Political Landscape of Europe. The Spectre of Geopolitical Solitude
Alexey Gromyko
Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Institute of Europe (RAS)
In recent months the events confirm the trend of the West undergoing political fragmentation accompanied by increasing contradictions between the US and its allies as well as among different groups of European countries. The White House has shifted to the principle of transactional relations with its partners. The results of the G7 summit in Canada have become one more evidence of this novelty. The approaches to relations with Russia have become a factor in the West’s transformation. Another one is the evolution of New Populism. Considering the changes taking place in the world and increasing uncertainties, the importance of Russia's efforts to consolidate a number of Eurasian integration projects is growing.
Perceptions of the main challenges to the stability of the conventional state of the world are changing as rapidly as the events themselves. The political establishment in the United States still sets the tone in shaping these perceptions in the West, although the uniformity of the Euro-Atlantic region is withering away. An obvious example is the G7 summit in Quebec in June, which ended in fiasco with Donald Trump withdrawing his signature from the final communiqué. The refusal was accompanied by harsh criticism of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, whom Trump accused of lying and undermining the agreements1 reached in La Malbaie.
Deconstruction of the Liberal West
The liberal part of the European political establishment continues to nourish hope that the current US behavior is temporary phenomenon, not a long-term trend. The increasing contradictions between the two shores of the Atlantic are most painful for orthodox Atlantists, most vocal in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Sweden. As Britain withdraws from the EU, a number of European countries aspire for more United States in the Old continent. However their desire is checked by a person who is supposed to symbolize the US – Donald Trump. So some of the America’s European acolytes are ready to bow their heads in acceptance even of this twist of history. Others view the neoliberal opposition to Trump as their mirror and wait for their return.
For European pragmatists represented by such countries as Germany and France, Spain and Belgium, the contradictions, accumulating with Washington, serve as a signal for more independent stance and for the transformation of the EU into an autonomous player on the international scene. Berlin and Paris, supported by Rome, are pursuing a proactive policy of developing the military-political instruments of the EU and strengthening the capacity of the national military-industrial complexes.
The other category of EU member states – Italy, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, partly Bulgaria and the Czech Republic – countries with strong populist movements and Eurosceptic sentiments, are gaining more influence. The prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, assuming the post for the fourth time last May, addressed the Parliament stating that the era of liberal democracy had come to an end and called for replacing it with 21>st century Christian democracy2. The confrontation with ideological rivals plays into his hands. The decision of the Central European University, sponsored by George Soros, to relocate from Budapest to Vienna became a symbol of this. If previously Orban was routinely portrayed by the liberal press as a political renegade and an outcast, now the flow of events in Europe shows that his personality, like many others, testifies to profound changes in the European thinking and reflects large-scale socio-economic changes. As a result, the established party political systems experienced a profound change.
In discourse on the liberal international order and New Populism, Britain is a special case. Its home-grown Euroscepticism has gone much further than in Hungary, Greece or Italy. It not only brought Eurosceptics to power, but also caused a political earthquake in the form of Brexit. However, the country's political elite, in spite of all its connivance to populism and strategic miscalculation, continues to portray itself as a genuine pillar of the liberal international order. To make these mutually exclusive attitudes compatible – the exit from the EU and leading positions in the Euro-Atlantic region, the British authorities have been engaged in incredible adventurism, including the Skripal case. Despite all the differences, the nature of populism in Britain is largely the same as in the US, Italy, France or Germany – the protracted stagnation in the middle-class income and the increase of social inequality. For example, according to the British Trade Union Congress, after the 2008–2009 world economic crisis the average real wages of British workers remain lower than 10 years ago, and will not return to the pre-crisis level until 20253.
The Advent of New Populism
New Populism has ceased to be a marginal phenomenon and has turned into a mainstream one. Euroscepticism, one of its currents, which until recently was an abusive term, now is an official policy of forces at the helm of power. The new prime minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte is at the head of the first Italian entirely populist government, formed by representatives of the Five Star Movement and the League. This government is unique in bringing together left and right populism, the genesis of which is very different, but the approaches to solving a number of transnational problems are similar. The concept of empire4 was once rehabilitated in the Western historical and political literature to the extent of the rhetoric of “benevolent empire”, especially in the US. At present the notion of “populism” is being rehabilitated as well. This is exactly what G. Conte stated in the Senate of the Italian Parliament on 5 June, indicating that the new government has nothing against being called populist in case it means respecting the views of the citizens.
Indeed, populism in the traditional meaning is the preserve of small parties and, consequently, of small groups of population. However, almost 50 % of the citizens, who came to the polling stations at the election on 4 March, voted for the “Five Stars” and the League, which converted to a substantial majority of mandates in the parliament. In Italy and in a growing number of other European states New Populism becomes the pool of opinions expressed by the majority or a significant part of the population. As a result the former mainstream parties trade places with their opponents, thus becoming populist themselves and yielding mainstream ground to the new opinion formers.
