiums. In 2018 the public enforcement of the hijab ended. In 2019 women got the right to apply for divorce and to apply for a passport without their guardian’s permission. In 2020 they gained the right to work at night. In 2021 the right to live independently without a male guardian if they are unmarried. By 2023 Saudi women who have children with foreign men became allowed to pass their nationality on.

Sometimes in politics it is difficult to appreciate genuine progress in a context of deep injustice, especially when it happens in places we see as culturally distant. Women in Saudi Arabia have gained more rights since Mohammed bin Salman took over as Crown Prince in 2017, than in several decades before that. This progress is undeniable. For all criticism one might have of Saudi leadership, it would be a deep mistake to dismiss the progress that has been achieved.

If before I thought gender segregation in Saudi Arabia was still heavily enforced, and then I understood it is way more relaxed than I expected, nothing prepared me for my first eventful moment in Saudi Arabia: a woman handing me her baby so she can more easily put her things in the security conveyor belt at the exit of the airport terminal. If you can imagine a White guy with arms locked at 90 degrees holding a Saudi baby, then you’ll get it.

The Empty Streets of Riyadh

The metro itself is clean, white, empty, fresh. To be fair to metro systems around the world, this one is less than one year old. From the airport to the city it’s a nice ride, with the big-windowed metro showing you the suburbs. The architecture of most stations is eye-opening. The city is expansive, low-rise. The tall modern buildings are mostly focused in a core area of the city.

Entering Riyadh gives a feeling of emptiness. There is no music around, there is no noise or chaos typical of cities. It feels like the city was designed for way more people than it has. Nonetheless, Riyadh has grown immensely. In 20 years, it went from 3 million inhabitants to almost 8 million, and the expectation is that by 2030 it could be near 10 million.

In the metro, there is segregation. There are three types of carriages: one only for single men, one for families together with single women and one for… 1st class. For 6 extra riyal - around €1.50 - you can mix without problem. There’s no religious conservatism that capitalism can’t break.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and the making of nations

Saudi Arabia is a unique country in the Gulf region. It’s not only the biggest by far, it dominates the region: 51% of the GDP, 62% of the population, 84% of the territory. Even its deep green flag is an outlier.

The national myth of the country establishes the birth of modern Saudi Arabia with the House of Saud conquering Riyadh in 1902 and establishing the third Saudi State. For the first 30 years of the new Emirate, King Ibn Saud conquered the territory we today know as Saudi Arabia and in 1932 the modern state was proclaimed. Since King Ibn Saud’s death, several of his sons have ruled the country.

Like the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf states are monarchies ruled by different Arab dynasties. The House of Khalifa in Bahrain, the House of Sabah in Kuwait, the House of Al Bu Said in Oman, the House of Thani in Qatar and the Houses of Nahyan, Maktoum, Al Nuaimi, Al Qasimi, Al Mualla and Al Sharqi in the United Arab Emirates.

Eleven royal families rule the Arabian peninsula. For many Europeans this might seem old and antiquated, yet it’s not fundamentally different from the House of Glücksburg ruling Denmark and Norway, the House of Orange-Nassau ruling the Netherlands or the House of Bourbon ruling Spain. The big difference here is the power: in Saudi and Oman the monarchy is absolute in its rule over the country while in Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait the monarchies are semi-constitutional but the monarch still takes most power. Western European monarchies lost grip on power by the mid-1800s, while Eastern European monarchies retained it until World War 1, yet the modern Gulf states were mostly founded in the early 1970s after decades of Ottoman and British rule - and their foundation was led by the ruling families and their tribal ties. These ruling families have led a period of independence and intense development which has brought a better life to its citizens, based mostly on oil money and low-wage migration from South Asia.

Saudi Arabia is the exception here. A Saudi state has existed since the early 1900s and by 1932 the unification of the territory was mostly complete. Oil was only discovered in 1938 and mass commercial exploitation started after World War 2. Since the 1970s the Saudi economy boomed. The power grip of the ruling family can be argued to have been the strongest in the region. While other Gulf countries opened themselves to foreign investment, Saudis were kept so under control that non-religious tourism was only open to foreigners in 2014.

📍Deera Square and the Al Masmak Palace Museum

From central Riyadh we head south until Qasr Al Hokm Metro Station, walk through Souq al-Zal, and get to Deera Square. This open square, lined with palm trees, kids playing and third wave cafes is known by many names: Deera Square, Alsafat Square, Justice Square, Chop-Chop Square. Until 2022 this is the square where public executions were done. Chop-chop, heads rolling. Saudi Arabia is one of the 53 countries in the world where the death penalty is still applied, which includes supposedly thriving democracies like the United States and Japan. After China and Iran, Saudi Arabia is the country with the most capital punishments per year, mostly due to the harsh prosecution of its war on drugs. These days the beheadings are not done in public anymore, so as you walk around and enjoy a good coffee, you get to admire the beauty of the square while imagining other, darker scenes.

Next to the square is the Al Masmak Palace Museum. Here in 1902 the forces of Saud took over Riyadh, the foundational moment of today’s Saudi Arabia. The palace has traditional architecture, made of clay and mudbrick, and has a small exhibition showing the history of Riyadh and the foundational basis of the country.

📍National Museum of Saudi Arabia

Heading north and getting out at the National Museum station, we are welcomed by the Riyadh Water Tower, a small but imposing structure built in 1971 to guarantee water supply to the rapidly growing city. If you’ve been to Örebro, in Sweden, you’ll find it familiar as the architect Sune Lindström clearly didn’t care much for uniqueness.

A few steps further north and we get to the National Museum of Saudi Arabia. Here you can learn with detail the entire history of Saudi Arabia, its leaders, its religion and its people. It’s a well designed museum that allows you to spend a couple hours learning about the country. For a non-Muslim, the section about the history of Islam, of prophet Muhammad and of the holy city of Mecca is particularly interesting.

A City of Modern Tradition

Even during winter, in the heart of the Nafud desert which surrounds Riyadh, the heat is still strong and you feel it around the city. Walking around is clearly not something urban planners planned for and Riyadh clearly gains the award of the most unwalkable city I’ve been to. Crossing a simple road can take up to one hour walking simply because of the lack of a proper crossing. It’s a car-first city, where walking paths came as an after-thought.

Malls are a constant fixture. With the heat outside, the air-conditioned buildings offer a much-needed oasis. From more traditional souk-like malls to the uniformized western big malls, Riyadh has plenty to offer. America is clearly the model, and European brands are only visible in fashion and cars. So don’t be shocked that “Italian cuisine” actually means American food.

📍Diriyah

A 20-minute drive west, we get to the At-Turaif District, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you follow politics, you’ve probably heard of Saudi Vision 2030. It might be best known for huge projects like NEOM and The Line, but it also includes places like Diriyah.

Diriyah is the original home of the House of Saud and the first capital or the first Saudi state from 1727 to 1818. Today it has been fully rebuilt with funds from the Vision 2030 plan for tourism, and was developed with a full cultural offer and plenty of luxury shops and restaurants. This place offers a duopoly of vibes that feels quite local: there’s the tradition that feels new, recovered fully as if built yesterday, next to the luxury of modern capitalism, a full catalogue of luxury brands that offers little to those not within the elite. It is worth a visit though, the open museum gives something unique and you can learn about the earlier history of the region.

📍Saqer Al-Jazirah Royal Air Force Museum

If you still remember how we started this story, you won’t be too surprised with how we finish it. The Royal Air Force Museum is situated in a heavily militarized and undeveloped part of Riyadh, and displays the history of Saudi Arabia’s Armed Forces. With western eyes it’s also a museum to US-Saudi relations and how since the post-World War order was born, the United States built a strong ally in the Gulf area, strengthened around oil and regional dominance. Since the western powers, mainly the English and French, started to leave their colonies behind, the United States have invested heavily in having a strong presence in the area, first with the dictatorial Imperial Iran until 1979 and then with Israel. In between the US’ loyalties, has been Saudi.

The museum showcases the evolution of Saudi military air power, from the first airplanes it ever used to more recent US-made F-15 fighter-jets that the US has only sold to Japan, Singapore, South Korea and its major Middle East allies: Qatar, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Good Coffee.

Some recommendations of good coffee places while you travel around Riyadh:

• DRAFT Café at the King Abdullah Financial District offers a large but calm space, ideal for reading or working.

• % Arabica is a Japanese-chain that you’ll be able to recognize all around the Gulf. The Riyadh The Zone location offers a very clinically white and glass vibe, but if you find yourself in this area it’s a good place to have a coffee.

• Sip1 Specialty Coffee is a small cafe right inside the chaotic Taiba Souq.

• Elixir Bunn Coffee Roasters offers great coffee in Deera Square (or Chop-Chop Square, if you prefer).

This was the first article in the Travelogue series, which aims to bring together travel memoirs with history and politics. If you enjoyed it, please let me know what you enjoyed and what can be made better:

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Next stop: Kuwait.

But they are not. They might even be one of the key elections in 2026 within the European Union. Here are four reasons why.

1st. Power in the EU is won state-by-state.

That the EU institutions are weirdly named is well known, and the Anglo-French axis that made sure to keep them confusing like that is to blame for the lack of clarity, but roughly speaking we can look at the European Council as the EU's collective head-of-state and the Council of the European Union as the EU’s upper house. And their composition is directly determined by national elections.

So while this week Slovenians are directly electing 90 MPs to their Parliament, they are also indirectly choosing the new Slovenian Prime Minister, government, and the Slovenian seats in the European Council and the Council of the EU.

Power in the European Union is won state-by-state, bringing together majorities in a majority of countries which inevitably changes the majorities in the EU.

2nd. Slovenia is a last progressive stronghold.

Together with Spain, Slovenia is the last progressive government in the European Union.

This is particularly clear in key policy areas like employment, where Slovenia’s Luka Mesec has, together with Spain’s Yolanda Díaz, led the push to protect workers’ rights. Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon calling “unacceptable violations of international law” to the US’s war of aggression against Iran, keeping coherence with the European position against Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, is a rarity in today’s Europe.

3rd. The alternative is an Adriatic Viktor Orbán.

The alternative to the left-progressive government is not a democratic center-right government but an illiberal right-wing government led by Janez Janša who has previously sought to weaken Slovenia’s democratic institutions, following the footsteps of Orbán and Trump.

Like Orbán and Trump, Janša has previous experience in government. He has been Prime Minister in 2004-2008, 2012-2013 and again in 2020-2022. If he wins, he will become Prime Minister for the fourth time. His illiberalism comes from way back, but he has learned over time how to control the state and dismantle democracy’s institutional guarantees. Since his first term he has tried to control the media. He has attacked the independence of the judicial system. In 2020 he gained the global distinction of being the only world leader to congratulate Donald Trump for winning the election he didn’t win. In 2013 he was found guilty of corruption, having spent less than six months in jail. Since leaving government he has been alleged to have responsibility over the “Balkan non-papers”, a plan to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia.

Even within its own European political family - the European People's Party - Janez Janša's SDS is an extreme extreme of the radicalization of the mainstream right. This is despite the fact that the EPP and Manfred Weber have always fully supported him, just like they supported Viktor Orbán until that supported threatened to make the EPP powerless in Brussels.

4th. It really is 50-50.

According to the latest opinion polls, we enter the last week of the campaign with the government parties on 40%, with the opposition around Janša, composed of SDS and the NSi–SLS–Fokus coalition, on 36%. The most likely scenario is that one more party enters parliament and becomes the kingmaker: Demokrati, led by Anže Logar, a center-right party formed from a split in SDS.

Anže Logar has claimed to be a party of the centre, pledging to form a government that brings together both left and right. Campaigning from the centre, it isn’t difficult to imagine him forming a pure right-wing majority the day after the election.

The right is thus ahead, but the numbers are close. Differential turnout among a polarized society could be enough to bring either block into a majority.

Enter the joker. There are four further parties that polls show could theoretically enter parliament, reshaping the math. Two of them are on the far-right: SNS, a more traditional nationalist party previously allied with Le Pen and Hungary's Jobbik, and Resni.ca – a newer model of populist far-right party, created around the COVID-19 pandemic. The other two are on the left, the progressive digital-first Pirate Party and the center-left Prerod created around the figure of the Green MEP Vladimir Prebilič. Whether any of them enter parliament – and which ones – could completely shift the balance.

Conclusion

The Liberal-Socialist-Left alliance that governs Slovenia is unique in Europe, and the government in Ljubljana is, together with Madrid, the last bastion of progressivism in the European Union. The most likely scenario is that by the end of this week this experiment loses, even though half of Slovene voters would still back the broader left. The alternative might be adding Janša to the reactionary wave that brought Orbán, Meloni, Fico and Babiš to the frontline of power in Europe. Yet there is still a chance that small Slovenia continues to show a path forward: building pro-democracy popular majorities that deliver for the social majority. A small state whose vote in the Council weighs as much as those of much larger ones, and whose choice says something about the direction of Europe. The question is: will this be one more win for the reactionary wave, or a resistance of the progressive camp that can build momentum for a much needed recovery? Denmark and Hungary are up next.

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The series begins on March 26th in Riyadh, the Gulf’s largest city, then moves on through Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar.

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If we forgot everything that has happened in European politics over the past five years and just looked at the results of the European elections, we would conclude that not much has changed. The grand coalition of the centre-right European People’s Party, Socialists, and Liberals went from 59 to 56 per cent of the seats in the European Parliament – an overall loss of 43 seats. This is not a major drop, especially in light of the departure of the 27 British labour and liberal-democratic MEPs due to Brexit, and the exit from their respective parliamentary groups of Hungary’s Fidesz (13 MEPs) and Slovakia’s Smer (3 MEPs) due to their radicalisation. The forces to the left of the grand coalition – Greens, Left, and left-wing independents – went from 18 to 17 per cent of the seats, and those to the right – ECR, ID and right-wing independents – increased their representation from 23 to 27 per cent of the parliament compared to 2019.

The changes brought about by these elections are more in terms of substance than of numbers. The radical right has been normalised, the mainstream right has radicalised itself, progressive forces have lost radicality, and a new nationalistic, anti-establishment, and anti-immigration left has gained representation.

A significant challenge to the status quo of European politics would be the formation of two new nationalist, extremist, pro-Russian, German-led groups in the European Parliament: one on the left, headed by Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW (together with Italy’s Five Star Movement and Slovakia’s Smer), and one on the right, led by Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). 23 MEPs from at least seven member states are needed to form a parliamentary group. If these groups were to materialise (something that is far from certain, especially on the left), they would contribute to normalising the established far right – the ECR and ID Groups – by making it appear less extreme. Worse, they would further radicalise the migration and peace debates in the European Parliament.

The new Green group

While the vote share of far-right parties did not increase to the extent that some feared, the elections did not go well for progressives. The Greens in particular lost 22 MEPs compared to 2019: nine in Germany, five in France, two in Ireland, one in Belgium, and seven in Britain due to Brexit.

The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament seems likely to return to 2014 numbers, making up around 7 per cent of the seats. This is not only due to the results of the Greens but also of their allies in the group: the European Free Alliance lost four MEPs, and the European Pirate Party. The group’s numbers could still change as negotiations with independent parties and elected MEPs are ongoing. Importantly, the five MEPs elected with Volt Europa have yet to decide which group to join.

Brexit aside, the Greens’ losses in these European elections are mainly due to their result in France and Germany. In France, the polarisation between Macron and Le Pen’s supporters, as well as the infighting of the Left, has played against the Greens. On the progressive front, fragmentation was visible not so much in the absence of a common list for the European elections, but mainly in the lack of the parties’ mutual recognition as part of the same political bloc. This benefited Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise and Raphaël Glucksman’s PS-PP list, the largest and more polarising forces in the left camp. This disunity has so clearly damaged the French Left that a few days after the European elections, progressives formed a “nouveau front populaire” for the upcoming snap legislative ballot.

In Germany, the Greens’ electoral performance is in line with those of other Green parties that are part of national coalition governments, such as in Belgium and Ireland. In these countries, Greens have not been able to prove to their voters that they have achieved enough positive change to justify being in government. In Germany, voters punished not just the Greens but also their partners in the “traffic light” coalition, the centre-left SPD and the neoliberal FDP.

In the new term, the Greens will be numerically weaker but more diverse and representative of Europe’s complexity.

As a result, the new Green group in the European Parliament will be one of the least German, least Franco-German, and least Western European Green groups ever. But also one of the most Nordic, Southern, and Eastern European – all at the same time. Finally, the group is likely to be more “purely” Green compared to the previous term: apart from three EFA MEPs, one Pirate, and two independents (and pending the decision of the five Volt MEPs), all its MEPs are members of the European Greens.

The Greens/EFA Group has traditionally been the most united in the European Parliament. Green negotiators can usually count on the vast majority of their group to back their decisions. This is unlikely to change in the new Parliament: despite its increased geographic diversity, the group is set to remain ideologically coherent. The German Greens might oppose a strong condemnation of Israel, the Italian Greens may vote against military support to Ukraine, and the Lithuanian Democrats could refuse to back more humane drug laws, but these are expected to remain minority positions within the group.

Across Eastern Europe, the Greens have managed to establish solid national parties that have won seats in both the European and national parliaments, and are now strong progressive voices. In Slovenia, Lithuania, Croatia, and Latvia, Greens have elected new MEPs by focusing their campaign on climate and social messaging, presenting themselves as credible progressive alternatives to the status quo. In Denmark and Sweden, the Greens’ strong opposition to far-right policies – whether pushed through by the far right or by radicalised “centrist” forces – brought them historic results. In Italy and the Netherlands, the results of progressive green-left alliances exceeded expectations.

New reality

In the new term, the Greens will be numerically weaker but more diverse and representative of Europe’s complexity. Most importantly, they will be more relevant than ever to build majorities in the European Parliament. What they have achieved in European politics since 2019 is notable, but it is not irreversible. In the second part of the previous term, the EPP started backtracking on climate policies and reaching out to its right. This radicalisation of the centre right will not disappear, but if the grand coalition of EPP, Socialists, and Liberals wants a stable pro-European majority, it will have to rely on the Greens.

Greens will have to use their strategic weight wisely. Working towards compromise and being a reliable partner of the new majority is a positive role to play, but standing up for human rights and the climate is equally important. For this reason, they should draw clear red lines for cooperation with the majority coalition. The election results show that voters across Europe still see them as a credible alternative to the status quo, especially when they push for progressive change.

4 February 2000 might as well be remembered as the day Europe had to fight again for its democratic values. And it failed.

On that day, in Austria, the center-right ÖVP, a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), announced a coalition with the radical-right FPÖ.

The reaction was broad and strong. In the streets of Vienna several demonstrations took place. The German government called it an “historic mistake” and the Portuguese presidency of the European Union said that “racist and xenophobic behaviors” were taking power in Austria.

All EU states suspended their normal bilateral relations with Austria, reducing them to the minimum possible, while the European institutions showed unease with the fact that they had to treat Austria with equality while it had ministers who were the successors of Nazism.

The president of Austria felt forced to have the new chancellor and its deputy sign a declaration that they vow to respect human rights, the principles of a pluralist democracy and the rule of law. Israel withdrew its ambassador from Vienna and announced unprecedented diplomatic sanctions, warning that in the birthplace of Hitler deniers of the Holocaust had taken power.

By September 2000, all EU states had lifted their sanctions. The Austrian far-right won their fight for normalisation, and all European Union states recognized it as legitimate government. The government of alliance of the democratic and authoritarian right would last until 2007.

Enter Silvio ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi

This wasn’t the first time, as in 1994 Silvio Berlusconi had made a coalition with what is now Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, then under Gianfranco Fini. And even earlier, in the first decade of the new West German government, the far-right parties German Party (BP) and All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights (GB/BHE) had ministers under Konrad Adenauer’s government.

But while those examples were easily ignored as small partners in governments strongly led by the center-right, the Austrian example was a clear 50:50 partnership that was difficult to ignore.

Yet, after the normalisation of the Austrian participation of the far-right in national government, it became acceptable all over Europe. Across the whole continent there are now more countries the centre-right has either brought the far-right into power or where it radicalized itself to become the far-right, than countries where the cordon sanitaire is still standing.

One year after Austria, also Denmark normalized its far-right with a liberal-conservative government counting on the parliamentary support of the far-right Danish People’s Party.

And the year after was the time for a coalition of liberals, conservatives and the far-right in the Netherlands. Then Poland, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Slovakia, Estonia, Slovenia, Croatia.

We reach 2024 with most EU states having had the far-right involved in power than those that have not

In each of these countries the center-right had to decide between the most basic democratic values, or the shortest way to power. And in each case they chose the shortest way to power.

By accepting the far-right as a partner, they not only normalized those parties, and in many cases made them one of their strongest electoral opponents, but also normalised their policies. The differences between mainstream politics and the far-right stopped being a question of different systems but of quantitative differences within the same system.

Under Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen this strategic choice has been brought to the European level. The first part was to adopt many of the ideologic flags of the far-right.

From migration to climate action, the EPP changed their own stance in order to copy the far-right. Then it made a clear division between what it considers good fascists and bad fascists. Half of Europe’s radical-right parties are now normalized, with parties like Fratelli d’Italia in Italy, Fidesz in Hungary and the ODS in Czechia running their respective countries in coalition with the EPP, while the other half is either behind an imposed cordon sanitaire – like France’s Rassemblement National – or happily behind such a wall – like Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland.

Finally the big problem is that not much will change after the European Elections. There will be no majority in the Council or the Parliament that passes through an alliance of the EPP and the parties to its right. What will happen is what always happened before, a grand coalition of EPP, Socialists and Liberals.

With one difference: the playing field has been rigged.

The policies and tactics of the far-right have been normalized, the EPP has moved to the right and with it brought all other parties. The next commission will have far-right commissioners from Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands and Von der Leyen will have no issues giving them relevant portfolios. The transformation of the nascent European democracy into an authoritarian project might have started in Austria in the year 2000, but 24 years later has never been stronger.

The chances of a conservative majority after the European elections are slim, but the normalisation of radical-right forces is a wake-up call for progressives.

Between 6 and 9 June, 720 citizens of Europe will be elected to the world’s only continental democratic assembly. As the vote is set to result in a fragmented European Parliament, many in Brussels and around the continent are already thinking about the day after, speculating on which forces will build a governing majority.

The European Union is, like most decentralised democracies, a two-chamber system: one chamber represents the member states and one the citizens – the European Council and the European Parliament, respectively. To win a second term as European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen – or anyone who aims to succeed her – will need a double majority: in the European Council, which nominates the candidate for the EU’s top job, and in the European Parliament, which needs to elect the nominee.

Over the past decades, all Commission presidents have been elected and supported by a grand coalition of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the European Socialists, and the Liberals (now called Renew Europe). This political formula has historically granted a majority in both chambers. But there is talk that this will no longer be the case after the June elections.

The big story of the election is expected to be the rise of the radical right, which seems set to obtain its best result ever. The growth of the far right in the European Parliament would be a consequence of two elements that have fuelled each other in the last years: the social unrest and dissatisfaction linked to multiple crises (the climate emergency, the pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine) and the normalisation of far-right rhetoric by both the mainstream Right and the media.

According to polls, far-right forces could win 28 per cent of the seats, up from 22 per cent in the current Parliament. They also hold three seats in the European Council: Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Petr Fiala in the Czech Republic, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

While the rise of the radical right is a worrying sign for European democracy 79 years after the defeat of Nazi-fascism, these forces have grown into an actor that cannot be ignored in EU policymaking. However, based on the numbers, chances that the far right will be part of the new EU majority after the European elections are slim.

Far-right normalisation

Of Europe’s radical-right parties, around half have been normalised as mainstream political forces. Fratelli d’Italia in Italy, Fidesz in Hungary and the ODS in Czechia run their respective countries in coalition with the EPP.

The other half are still behind a “cordon sanitaire”, or are regarded as not democratically acceptable. The largest party in this group is Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) in France. Even though the RN’s normalisation seems underway, it is very unlikely that Emmanuel Macron will support a European Commission that opens its doors to his main political rival.

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which is polling around 20 per cent in Germany, is more isolated. Not only Von der Leyen’s German party, the CDU, has repeatedly ruled out cooperating with the AfD, but even radical-right leaders such as Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini have distanced themselves from it. Last week, their group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy, expelled the AfD following a series of scandals involving its top candidate, Maximilian Krah. By distancing themselves from the AfD, Salvini and Le Pen aim to draw a demarcation line within the radical right between “cordoned off” and “acceptables”, and present themselves as ready for government.

This means that while the radical right might win almost one-third of the seats in the EU Parliament, only half of these can be counted on for a right-wing governing majority.

Building a majority that includes the far right is difficult for other reasons too. A minority of EPP and Renew member parties, such as the Social Democratic Party in Portugal, the Centerpartiet in Sweden, and Gibanje Svoboda in Slovenia, have stood against alliances with radical right forces at the national level, and are opposed to collaboration at the European level.

If progressives want to remain relevant, cooperation and coordination between them, which has been rarely seen since the eurozone crisis, should become the norm.

The most realistic scenario is thus another grand coalition of EPP, Socialists, and Liberals. This formula should guarantee a majority in the European Parliament. As for the European Council, a majority that includes Meloni, Fiala, and potentially even Orbán would likely cause limited backlash. Such an arrangement would be nothing new: in 2019, Poland’s PiS and Hungary’s Fidesz were needed to build a majority in the European Council.

Since the Socialists have been clear in their refusal to participate in any parliamentary coalition with the right-wing ECR, the only mathematical alternative would be for the Greens to join the grand coalition. This would deliver a stable majority in the Parliament, but not in the European Council. Plus, to bring the Greens on board, Von der Leyen or her successor would need to backtrack on the anti-green narratives the EPP has embraced in the last year.

The progressive side

Once upon a time, the Socialists led Europe. This year, they are expected to win less than 20 per cent of seats in the new European Parliament. Together with the Greens, the Left, and the more social-liberal side of Renew, they could make up close to 40 per cent of the assembly – a new historic low.

These projections are a wake-up call to the progressives of Europe. If they want to remain relevant, cooperation and coordination between them, which has been rarely seen since the eurozone crisis, should become the norm.

The Left Group in particular is faced with the biggest historical challenge since the split in 1989 between pro-Soviets and Eurocommunists. After Brexit, a part of the European Left gave up its Euroscepticism and moved into the pro-European reformist camp. Some leftist forces entered ruling majorities in various EU member states: Syriza led the Greek government between 2015 and 2019, Portugal’s Bloco and Spain’s Sumar and Izquierda Unida have been part of progressive government alliances. Meanwhile, Ireland’s Sinn Fein and the Basque Country’s EH Bildu have moderated their stances and established themselves as real political alternatives. Others, namely the Nordic Left, have kept their Euroscepticism but acted constructively.

At the same time, other sectors of the Left have further radicalised, especially on migration issues and in defence of Putin’s imperialist war in Ukraine. Sahra Wagenknecht, a veteran of German left-wing politics, has broken away from Die Linke to launch her own socially conservative, anti-immigration, Kremlin-sympathetic party. In Belgium, the Marxist and socialist PTB still refuses to take part in any governing majority. Spain’s Podemos, after leaving government in December 2023, reinvented itself as a loud anti-Ukraine voice.

To counter the mainstreaming of the far right and the radicalisation of parts of the Left, progressive forces that share commitments to democracy and human rights need to find unity in fragmentation and form alliances at national and European level.

Five years after the green surge in northwestern Europe, polls show that entering government coalitions at the national level did not pay off in terms of voter support. While Greens seem set to grow in other parts of Europe, maintaining consensus will require ambitious climate and social agendas, and the courage to give up power if holding on to it becomes incompatible with green values.

Five years ago, Greens went into the European elections on the crest of a “green wave”. In the autumn of the previous year, they had made significant gains in Luxemburg, Germany, and Belgium. The 2019 European elections confirmed that momentum: Greens became the second largest party in Germany and the third in France, Denmark, Ireland, and Luxembourg. Across most of northwestern Europe, they doubled their European Parliament seats. In subsequent national elections, they kept achieving historic results, which allowed them to enter several coalition governments – Finland in 2019, Austria, Belgium, and Ireland in 2020, Germany in 2021. In Luxembourg and Sweden, they had already been in power since 2013 and 2014 respectively. Greens grew in other parts of Europe too, joining governments in Spain (2020), Montenegro (2020), and Bulgaria (2021). In 2023, Poland and Latvia were added to the list.

These weren’t the first experiences in government for the Greens. In 1995, the Finnish Greens became the first European Green Party (EGP) member to enter national government, followed by the Italian, French, and German Greens in the late 1990s.

For the Greens, being in power has historically meant losing votes. Things were no different for the “green wave” parties: all Greens in government lost support after joining power. The reasons and timing were not the same everywhere. As soon as the Irish Greens joined the national government in 2020, they lost almost half of their support. This was perhaps due to the lingering memory of the financial crisis years, when the party had been forced into approving drastic austerity measures, losing all seats in the following election. In most other cases, however, Green parties experienced an electoral bump or remained stable at the start of government, with a decline coming later on.

This decline is especially important in view of the European elections in June, as the countries of northwestern Europe make up most of the “green wall”: in 2019, all but one of the Green members of the European Parliament were elected in this region. In 2014, it was all but two. This year, Greens can expect some gains in southern and eastern Europe, but much of their electoral performance will once again depend on their northwestern strongholds. Five years after the “green wave”, are they still holding?

In Germany, home to the biggest EGP member party since 2004, Greens are expected to lose seats. Projections suggest Germany could elect 15 MEPs this year, down from 21 in 2019. In Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, and Sweden, polls suggest Greens could lose up to 6 of the 14 seats they won in 2019.

As a progressive pro-European force, Greens have always performed better in European elections than in national polls, so doom scenarios are unlikely to materialise. But the success of 2019 was partly fuelled by an extraordinary wave of youth and climate mobilisation across the continent which is largely absent this year. Add the electoral losses associated with being in government in several EU countries and the anti-green backlash normalised by the centre-right European People’s Party, and you have the recipe for a more negative result in 2024.

This overall picture inevitably raises the question: Is it wise for Greens to enter government and push for reform, even if it means having to compromise on their values and losing electoral support? Or is it better to remain in opposition, at the risk of having no role in crucial political decisions but potentially growing stronger for the next election?

Any progressive force wishing to stay in power needs to show that it is pushing government policy enough on both the social and climate fronts.

This is certainly not the first time the Greens have been faced with this dilemma. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, some Green parties had harsh internal debates over the issue. Purists argued that the capitalist system we live in is so flawed and broken that there is no point in joining a government to put band-aids on it. Pragmatists claimed that entering government was the only way to change that system. By 2000, the Greens were in government in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, and Finland. That debate was so strongly won by one side, that in many cases joining a government became a goal in itself, without asking the question, “What are we in government for?”.

In many cases, including after the “green wave”, Greens have failed to prove to their voters that they have achieved enough positive change to justify being in government. While swift climate action might have been enough to retain voters in 2019, the social crisis caused by the pandemic and war at the gates of Europe has shifted the worries of citizens. Any progressive force wishing to stay in power needs to show that it is pushing government policy enough on both the social and climate fronts. At the Spanish elections in July 2023, the green-left platform Sumar achieved a great result by showing voters how it had delivered a significant increase in the minimum wage and a sharp decrease in unemployment while promising that it would accomplish more if it remained in government – a reduction of working hours, taxes on the banking sector, more public housing, and ambitious climate targets.

But besides being good at communicating their achievements, Greens should be able to recognise when those achievements are not enough to justify remaining in government. In April, after the Scottish government made a U-turn on ambitious climate goals, the Scottish Greens started an internal debate over their participation in the government and decided to withdraw their support to the coalition. This sense of being in government for a reason, and being uncomfortable enough with power to give up on it when social and climate goals are not met, is broadly lost – not just within Green parties, but in society as a whole. Recovering this sense of purpose might be the only effective weapon against the reactionary wave sweeping through Europe.

Una escasa participación en las elecciones europeas puede socavar la legitimidad democrática del Parlamento Europeo al reflejar la anteposición de la identidad nacional a la europea. ¿Es posible que la europeización progresiva y la reducción de la edad de voto ayuden a la ciudadanía a sentirse más cercana a Europa?

En tema de política europea, se suele escuchar que “las elecciones de la UE tienen una participación escasa”. Y en parte es cierto: en el año 2019 sólo acudieron a las urnas la mitad de los casi 400 millones de personas con derecho a voto. En los comicios del año 2014, la participación fue aún menor, situándose en el 42%.

El comportamiento electoral no es homogéneo en todo el continente. En Bélgica el voto es obligatorio y la participación roza el 100 %. En comparación, Rumanía registró una participación bastante escandalosa en las últimas elecciones europeas: un 51%. Sin embargo, esta cifra parece mucho más alta si se compara con el 32% de participación en las elecciones parlamentarias rumanas del año siguiente. Por otro lado, la participación de la población de Eslovaquia en las últimas elecciones europeas fue inferior al 23%, frente al 65% que sí votó en las parlamentarias nacionales de ese mismo año.

Podemos comprender mejor la democracia europea si analizamos con detenimiento las cifras de participación. En primer lugar, deberíamos desechar el argumento de que la baja participación en las elecciones europeas respecto a las nacionales constituya en sí mismo un problema democrático. La identidad es lo que impulsa la acción política, y la identidad nacional sigue ocupando un lugar prioritario entre la población de la UE: el 91% de la ciudadanía se siente unida a su país, mientras que el 59% se siente unida a la Unión Europea y solo el 72% de quienes integran la UE se identifican con ella.

En cuanto a historia universal, no hay de qué preocuparse. La Unión Europea es una entidad territorial que existe desde hace 66 años y que se asienta sobre unas realidades nacionales previas a su constitución. A título comparativo, los Estados Unidos de América se fundaron en el año 1776 y su identidad nacional no adquirió mayor relevancia que la estatal hasta 1968. Tuvieron que transcurrrir casi 200 años para que la ciudadanía estadounidense se identificara más como “estadounidense” que como californiana, neoyorquina o floridana.

La prevalencia de la identidad nacional también es visible a nivel local, donde las elecciones suelen tener una participación más baja. La distribución del poder también influye en la participación. Tomemos el ejemplo de Francia, donde el presidente es el principal líder político y cuyas elecciones presidenciales de 2022 atrajeron a un 25% más de votantes que las legislativas de ese mismo año.

La participación electoral a nivel europeo ha disminuido en gran medida desde el año 1979 hasta la actualidad. Esto se debe en parte a que los países de Europa del Este, que se empezaron a incorporar a la UE a partir del año 2004, suelen tener una participación electoral más baja que sus homólogos occidentales. Sin embargo, algunos países de Europa Occidental también han incidido en esta tendencia. La participación en las elecciones europeas en Francia cayó 10 puntos entre los años 1979 y 2019, mientras que registró un descenso de más de 30 puntos durante el mismo periodo en las elecciones parlamentarias nacionales. Italia derogó el voto obligatorio en la década de 1990 y la participación pasó del 81% en el año 1989 al 54% en 2019. En las elecciones nacionales también se observó una pauta similar.

Ejercer el voto es un elemento esencial de una democracia sana y por ello hemos de velar por que el mayor número posible de personas elija a sus representantes depositando su voto en las urnas

La participación electoral en las elecciones europeas siempre ha sido en torno a un 20% inferior a la de las elecciones parlamentarias nacionales. Esta diferencia se ha reducido desde el año 1999, especialmente en algunos países. En Francia [color rojo], las elecciones europeas de 2019 obtuvieron una participación similar a la de las elecciones nacionales de 2017. En Dinamarca [color verde], la participación nacional se ha mantenido estable en torno al 85%, mientras que en las elecciones europeas registró un aumento del 45% al 66% entre los años 1979 y 2019.

Si la participación se ha visto afectada por la ampliación de la UE y las tendencias a largo plazo que también afectan a las elecciones nacionales, ¿qué conclusión podemos sacar entonces sobre la democracia europea?

No cabe duda de que una participación electoral escasa puede plantear un problema democrático. Cuando solo el 20% o el 30% de la ciudadanía ejerce su derecho al voto (como ocurrió en Eslovenia, Eslovaquia, Portugal, Letonia, Chequia, Croacia y Bulgaria en los comicios de 2019), el resultado representa solamente a una parte minoritaria de la población. Para hacer frente a esta cuestión de legitimidad democrática es necesario que los partidos políticos se tomen en serio las elecciones europeas (empezando por el proceso de los candidatos principales) y que los medios de comunicación hagan lo propio para cultivar la democracia europea. Ahora bien, mientras la UE se prepara para abrirse a los Balcanes Occidentales y a los países más al este, se impone también la necesidad de una reforma institucional que simplifique los procesos y los haga más comprensibles, más políticos y menos burocráticos.

Ejercer el voto es un elemento esencial de una democracia sana y por ello hemos de velar por que el mayor número posible de personas elija a sus representantes depositando su voto en las urnas. Hay que facilitar el proceso de voto, suprimiendo el requerimiento de preinscribirse, por ejemplo, y ofreciendo la posibilidad de votar anticipadamente.

De cualquier modo, considerar la participación como el único indicador de la democracia puede inducir a equívoco. En ocasiones, una alta participación electoral es la consecuencia o el presagio de un retroceso democrático. La gran movilización de jóvenes y mujeres que tuvo lugar el pasado octubre en Polonia fue la reacción a casi una década de gobiernos de extrema derecha que erosionaron el Estado de derecho y los derechos de las mujeres. Y más recientemente, en Portugal, muchas personas con ideas antidemocráticas que acudieron a votar por primera vez lo hicieron a favor de partido de extrema derecha. El aumento de la participación en ambos países (+13% en Polonia, +9 % en Portugal en comparación con las elecciones anteriores) estuvo vinculado a una creciente polarización.

La juventud representa la generación más “europea”, ya que ha nacido y crecido en un mundo interconectado

En otros casos, una menor participación electoral puede corresponderse con una mayor participación democrática. Por ejemplo, en las elecciones europeas de 2024 se permitirá votar a las personas de 16 y 17 años en Alemania, Austria, Bélgica, Malta y Grecia. Aunque el voto a los 16 años pueda dar lugar a una menor participación (la participación suele ser menor entre los votantes más jóvenes), se trata de una mejora democrática que otorga representación política a un grupo que ha de tener ese derecho fundamental. En cierto sentido, la juventud representa la generación más “europea”, ya que ha nacido y crecido en un mundo interconectado. Para la población joven, Europa no es un “proyecto de paz” ni el programa Erasmus, sino la realidad polifacética en la que vivimos.

La última década también ha constatado cómo la población joven puede impulsar el cambio político. Las manifestaciones y movimientos liderados por jóvenes dieron forma a la política de cara a las elecciones europeas celebradas en el año 2019. Por lo tanto, ampliar el derecho al voto a los jóvenes de 16 años es una medida lógica, que puede complementarse con la educación política y cívica desde una edad temprana. De esta forma, es posible que la participación electoral también aumente a largo plazo.

Low voter participation in EU elections, reflecting the preeminence of national over European identity, can undermine the democratic legitimacy of the EU Parliament. Could progressive Europeanisation and lowering the voting age help bring Europe closer to its citizens?

When talking about European politics, you’ll often hear that “EU elections have low turnout”. There is some truth to that: in 2019, only half of the almost 400 million eligible voters cast their ballots. In 2014, the turnout was even lower, at 42 per cent.

Voting behaviour is not uniform across the continent. In Belgium, where voting is compulsory, turnout is close to 100 per cent. In the last EU elections, Romania had a comparatively shocking 51 per cent turnout. This number, however, appears much higher when compared to the 32 per cent turnout in the Romanian parliamentary elections the following year. In Slovakia, on the other hand, less than 23 per cent voted in the last EU elections, compared with 65 per cent in the national parliamentary elections that same year.

A closer look at turnout numbers can help us better understand European democracy. First, we should dispel the notion that European elections having lower turnout than national elections is in itself a democratic problem. Identity leads political action, and national identity remains prominent among EU citizens: 91 per cent feel attached to their country, while 59 per cent feel attached to the European Union, and only 72 per cent of citizens of the EU identify as such.

In global history terms, there’s nothing to worry about. The European Union is a 66-year-old continental entity built on pre-existing national realities. For comparison, the United States of America was founded in 1776, and only since 1968 has national identity become more relevant than state identity. It took US citizens almost 200 years to identify more as “Americans” than as Californians, New Yorkers, or Floridians.

The prominence of national identity is also visible at the local level, where elections typically have lower turnout. The distribution of power has an impact on turnout too: in France, where the president is the main political leader, the 2022 presidential elections attracted 25 per cent more voters than the legislative elections of the same year.

At the EU level, turnout has mostly decreased from 1979 to the present. Partly, this is because Eastern European countries, which joined the EU in 2004 or later, usually have lower voter participation than their Western counterparts. However, some Western European countries have also influenced this trend. EU election turnout in France fell by 10 points from 1979 to 2019, while it fell by more than 30 points in national parliamentary elections over the same period. Italy abolished mandatory voting in the 1990s, and turnout went from 81 per cent in 1989 to 54 per cent in 2019. Again, a similar trend occurred in national elections.

Voting is an essential component of a healthy democracy, and we should make sure that as many people as possible choose their representatives by casting their votes.

Voter participation in EU elections has traditionally been about 20 per cent lower than in national parliamentary elections. Since 1999, this difference has narrowed, especially in some countries. In France [red], the 2019 European elections had a similar turnout as the 2017 national elections; in Denmark [green], national turnout has remained stable at around 85 per cent while it grew in European elections from 45 per cent in 1979 to 66 per cent in 2019.

If turnout has been influenced by EU enlargement and long-term trends that also affect national elections, then what does it tell us about European democracy?

Low voter participation can no doubt be a democratic problem. When only 20 or 30 per cent of citizens exercise their right to vote, as was the case in Slovenia, Slovakia, Portugal, Latvia, Czechia, Croatia and Bulgaria in 2019, the result represents a minority of the population. Tackling this issue of democratic legitimacy demands that political parties take European elections seriously – starting from the lead candidate process – and that the media do their part in nurturing European democracy. But as the EU prepares to enlarge to the Western Balkans and further East, institutional reform is also needed to simplify processes and make them more understandable, more political, and less bureaucratic.

Voting is an essential component of a healthy democracy, and we should make sure that as many people as possible choose their representatives by casting their votes. Voting should be made easy, for instance by abolishing the need to pre-register and expanding the possibility of voting early.

However, framing turnout as the single indicator of democracy is misleading. Sometimes, high voter participation is a consequence or a harbinger of democratic backsliding. In Poland, the great mobilisation of young people and women last October was the reaction to almost a decade of radical right-wing governments which undermined the rule of law and women’s rights. More recently, in Portugal, many citizens with anti-democratic views turned up to vote for the first time for a far-right party. In both countries, higher turnout (+13 per cent in Poland, +9 per cent in Portugal compared to previous elections) was linked to growing polarisation.

Young people are the most “European” generation, born and raised in an interconnected world.

In other cases, lower turnout can go hand in hand with higher democratic participation. For example, 16 and 17-year-olds will be allowed to vote in the 2024 European elections in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Malta, and Greece. Even if voting at 16 might result in lower participation (turnout is often lower among younger voters), this is a democratic improvement that gives political representation to a group that has a fundamental right to it. In a sense, young people are the most “European” generation, born and raised in an interconnected world. For them, Europe is not a “project of peace” or the Erasmus programme, but the multifaceted reality that we live in.

The last decade has also shown how young people can drive political change. Youth-led demonstrations and movements shaped politics ahead of the 2019 European elections. Extending the right to vote to 16-year-olds is therefore only logical, and can be complemented by political and civic education from an early age. This way, perhaps, voter turnout will also increase in the long run.

Evropská lidová strana (EPP) se postavila do čela tažení proti Zelené dohodě pro Evropu, kterou ještě donedávna oportunisticky podporovala. Ukázalo se to při nedávném projednávání zákona o obnově přírody, jehož přijetí se poslanci EPP pokusili zablokovat. V mnoha evropských zemích jsme svědky toho, jak dříve středopravicové strany otvírají dveře do vlády krajní pravici.

Zelení v roce 2019 dosáhli mimořádného volebního úspěchu. Nová zelená frakce v Evropském parlamentu se po volbách rozrostla z 50 na 74 poslanců a poslankyň reprezentujících 10 procent evropského voličstva. V následujících letech se Zelení dostali do většiny vlád v severozápadní Evropě, včetně Německa, Belgie, Irska a Rakouska, ale také Finska, Lucemburska a Švédska.

Jejich největší vítězství však nebylo měřitelné volebními výsledky: spočívalo v tom, že evropské veřejné debatě začala dominovat témata, která Zelení již nejméně jedno desetiletí prosazovali. Díky obrovským demonstracím pořádaným převážně mladými lidmi v čele klimatického hnutí se podařilo dostat klimatickou krizi na politickou agendu a udělat z ní téma, ke kterému se přihlásila většina demokratických stran.

Nová Evropská komise pod vedením Ursuly von der Leyen – podporovaná velkou koalicí EPP, socialistů a liberálů – představila v roce 2020 plán pod názvem Zelená dohoda pro Evropu. Jde o komplexní soubor politických iniciativ, který se stal stěžejní agendou Evropské komise v období 2019–2024 a jehož konečným cílem je dosažení klimatické neutrality do roku 2050. Navzdory námitkám Polska, Maďarska a České republiky Evropský parlament Zelenou dohodu schválil, a to 67 procenty hlasů.

Zeleným se sice s masivní podporou klimatického hnutí podařilo plán prosadit, jejich politická síla však nebyla taková, aby se dal výsledný kompromis považovat za skutečně zelený. Do souladu s cíli Zelné dohody nebyla uvedena společná zemědělská politika, která představuje klíčovou součást politik EU. Na seznam „zelených“ zdrojů energie se dostal také plyn. Evropští zelení, socialisté a levicová frakce v Evropském parlamentu stáli v čele progresivní fronty bojující za ještě ambicióznější opatření na ochranu klimatu. Protože však mají v Parlamentu menšinu, musí se při prosazování zelených politik spoléhat na nejistou podporu liberální frakce Renew.

Ačkoli Zelená dohoda pro Evropu přinesla některé těžce vydobyté pokroky v ochraně klimatu, její dosah zůstal omezený. Přijatá opatření nebyla dostatečně ambiciózní a zjevně ani nezaručovala sociálně spravedlivý přechod na klimaticky udržitelnou ekonomiku.

EPP se snaží nacionalisty porazit tím, že stále více kopíruje jejich politický styl a narativy. Tím je však ve skutečnosti jen posiluje.

Evropská lidová strana využila Zelenou dohodu k „ozelenění“ své image v době, kdy bylo téma ochrany klimatu populární. Získávala na něm politické body, aniž by přijala plně za svůj závazek k boji proti změně klimatu. Na prahu kampaně do evropských voleb v roce 2024 se však náhle staví na odpor i proti umírněným klimatickým politikám své vlastní Komise. Snahy o obnovu přírody evropští lidovci označují za protizemědělskou politiku, která podle nich povede ke snížení produkce potravin. Během projednávání návrhu zákona o obnově přírody v Evropském parlamentu proto opustili jednání. Politickou strategii EPP zjevně ovlivnil nedávný úspěch nizozemské agrární strany BoerBurgerBeweging (Hnutí zemědělců a občanů).

Zelení se tak dostali do složité situace. Ačkoli nepodpořili Komisi Ursuly von der Leyen, hlasovali pro některé její klíčové politiky týkající se ochrany životního prostředí. Proti těmto politikám nyní vytáhla EPP do boje a Zelení jsou tak nuceni bránit kroky, které sice považovali za pozitivní, ale málo ambiciózní. Vzhledem k rostoucímu politickému a mediálnímu tlaku proti klimatickým opatřením se nabízí otázka, jestli tak malé pokroky stojí za politický kapitál do nich investovaný. Hrozbu klimatického kolapsu máme stále na dohled a potřeba razantních opatření je každým dnem naléhavější.

Změnu postoje EPP vůči ochraně klimatu lze vnímat jako další kapitolu jejich radikalizace. Zatímco předsedkyně Komise von der Leyen nadále zastává pragmatický centrismus Angely Merkel, Manfred Weber prosazuje konzervatismus bavorského typu. EPP se snaží nacionalisty poraziti tím, že stále více kopíruje jejich politický styl a narativy. Tím je však ve skutečnosti jen posiluje.

Kdysi středopravicová strana se nyní svými postoji přiblížila národně-konzervativní frakci ECR (Evropští konzervativci a reformisté, kam patří česká ODS) i krajně pravicové ID (Identita a demokracie, zahrnuje českou SPD). Posílení pravicové tendence u lidovců je zřejmé napříč Evropou. V některých zemích, jako je Itálie nebo Švédsko, dokonce vynesli krajní pravici do vlády. Zatímco v minulosti se jednalo o určitý omezený proud uvnitř EPP, dnes je to její hlavní názorový směr, proti kterému se ohrazuje jen několik členů (především z Polska a frankofonní Belgie).

EPP ztratila smysl pro realitu a přijala popírání a radikalismus jako svou ideologii. Historická role křesťanské demokracie je tak dávno pryč. A to znamená velký problém pro budoucnost Evropské unie.

Při stávající podobě EU nelze evropské lidovce ignorovat. Současná rovnováha v Radě mezi EPP, socialisty a liberály nevyhnutelně povede k tomu, že příští Komise bude velkou koalicí. Pouze silná porážka radikalizované EPP v evropských volbách v roce 2024 a progresivnější Evropský parlament mohou vrátit EU na cestu k sociálnější a klimaticky šetrnější budoucnosti.

Mimo, że konserwatyści nadal dominują w Europie Wschodniej, większość nieliberalnych partii nie radzi sobie najlepiej. Jeśli postępowcom uda się zmobilizować elektorat w krajach o tradycyjnie niskiej frekwencji, wybory do UE w 2024 r. mogą stanowić punkt zwrotny.

Jeśli podzielimy UE na trzy regiony geograficzne, Europa Wschodnia będzie prawdopodobnie tym najbardziej konserwatywnym. W obecnym Parlamencie Europejskim ponad 60 procent deputowanych wybranych we wschodnioeuropejskich państwach członkowskich zasiada w konserwatywnych i prawicowych ugrupowaniach: Europejskiej Partii Ludowej (EPL), Europejskich Konserwatystach i Reformatorach (EKR) oraz Tożsamości i Demokracji (ID).

Konserwatywna orientacja Europy Wschodniej była również widoczna w Komisji von der Leyen i w tym, które obszary zostały przydzielone wschodnim komisarzom. Polska na przykład otrzymała rolnictwo, a konserwatyści z Chorwacji dostali nowo utworzoną komisję ds. demografii

Nawet jeśli prawicowi populiści są odsuwani od rządów w krajach Europy Wschodniej, często dzieje się tak za sprawą innych konserwatywnych sił. W październiku 2023 duet PiS Morawiecki-Kaczyński został pokonany w Polsce, podobnie jak partia Andrej Babiša w 2021 roku w Czechach. W obu przypadkach ich rywale wywodzili się z demokratycznej prawicy – Donald Tusk z EPL w Polsce i Petr Fiala z EKR w Czechach.

Europa Wschodnia będzie miała kluczowe znaczenie dla reorientacji nieliberalnych sił w tym bloku. Polski PiS przewodzi EKR od czasu Brexitu, ale w swoim kraju właśnie przeszedł do opozycji. Węgierski Fidesz zdecydował się opuścić EPL w 2021 r., woląc taki krok niż bycie z partii wydalonym. Proputinowska i populistyczna socjaldemokratyczna partia Smer na Słowacji została zawieszona w prawach członka Europejskich Socjalistów po wygraniu wyborów parlamentarnych we wrześniu. Czeska partia ANO byłego premiera Babiša jest w konflikcie z europejskimi liberałami z ALDE. Wszystkie te wydarzenia otwierają nieliberalny front dla nowych sojuszy na poziomie UE.

Jednak w przeciwieństwie do dominującej narracji, większość nieliberalnych partii w Europie Wschodniej nie radzi sobie najlepiej. Wartymi wspomnienia wyjątkami są Rumunia, gdzie skrajnie prawicowy AUR odnotowuje wyniki w sondażach na poziomie około 20%, oraz Łotwa, gdzie etniczna rosyjska nieliberalna Lewica dołączyła do etnicznego Łotewskiego Sojuszu Narodowego sytuowanego na skrajnej prawicy.

W 2024 r. największym wyzwaniem będzie to, jak nowa osoba, która stanie na czele Komisji Europejskiej poradzi sobie z kandydatami z Węgier i Słowacji.

W 2019 r. obawy o nieliberalnych komisarzy doprowadziły do nominacji Very Jourovej, rzadkiej liberałki w czeskiej ANO, lub długoletniego komisarza Maroša Šefčoviča ze słowackiego Smer-SD, który pomimo prowadzenia w swoim kraju kampanii przeciwko LGBT+ i prawom kobiet, cieszy się dobrą reputacją w Brukseli. W 2024 r. największym wyzwaniem będzie to, jak nowa osoba, która stanie na czele Komisji Europejskiej poradzi sobie z kandydatami z Węgier i Słowacji.

Podział Europy na północ, południe i wschód jest bardziej arbitralny pod względem geograficznym niż pod względem najnowszej historii politycznej. Wszystkie kraje Europy Wschodniej znajdowały się pod rządami komunistów przez większą część okresu 1945-1990

r. W latach po upadku muru berlińskiego socjaldemokracja weszła w szczytową fazę centryzmu Trzeciej drogi. Państwowe gospodarki w całej Europie Wschodniej zostały stopniowo zliberalizowane. Wraz ze znacznym osłabieniem systemów ochrony socjalnej, postkomunistyczna lewica na Wschodzie była dyskredytowana, kojarzona z neoliberalizmem i pogrążona w korupcji.

Doprowadziło to do sytuacji, w której radykalna prawica w Europie Wschodniej jest mniej neoliberalna i bardziej prospołeczna niż większość innych sił politycznych, obejmując częściowo przestrzeń ideologiczną, która normalnie byłaby zajmowana przez lewicę. Na przykład polski PiS w ciągu prawie 10 lat sprawowania władzy wprowadził kilka kluczowych środków redystrybucji gospodarczej, takich jak program Rodzina 500+, mający na celu zmniejszenie ubóstwa dzieci, czy obniżenie wieku emerytalnego.

W całym regionie obóz postępowy albo uległ stagnacji, albo stracił na znaczeniu. Tradycyjne partie socjaldemokratyczne straciły swoje miejsce, a postępowe siły liberalne nie zdołały zmobilizować swojego elektoratu – z trzema wyjątkami: Progresīvie na Łotwie, Možemo w Chorwacjii Związek Demokratów “Dla Litwy” (DSVL).

Progresīvie i Možemo zaoferowały najbardziej lewicowe programy, jakie przestrzeń demokratyczna widziała w ostatnich dziesięcioleciach na Łotwie i w Chorwacji, i osiągnęły ogromny sukces jak na tak młode partie: Progresīvie jest w rządzie, a Možemo kieruje Zagrzebiem, stolicą Chorwacji. W przeciwieństwie do swoich socjaldemokratycznych odpowiedników, partie te są oderwane zarówno od komunistycznej przeszłości, jak i neoliberalnej transformacji. Poprzez swoją pracę w samorządach udowodniły, że stanowią prawdziwą alternatywę.

DSVL jest partią bardziej centrową, o dość konserwatywnym stanowisku w kwestiach społecznych, podobnie jak większość litewskich sił politycznych. Jednak wszystkie te trzy partie mogą mieć wspólną europejską przyszłość: Progresīvie jest obecnie pełnoprawnym członkiem Europejskich Zielonych, a Mozemo i DSVL niedawno złożyły wnioski o członkostwo.

Jeśli rok 2024 ma przynieść bardziej postępową UE, Europa Wschodnia będzie kluczowym elementem tej wieloaspektowej walki.

Jeśli rok 2024 ma przynieść bardziej postępową UE, Europa Wschodnia będzie kluczowym elementem tej wieloaspektowej walki. Wschodnie państwa członkowskie będą na czele procesów reorganizacji przestrzeni prawicowej. Partie wschodnioeuropejskie w EPL są często jednymi z najbardziej postępowych i prodemokratycznych, i to one będą sprzeciwiać się potencjalnemu sojuszowi z EKR. Odwrotnie jest w przypadku Europejskich Socjalistów, gdzie ze Wschodu pochodzą bardziej konserwatywni członkowie.

Jeśli chodzi o Zielonych, w 2024 r. po raz pierwszy od 10 lat mogą ponownie mieć europosłów z Europy Wschodniej – Łotwy i Chorwacji. Wiele będzie zależeć od tego, czy postępowcy będą w stanie zmobilizować swój elektorat: podczas wyborów w 2019 r. tylko cztery kraje miały frekwencję poniżej 30%, wszystkie z Europy Wschodniej.

Since it was introduced a decade ago, the choice of the “Spitzenkandidaten” for the Commission presidency ahead of the EU elections has often been characterised as both technocratic and pointless. But the EU is no absolute monarchy: in democracy, choices are made through political compromise.

In the era of social media and infotainment, every political battle is narrated as a final reckoning that will either solve all problems or end the world. EU democracy, of course, is not immune to this maximalism. A good example of this trend is the debate surrounding the lead candidate process, through which European political parties nominate their contenders for the Commission presidency ahead of the EU elections. In 2019, when Ursula von der Leyen got the EU’s top job instead of Manfred Weber, the chosen candidate of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the entire process was pronounced dead.

And yet, five years later, it is alive and well. The Socialists have recently nominated Commissioner Nicolas Schmit; the Greens have elected their lead candidate duo, MEPs Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout; the Liberals and the Left are expected to make their choice soon; and the EPP will likely support Ursula von der Leyen for a second mandate. In the next months, lead candidates will campaign all over Europe on an electoral manifesto that unites their political family.

Clearly, the lead candidate process was more resilient than some expected. But is it also democratic?

Longstanding scepticism

Most states in the EU are based on parliamentarism, meaning that the parliament is at the centre of politics. The head of state – a president or a monarch – has restricted powers, and the government derives its democratic legitimacy from the parliament.

In parliamentary systems within the EU, heads of government (whether they are called prime minister, minister-president, president of the government or of the council of minister, chancellor, or taoiseach) are not elected into office directly by “the people”, but appointed by the head of state, usually after consulting the parliament.

The European Union is also a parliamentary system. The Commission president is the head of government, commissioners are the equivalent of government ministers, and the powers of the head of state lie with the European Council, which brings together the 27 national leaders.

That the names and roles of these institutions are sometimes confusing is not by chance. As with many things in European politics, the current institutional set-up is the result of compromise between those who wanted to build a European democracy and those, led by always-eurosceptic Britain, who preferred a European technocracy under the control of national powers. For every step that brought us closer to a more complete European democracy, the advocates of national sovereignty made sure to make the process more difficult to understand. Yes, Europe could have its own government, but it would be called a Commission and have limited authority. Sure, Europe could have its elected parliament, but without the power to directly initiate legislation.

For every step that brought us closer to a more complete European democracy, the advocates of national sovereignty made sure to make the process more difficult to understand.

When it comes to the election of the European Commission president, however, the process is in all respects similar to its national equivalent: EU citizens vote in the European elections, the European Council proposes a candidate based on the result, and then the European Parliament approves it.

In 2014 something changed. The lead candidate system was introduced to establish a clearer link between national parties of the same European political family, EU elections, and EU institutions. European-level political parties announced their candidates for President of the European Commission ahead of the vote and sent them campaigning across Europe.

The EPP and the Socialists selected Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz as their lead candidates. Smaller parties like the Liberals, Greens, and Left also chose their contenders. The EPP won the election, the main political parties agreed on a new grand coalition, and Juncker became President of the Commission. The process was repeated in 2019 with Manfred Weber (EPP) and Frans Timmermans (Socialists) as the top contenders for the presidency. The Liberals, Greens, Left and now also Conservatives followed suit with their nominees. Eventually, the EPP’s von der Leyen got the job, and obituaries for the whole process started to appear.

The process had been surrounded by scepticism even before 2019. Once again, language was part of the problem: many in the EU bubble and national media circles use the German “Spitzenkandidat” instead of the equivalent in their respective European language – lead candidate, candidat tête de liste, capolista, candidato principal, czołowy kandydat, and so on. This contributed to making the process sound complicated and inaccessible to EU voters.

In 2019, what brought von der Leyen to the helm of the Commission was not the failure of the process, but democratic parliamentarism in action. Unlike his predecessor, Weber was incapable of uniting a majority around him. Socialists and Liberals, and even parts of his own political family, did not trust him to become Commission president. This, together with the fact that the EPP had won the elections and that the Socialists refused to work towards finding an alternative majority, meant that the EPP was forced to find a different candidate.

Something similar had happened in Italy after the 2013 and 2018 elections. In both cases, the lead candidates of the parties that won the elections – the centre-left’s Pier Luigi Bersani and Luigi di Maio of the Five Star Movement, respectively – did not find a majority to form a government, leading to Enrico Letta and Giuseppe Conte becoming prime ministers. Italian democracy did not end because of this, and neither did European democracy in 2019.

Democracy in progress

Since 1979, when the first European elections took place, European democracy has evolved in small steps. The lead candidate system is one of them, and it will continue working as it has done for more than a decade.

To prepare for enlargement in the Western Balkans and further east in the next decade, the EU needs to strengthen its democratic achievements and become more reflective of its diversity.

Just like national democracies, European democracy is still flawed. EU election campaigns are nationally minded, European political parties do not get enough media attention, and their internal processes for choosing lead candidates are often untransparent or not representative of the Union’s diversity. The fact that most lead candidates for June’s elections come from either Germany or the Benelux (as was the case in previous elections too) shows that the process is controlled by party elites.

For 2024, the die is cast. But to prepare for enlargement in the Western Balkans and further east in the next decade, the EU needs to strengthen its democratic achievements and become more reflective of its diversity. As Altiero Spinelli said, totalitarianism is not the outcome of an incurable disease, but of an organism that renounces to defend itself. A healthy European democracy is the strongest guarantee against resurging nationalism and geopolitical turmoil.

Developments in southern Europe will influence the EU’s political trajectory in the years to come. If progressives are to challenge the Right’s dominance in Italy and Greece, they need to find unity in fragmentation, following the examples of Spain and Portugal.

In the big picture of European politics, Spain and Italy couldn’t be further away from each other. In Spain, the most left-wing EU government has reconfirmed a broad progressive majority, while in Italy a national-conservative government leads Europe’s reactionary movement. Yet, in terms of electorate, Spain and Italy are closer than a first look might suggest. In their last elections, the right-wing camp reached 44 per cent of the vote in Italy and 45 per cent in Spain.

The eurozone crisis happened, and the established ways of doing politics were broken.

The political landscape of both countries went through a significant fragmentation in recent years. In Spain, the socialist PSOE and the conservative PP used to attract 80 to 90 per cent of the vote. Similarly, the two broad coalitions led by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the centre-right Forza Italia (and their predecessors) would monopolise Italy’s electorate. Then the eurozone crisis happened, and the established ways of doing politics were broken.

Competition and radicalisation

In Spain, this shift led to a bigger plurality within the two main blocs. The Left’s more radical wing grew stronger and evolved from Izquierda Unida into Podemos and now Sumar; on the Right, PP had to compete and ally first with liberal-conservative UPyD and Ciudadanos, and then with far-right VOX.

A Spanish peculiarity is the strength of regional parties, which attract around 10 per cent of the vote. By forming alliances with national-centralist parties, the PP lost any chance of building coalitions with the regionalist right. This new reality helped socialist Pedro Sánchez form a government in 2018, and is now crystallised in a progressive camp stretching from the Left to the regionalist centre-right.

In Italy, plurality was always a given. What has changed is the balance of power within the Right; in 2018, the League’s Matteo Salvini (a regionalist turned nationalist) put an end to two decades of Silvio Berlusconi’s dominance; in 2022, post-fascist Brothers of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni was elected prime minister. The Right radicalised itself from within.

Meanwhile, the opposition is deeply divided between the centre-left PD, the Five Star Movement, and a fratricide centrist liberal camp. In an electoral system that rewards unity, the right-wing coalition won 60 per cent of the seats with just 44 per cent of the vote.

In the fragmented political landscape of both countries, it is no longer enough for centre-left and centre-right parties to convince the electorate to go to vote, instead of abstaining, and to persuade the few centrist voters to choose them instead of their rival. The path to victory is now about building alliances and motivating the electorate that a win is possible. In this new reality, Spanish progressives managed to rally voters against the threat of the far right, and to gather support from the regionalist centre-right. In Italy, a divided progressive camp allowed Giorgia Meloni to walk into power unopposed.

The rest of southern Europe has gone through equally substantial political changes in the last years. In Portugal, like in Spain, the right-wing camp, which had been united since the transition to democracy in the 1970s, is now marked by internal competition between the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Liberal Initiative (IL) and the far-right Chega, while parties on the Left, more used to multi-centrism, learned to cooperate.

In Greece, a consequence of the economic crisis has been lower turnout. The decline in voter participation (from 74 per cent in 2007 to 61 and 50 per cent in May and June 2023, respectively) has affected mostly the Left. Between 2009 and 2023, progressives lost almost 2 million votes, or half of their electorate, while the Right remained stable at around 2.7 million votes. This allowed conservative New Democracy to gain an absolute majority in 2023, even though the right camp is more radicalised and atomised than before: the far right, which had no party-political strength in the early 2000s, now represents more than half a million voters across three parliamentary parties (Greek Solution, Spartans, and Niki).

Implications for Europe

Can Europe have a progressive breakthrough in 2024? The answer will partly depend on the mobilisation of progressive voters in southern Europe, and which parties will be willing to be part of a progressive coalition that breaks the sectarianism of the current groups. As two of Europe’s largest countries, Spain and Italy will play a big role. The inclusion of Italy’s Five Star Movement in a European progressive camp might prove decisive.

Can Europe have a progressive breakthrough in 2024? The answer will partly depend on the mobilisation of progressive voters in southern Europe.

The role of the liberal camp cannot be underplayed either. While the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) freely flirts with the national conservatives for a new reactionary alliance, European liberals and centrists still refuse to position themselves clearly. In southern Europe, the liberal camp (when it exists) is small, but it’s still more conservative-liberal and right-wing than in the rest of the continent: in Spain, Ciudadanos led efforts to engage with the far right; in Italy, both Azione and Italia Viva behave more like conservatives than liberals.

Greens will have a key role too. Southern European Green parties currently have no representation in the EU Parliament, and their weight on EU politics has been minimal for decades. However, the green movement in Spain and Portugal has grown significantly in the last few years. Spain’s Sumar, which brings together Greens and progressive leftists, and Portugal’s LIVRE and PAN, could deliver a relevant Green delegation to Brussels. In Italy, Europa Verde has returned to parliament and has a chance of crossing the 4 per cent threshold. In Greece, the collapse of Syriza under a new centrist leadership could open the space for new progressive forces.

The four months that separate us from the European elections may already provide some answers. In February, Galicians in northwestern Spain will go to the polls for a regional election that could see a progressive alliance take power after 34 years of almost uninterrupted conservative government. In March, Portugal will hold early elections after a corruption scandal that brought down socialist Prime Minister António Costa. The question is whether Portuguese progressives will manage to mobilise their electorate after eight years of socialist governments, and whether the centre-right will keep its cordon sanitaire against the far right intact.

If we divide the EU into three geographical regions, eastern Europe is arguably the most conservative one. In the current EU Parliament, more than 60 per cent of the MEPs elected in eastern European member states sit in conservative and right-wing groups: the European People’s Party (EPP), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and Identity and Democracy (ID).

The conservative orientation of eastern Europe was also visible in the von der Leyen Commission and which policy areas were assigned to the eastern Commissioners, like Poland getting agriculture or Croatia’s conservatives getting the newly established demography portfolio.

Even when right-wing populists are ousted in eastern European countries, it is often by other conservative forces. Last month, Law and Justice’s (PiS) Morawiecki-Kaczyński duo was defeated in Poland, as was Andrej Babiš in 2021 in the Czech Republic. In both cases, their challengers came from the democratic Right – the EPP’s Donald Tusk in Poland and the ECR’s Petr Fiala in Czechia.

Eastern Europe will be key for the realignment of the bloc’s illiberal forces. Poland’s PiS has led the ECR since Brexit, but will now return to opposition domestically. Hungary’s Fidesz decided to leave the EPP in 2021, choosing to jump rather than be pushed. Slovakia’s pro-Putin, social-democratic populist party Smer has been suspended from the European Socialists after winning the parliamentary elections in September. The Czech Republic’s ANO party of former Prime Minister Babiš is at odds with the European liberals of ALDE. All these developments create an opening on the illiberal front for new alliances at EU level.

However, contrary to the dominant narrative, most illiberal parties across eastern Europe are struggling. Notable exceptions are Romania, where the far-right AUR is polling at around 20 per cent, and Latvia, where the ethnic Russian illiberal Left has joined the ethnic Latvian National Alliance on the far-right of the spectrum.

For 2024, the biggest challenge will be how the new EU Commission president deals with candidates from the likes of Hungary and Slovakia.

In 2019, the worry about illiberal commissioners also led to the nomination of Vera Jourova, a rare liberal in the Czech ANO, or long-time Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič from Slovakia’s Smer-SD, who, despite campaigning in his home country against LGBT+ and women’s rights, has a good reputation in Brussels. For 2024, the biggest challenge will be how the new EU Commission president deals with candidates from the likes of Hungary and Slovakia.

The division of Europe into north, south and east is more arbitrary geographically than it is in terms of recent political history. All eastern European countries were under Communist rule for most of the period between 1945 and 1990. In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, social democracy entered its peak Third Way centrism phase. State-managed economies throughout Eastern Europe were liberalised. With social protection systems much undermined, the post-communist Left in the East became discredited, associated with neoliberalism and mired in corruption.

This has led to the radical Right in eastern Europe being less neoliberal and more socially minded than most other political forces, covering in part an ideological space that would normally be claimed by the Left. Poland’s PiS, for example, has delivered during its almost 10 years in power some key economic redistribution measures, such as the Family 500+ programme to reduce child poverty and the lowering of the retirement age.

Across the region, the progressive camp has either stagnated or lost relevance. Traditional social-democratic parties have lost space and progressive liberal forces have not managed to capture their electorate – with three exceptions: Progresīvie in Latvia, Možemo in Croatia, and the Union of Democrats “For Lithuania” (DSVL).

Progresīvie and Možemo have offered the most left-wing programmes that the democratic space has seen in the last decades in Latvia and Croatia, and have achieved enormous success for such young parties: Progresīvie is in government and Možemo leads Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Unlike their social-democratic peers, these parties are detached from both the Communist past and the neoliberal transition. Through their work in city government, they have proven to be real alternatives.

DSVL is a more centrist party, with quite conservative positions on social issues, as most of Lithuania’s political forces. Yet the three parties might share a common European future: Progresīvie is now a full member of the European Greens, while Mozemo and DSVL have recently applied to join.

If 2024 is to deliver a more progressive EU, eastern Europe will be a key piece in that fight, and that fight is multifaceted.

If 2024 is to deliver a more progressive EU, eastern Europe will be a key piece in that fight, and that fight is multifaceted. Eastern EU members will lead the re-organisation of the right-wing space. In the EPP, eastern European parties are often among the most progressive and pro-democracy and will be the ones pushing back against a potential alliance with the ECR. The opposite is true for the European Socialists, whose more conservative members come from the East.

As for the Greens, in 2024 they could elect an MEP in eastern Europe again after 10 years, namely in Latvia and Croatia. Much will depend on whether progressives will be able to mobilise voters: in 2019, four countries had less than 30 per cent turnout, all in eastern Europe.

A striking mix of left-wing and centre-right separatists, along with advocates of regionalism, are the new kingmakers in Spain after an inconclusive general election this summer. Around Europe, separatist and nationalist forces are gaining influence. What could this trend mean for Europe and what role for the EU in addressing resurfacing questions around secession?

The July election has made representatives of regionalist, sovereignist, and separatist parties Spain’s new kingmakers. Comprising 39 MPs from a wide array of political parties, this influential group constitutes 11 per cent of the parliament. Its members include left- and right-wing Catalan and Basque separatists as well as other advocates of sovereignism and regionalism. With the left- and right-wing blocs both short of a majority, the election result has renewed attention to the political conflict over Catalonian independence as well as the uneasiness with which the Spanish system deals with its geographical plurality.

The nationalist movements in both Catalonia and the Basque Country are not recent. The unification of Spain only happened in the 16th century. As nation-building movements emerged throughout Europe during the 19th century, Basque and Catalan national sentiment also came to life. The independence question resurfaced in the public debate in the late 1970s when democracy was restored in Spain. After the armed Basque separatist group ETA ended its terrorist campaign in 2011, the question became one to be settled through democratic means. Today, parties that identify themselves as paving the way to independence, from both the left and the right of the political spectrum, receive two-thirds of the vote in the Basque Country – and 30 per cent in Navarra – and close to half in Catalonia.

The centre-right has traditionally represented these ambitions for independence. Their platforms brought together neoliberal economic politics that serve the interest of big capital in these two rich regions and a centrist approach open to deals with both the all-Spain centre-left PSOE and the right-wing Partido Popular. After the financial crisis of the late 2000s and as discontent with status-quo politics grew, left-wing pro-independence forces gained prominence. The Republic Left (ERC) in Catalonia currently leads the regional government, whereas Basque Country Unite (EH Bildu) recently became the biggest nationalist party across the Basque regions.

Unlike Canada and the UK, the Spanish government refuses to offer a legal and democratic pathway to independence. This stance led to the 2017 Catalonia political crisis, when the region unilaterally declared independence and the subsequent suspension of its autonomy. A return to stability has taken years, starting with the 2018 vote of no confidence in the right-wing government of Mariano Rajoy and with Pedro Sánchez becoming Spain’s prime minister with the support of Catalan independentist parties.

But Spain is not the only EU state where parties that question the national status quo have developed into key players.

On the island of Ireland, Sinn Féin has become the biggest party both in the North and South. Its rise has forced a previously unlikely coalition in the Republic of Ireland between two centrist establishment parties, to the extent that it now represents the alternative party of government. While the debate over Irish reunification will unlikely happen anytime soon, especially with the UK turning ever more to the right, the European Union needs to work towards a scenario that if a border poll happens and is favourable to reunification, then all democratic and peaceful paths towards that have all the necessary support from the Union.

Belgium is yet another case. Unlike Basque and Catalan nationalism, which exists across the entire political spectrum, Flemish nationalism today is a radical right-wing project represented by the right-wing Flemish National Alliance (NVA) and far-right Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang). This does not make it any less legitimate – the right to self-determination is a fundamental right that does not hinge on the arguments used to defend it – but it makes the discussion fundamentally different; we are not talking about a real debate over a national project but a debate over how an exclusive and racist nationalism can take power. The rise in Flemish nationalism is thus linked to the rise of the far-right and the radicalisation of the centre-right in other European countries. Belgium’s deadlock of constant grand coalitions which leaves little room for political alternatives has further fuelled its growth. In Flanders, like in other European countries, the path forward should be that of the isolation and defeat of the far-right, together with the revitalisation of Belgian democracy through alternatives within the democratic spectrum.

Post-war Europe has been characterised not only by the longest period of peace and democracy but also by the crystallisation of the nation-state model. The homogenisation of many European countries is one of the consequences of the Second World War, whether through the genocide of large parts of the population of European Jews and Roma or the enormous amounts of population transfers seen across Central and Eastern Europe. The collapse of Yugoslavia continued the trend. Today most states of the EU are nation-states without sizable national minorities, but there are exceptions.

The centre of politics has lost its monopoly over power in Europe. In Spain, this has brought forward a progressive coalition that includes its national diversity. In Ireland, it has opened a path to a future where a government can be anchored to the left of the political spectrum. In both countries, democratic politics has defeated violence as a path to achieve national independence and showed how through democratic participation the legitimate right to self-determination can be respected. A progressive future for the European Union passes through respecting these historical learnings. In Belgium, on the other hand, the politics of secession increasingly stands in the way of progressive majorities.

The EU, as a union of people, not only of states, has a role to play. This role is a recognition that these conflicts are long-lasting and that they need to be settled through democratic debate. The EU should also – as it did during the process of German re-unification – guarantee that no change in the borders of a member-state affects EU membership. Such clarity can help avoid a repeat of the abuses of 2014, when the Scots were told that leaving the United Kingdom meant leaving the European Union.

Looking to the future, the outcome of the negotiations around the July elections in Spain remains uncertain. The next federal elections in Belgium will take place on the same day as the European election in 2024. Ireland will vote in 2025. All we can say today is that the politics of borders, referendums and flags is back.

Five years ago, Yanis Varoufakis announced what he described as “Europe’s first-ever transnational list” to contest the 2019 European elections. The left-wing movement that emerged, European Spring, was nothing of the sort – it was simply an alliance of existing parties and new DiEM25-branded national parties with a common platform. Since then, the allied parties have gone their separate ways, with forces including Alternativet in Denmark, Génération.s in France, Lewica Razem in Poland, and LIVRE in Portugal remaining relevant actors in their respective countries. At the same time, the DiEM25-branded supposedly transnational parties never got off the ground. Only Varoufakis’s personal party MeRA25 in Greece entered the national parliament in 2019. It recently lost all its representation in the Greek elections in May and June.

Before and after Varoufakis, many have claimed to be building “Europe’s first-ever transnational party”, but this ambition goes against the very essence of what Europe and the European Union are.

Across the continent, European democracy was built at the national level. Typically, there was a national democracy, which then regionalised, devolving powers and legitimate institutions to lower levels. This trajectory is mirrored in how political parties work, with strong national parties with regional chapters wielding different levels of internal strength. There are some exceptions, like Germany, where the first elections happened at the state level and only then a national demos was built. Accordingly, the regional chapters of the national parties are particularly powerful in Germany.

The European Union as a political entity was not built that way, but as a technocratic project that was slowly democratised. Today the EU is the most developed example of a continental democratic system where sovereignty resides principally within its constituents.

Political parties at the European level were first established in the mid-1970s. Unlike their national counterparts that developed from centralised organisations towards the regional level, European parties are composed of national formations that operate where most of the policy competencies remain. Until 1979, there were not even European elections to contest and, until 1992, European parties had no legal existence. They were only officially recognised in 2004.

​Experiments such as DiEM25 and Volt made a correct diagnosis of what Europe is missing. But they failed to offer a real solution.

European parties thus have a double role: to build a nascent European democracy and to Europeanise the political debate, in their member parties and society. They also coordinate national parties and their representation in the European institutions.

This task is not straightforward or easy. Power tends to stay where power is, and European political parties work with the fact that both their national constituent parties and their associated parliamentary groups have more media visibility and greater resources to develop their activities. Even though the role of European political parties running in European elections is clear, there is still a bureaucratic straitjacket impeding their work. Intense rules control every aspect of their daily political life, and they suffer from a lack of media coverage (such weak and uninformed coverage that is worse than none at all).

Failed experiments

Many have tried to challenge this reality by creating centralised parties at the European level that exist in a unitary way across the continent. In the early 2000s, the pro-EU Newropeans and the conservative Libertas tried and failed. More recently DiEM25 and Volt did the same. While DiEM25 tried a composite version of centralised chapters together with existing national parties, Volt opted for a fully centralised structure which until recently denied any national deviations (until the Cypriot branch was forced to merge into an existing party).

Born out of the pro-EU post-Brexit movement, Volt made this European centralism and its proposals for European reform their single issue, leaving all other policy domains to a generic liberal progressive positioning. Yet, while successful in the Netherlands as a counterpoint to the prominence of Euroscepticism and thanks to an electoral system forgiving of new parties, it has failed to gather any relevant results in any other countries. Volt managed only to elect one MEP in Germany – where the 0.67 per cent result is enough to elect – and two MPs in Bulgaria in a six-party anti-corruption coalition in November 2021 (after the most recent election, that number has gone down to a single MP).

What DiEM25 and Volt failed to understand is that Europe and the European Union are complex realities, whose regional differences are key to its success. In trying to build a centralised top-down party, they went against the essence of European politics, which assembles these different realities.

This need for a strong decentralised party structure is not unique to European politics. Federal countries such as the US, Canada, India and Australia all have political parties composed of alliances of regional structures that share the same broad values but with their distinguishing characteristics. No one looks at how the US Democratic Party spans the progressivism of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the conservatism of Joe Manchin and thinks that there is no US federal politics because of the gulf between them.

The recent conservative push to torpedo the EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law has shown that European debates based on ideology, not nationality, already exist.

In the same way, Europe needs to grow out of national-based discussions and considerations. This process may be slow, but it is steadily advancing. Political debates have grown more European, while political decisions have stayed national. In attempting a jump to the European level, ​​experiments such as DiEM25 and Volt made a correct diagnosis of what Europe is missing. But they failed to offer a real solution. Their centralised models turned out to be detached from Europe’s varied social and political realities. Focusing on a single issue, they failed to bring anything new and their continuous electoral defeats show as much.

A more democratic Union

To build a genuinely transnational democracy, we need to develop European structures that nevertheless respect Europe’s plurality. ​​The recent conservative push to torpedo the EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law has shown that European debates based on ideology, not nationality, already exist.

Now we must break down the obstacles that stop this dynamic from developing further. We need a stronger Europe-focused media; clarity in the lead candidate process for European elections; a politicised European Commission, transitioning from politicians-playing-bureaucrats to an actual European government not afraid of nor forbidden from doing politics; the introduction of transnational lists for the European Parliament to Europeanise political debate; the removal of the bureaucratic straitjacket that prevents existing European political parties from doing pan-European politics; and the primacy of parliamentary democracy against the nationalistic thinking of the European Council.

Many parts of the world have tried to develop continental democratic structures that bring together diverse national realities. While the European Union is flawed, it is the best and strongest example of continental democracy. As the world faces more and more global challenges, the future of Europe will be that of democratising and strengthening its transnational characteristics. The 2024 European elections will be another step in that direction.

Once an opportunistic supporter of the European Green Deal, the EPP is now leading a backlash against climate politics, as its opposition to a nature restoration law most recently shows. Throughout Europe, former centre-right parties have thrown the doors of government wide open to the far right.

In 2019 the Greens had a major victory. Representing around 10 per cent of the European electorate, the new Green Group in the European Parliament was the biggest ever – going from 50 to 74 MEPs election-to-election. In the years that followed, Greens entered most of the governments in North-Western Europe, including Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Austria in addition to Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden.

However, their biggest victory was not measurable by electoral results: the general public debate had firmly turned onto topics championed by the Greens in the past decade. The immense, mostly youth-led climate movement had managed to put the climate crisis on the political agenda, and most parties in the democratic spectrum wanted to claim political ownership of the topic.

In 2020, the new European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen – and supported by the grand coalition of the EPP, Socialists and Liberals – introduced the European Green Deal. This broad range of policy initiatives became the flagship policy for the 2019 to 2024 mandate, with the goal to make the EU climate neutral by 2050. The Green Deal defeated objections from Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and passed in the Parliament with 67 per cent in favour.

But while the climate movement and the Greens managed to make the European Green Deal a needed reality, the political strength hasn’t been there to make it actually Green. The Common Agricultural Policy, a key part of the EU’s action, was not made compatible with the European Green Deal goals, and gas was labelled as a “green” energy source. In the European Parliament the Greens, Socialists and Left have led a progressive front defending climate action. However, as they are a minority in the chamber, they need the unreliable centrists in the Renew Group to pass Green policies.

Though the European Green Deal has brought some hard-won advances on climate policy, it has lacked in scope. Not only has it not been ambitious enough, but it has clearly fallen short of guaranteeing a socially just transition.

The EPP is increasingly copying the style and narratives of nativists in order to defeat them – while in reality it only makes them stronger.

The EPP has used the EU Green Deal to green its image when the issue was popular, reaping the benefits without fully committing to the fight against climate change. However, with the campaign for the 2024 elections underway, the party is leading a backlash even against the more moderate policies of its own Commission President. Lately, the party has been arguing that increasing nature restoration efforts is an anti-farming policy and would “lead to less food production”. So it has left negotiations in the European Parliament on the Commission’s nature restoration proposal. The recent success of the Dutch agrarian BoerBurgerBeweging party (the Farmer-Citizen Movement) clearly had an impact on the EPP’s political strategy.

This has put the Greens in an awkward place. While they did not support the von der Leyen Commission, they have backed some of its key policies regarding environmental protection. With the EPP is now turning against those same key policies, the Greens are forced to defend what they see as positive but moderate steps forward. As the party of climate politics, and as the pressure of the political and mediatic centre against climate action grows, the question will again be if small advances are worth the political capital invested in it. Climate breakdown is not getting any more distant, and every day the action needed is bigger.

This change in the EPP’s position is another episode of its radicalisation. While President von der Leyen still shows the pragmatic centrism of Angela Merkel, Manfred Weber pushes for Bavarian-style conservatism. The EPP is increasingly copying the style and narratives of nativists in order to defeat them – while in reality it only makes them stronger.

The once centre-right EPP Group has aligned its policy position in the European Parliament with the national-conservative ECR and the far-right ID. Across Europe it has firmly turned to the right, while bringing the far-right into power in countries such as Italy and Sweden. While this was in the past an internal conflict within the EPP, it is now its mainstream, with just a few members (primarily the Polish and francophone Belgian parties) showing resistance.

The EPP has lost track of reality and has embraced denialism and radicalism as an ideology. The historical role of Christian-democracy is long gone. And this poses a major problem for the future of EU.

As it is designed today, the EU makes it impossible to ignore the EPP. The current balance in the Council between EPP, Socialists and Liberals will inevitably make the next Commission a grand coalition. Only a strong defeat of a radicalised EPP in the 2024 European elections and a more progressive European Parliament can put the EU back on track for a more social and climate-friendly future.