Combating Europe's National Populists: Shielding the Less Well-Off from the Winds of Transformation

More than a twelve months following the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

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

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.