EUROPE’S CENTER ISN’T HOLDING ANYMORE Despite recent election wins for moderates in the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K., the far right is stronger than ever. By TIM ROSS in Jaywick, England Illustration by Merijn Hos for POLITICO In recent elections, voters in Europe have given hope to embattled centrist politicians across the Western world.   Donald Trump may have romped back into the White House, but the international movement of MAGA-aligned populists has run into trouble across the Atlantic. At elections in the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania — and in a sprawling vote across 27 EU countries for the European Parliament — mainstream candidates defeated populist hardliners and far-right nationalists.  “There remains a majority in the center for a strong Europe, and that is crucial for stability,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, after the EU Parliament elections last year. “In other words, the center is holding.”   Sixteen months later, that hold is looking anything but secure.    Hard-right and far-right politicians are now leading the polls in France, the U.K. and even Germany. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating is a dire 21 percent. His French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, is even lower, at 11 percent — and the mood is so grim that this fall’s spectacular theft at the Louvre is being treated by some as a giant metaphor for a country unable to manage its challenges.   Even von der Leyen’s own EU conservatives now rely on the votes of far right lawmakers to get her plans approved in Brussels. One outraged centrist likened the shift to those German politicians who enabled Adolf Hitler to take power. Populists at the extremes, meanwhile, cast themselves as the obvious alternative for populations that want change. And now they can expect Trump to help: In a brutal rupture of transatlantic norms, a new U.S. National Security Strategy aims to use American diplomacy to cultivate “resistance” to political correctness in Europe — especially on migration — and to support parties it describes as “patriotic.” Trump himself told POLITICO he would endorse candidates he believed would move Europe in the right direction. On that rightward trajectory, in the next four years the political map of the West faces its most dramatic upheaval since the Cold War. The implications for geopolitics, from trade to defense, could be profound.   “What [Europeans are] getting from Trump is the strategy of maximum polarization that hollows out the center,” said Will Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute, the centrist American think tank that backed Bill Clinton in the 1990s. “The old established parties of left and right that dominated the post war era have gotten weaker,” he said. “The nationalist or populist right’s revolt is against them.”  Nowhere is this recent transformation more dramatic than in the U.K.   As the sun sinks toward the horizon over a calm sea one Thursday evening in November, half a dozen regulars huddle around the bar in the Never Say Die pub, a few yards from the beach at Jaywick Sands, on the east coast of England.   Built in the 1930s as a resort 70 miles from London, Jaywick is now the most deprived neighborhood in the country. The area had such a bad image that in 2018 a U.S. MAGA ad used a photograph of a dilapidated Jaywick street to warn of the apocalyptic future facing America if Trump’s candidates were not elected.   Jaywick was named England’s most deprived neighbourhood in October — for the fourth time since 2010. | Tolga Akmen/EPA It is here among the pebbledashed bungalows and England flags hanging limp from lampposts that a new political force — Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK — has built its heartland.   At the bar, Dave Laurence, 82, says he doesn’t vote, as a rule, but made an exception for Farage, who was elected to represent the area last year. “I quite like him. He’s doing the best he can,” Laurence says as he sips his pint of lager, with ’80s pop hits playing in the background. “I’ll vote for him again.”  Laurence freely describes himself as “racist” and says he would never vote for a Black person, such as the center-right Conservative Party’s leader Kemi Badenoch. What troubles him most, he says, is the number of immigrants who have arrived in the U.K. during his lifetime, especially those crossing the Channel in small boats. Soon, Laurence fears, the country will be “full of Muslims and they’ll fucking rebel against us.”  With its anti-establishment, immigration-fighting agenda, Farage’s Reform UK offers voters a program tightly in tune with far-right parties that have gained ground across the West. According to opinion polls, Farage now has a real chance of becoming the U.K.’s next prime minister if the vote were held today. (A general election is not due until 2029).   It’s startling to note that as recently as July 2024, Starmer’s Labour Party won a historic landslide and some of his triumphant election aides traveled to the U.S. to advise Democrats on strategy. Today, Starmer is derided as “First Gear Keir” as he fights off leadership rivals rumored to be trying to oust him. And Reform isn’t the only force remaking British party politics. To the left of Labour, the Greens have also made recent gains in the polls under a new leader calling himself an “eco-populist.”   Farage’s stunning rise from the sidelines to the front of a political revolution carries lessons well beyond Britain’s borders. Europeans raised in the old school of mainstream politics fear that the traditional centerground — their home turf — will not hold.   ‘DURABLY UNSTABLE’   Macron, for his part, tried to counter the rise of the hard right by calling a snap election for the French National Assembly last year. The gamble backfired, delivering a hung parliament that has been unable to agree on key economic policies ever since. Macron is now historically unpopular.   French lawmakers’ clashes over the budget have toppled three of Macron’s picks as prime minister since the summer of 2024. A backlash against his plan to raise the pension age has forced ratings agencies to mull a damaging downgrade. Macron, who himself became president by launching a new centrist movement to rival the political establishment, now has no traditional party machinery to help bolster his position. “He’ll leave a political landscape that is perhaps durably unstable. It’s unforgivable,” said Alain Minc, an influential adviser and former mentor to the French president.  The chaos gives populists their chance. The main politicians making any running in conversations about the next presidential election belong to the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen and its youthful party president Jordan Bardella, who are riding high in the polls at 34 percent.   In Germany, too, the center ground is steadily eroding.   Though Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives won a snap election in February, his ideologically uneasy coalition, which consists of his own conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), holds one of the slimmest parliamentary majorities for a government since 1945, with just 52 percent of seats. That leaves the Merz coalition vulnerable to small defections within the ranks and makes it hard for him to achieve anything ambitious in government. The far-left Die Linke party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) both surged at the last election, too, with AfD winning the best result in a national election for any far-right party since World War II.  Merz’s attempt to defang the AfD by moving his conservatives sharply to the right on the issue of migration seems to have backfired. The AfD has only continued its rise, surpassing Merz’s conservatives in many polls.   The rise of the far-right is a cultural shock to many centrist Germans, given the country’s deeply entrenched desire to avoid repeating its past. “For a long time in Germany we thought with our history, and the way we teach in our schools, we would be a bit more immune to that,” one concerned German official said. “It turned out we are not.”   Even in the Netherlands, where centrist Rob Jetten won a famous but narrow victory over the far-right firebrand Geert Wilders in October, there are reasons for mainstream politicians to worry. Wilders’ Freedom Party is still one of the biggest forces in the land, winning the same number of seats as Jetten’s D66. He could well return next time, just as Trump did in the U.S.   WHERE DID ALL THE VOTERS GO?   According to polling firm Ipsos, a large proportion of voters in many Western democracies now have little faith in the political process. While they still believe in democratic values, they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working for them.   A large survey questioning around 10,000 voters across nine countries found 45 percent were dissatisfied, fueling support for the extremes. Among voters on the far left (57 percent) and the far right (54 percent), levels of dissatisfaction were highest of all.   The countries with the highest rates of dissatisfaction in the Ipsos study were France and the Netherlands, where political upheaval has taken its toll on faith in the system.   Anti-riot police officers stand next to a demonstration called by far-right activist Els Rechts against the Netherlands’ current asylum policy, in September in The Hague. | Josh Walet/ANP via Getty Images Alongside the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of lockdowns, the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction were the cost of living, immigration and crime, according to Gideon Skinner from Ipsos. Trust in politics fell in the 90s and took another hit in the late 2000s at the time of the financial crash, he said.   “There may be specific things that have made it worse over the last couple of years but it’s also a long-term condition,” Skinner told POLITICO. “It’s something we do need to worry about and there is not a silver bullet that can fix it all.”  Perhaps the greatest problem for incumbent centrists is that in most cases their economies are so moribund that they lack the fiscal firepower to spend money addressing the issues disillusioned voters care about most — like high living costs, ailing public services and migration.  THE INEQUALITY EMERGENCY   The financial crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020-21 left many governments strapped for cash. In the U.K., for example, the economy was 16 percent smaller than it should have been a decade after the 2008 crash if prior growth trends had continued, according to Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London.   “Crucially, the impact of the financial crisis, like the impact of so much else in our politics, was massively unequal,” Menon said. “Prosperous places with high productivity, with well-educated workforces suffered far, far less than poorer parts of the country.”   Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz submitted a study to the G20 in November warning that the world was facing an “inequality emergency.” Fueled by war, pandemic and trade disruptions, the crisis risks preparing the ground for more authoritarian leaders, his report said.   In many Western countries, the centerground is more than just a metaphor. It is in capital cities like London, Paris and Washington that power and money accumulate and the economic and political elites seek to maintain their grip on the status quo.   The further you travel from these centers out to areas in decline, the more likely you are to find support for radical politics.   As Menon notes, Britain’s 2016 revolution — the referendum vote to leave the European Union after almost half a century of membership — can be mapped onto the culinary geography of the country.   “Pret a Manger” is a smart national chain of sandwich and coffee shops, catering for hungry commuters and office workers in wealthy, successful British cities. “Places that had a Pret voted Remain,” Menon said. Parts of the U.K. where median wages were lower were disproportionately likely to vote to leave the EU.   IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned, as Farage rides a wave of headlines about irregular migrants landing in small boats from France.   From January to May this year, there were a record 14,800 small boat crossings, 42 percent more than in the same period in the previous year, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.   For Laurence, in the Never Say Die pub, the small boats represent the biggest issue of all. “What’s going to happen in 10 years’ time? What’s going to happen in 20 years’ time when the boat people are still coming over?” he asked.   A decade ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving into Europe from Syria, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. The AfD surged in the months that followed, permanently changing German politics. At February’s election, the AfD won a record 21 percent of the vote, finishing in second place behind Merz’s conservative bloc.  “The fundamental failure that is common to the whole [centrist] transatlantic community is on immigration,” said Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute. “All of the far-right movements have made it their top issue.”   It is the perceived threat that waves of migration pose to traditional national cultures which drives much of the support for the far right. Trump’s White House is now primed to join the European nationalists’ fight. According to a new U.S. National Security Strategy document released in December, Europe is facing “civilisational erasure” from unrestricted immigration, as well as falling birthrates. The analysis draws on the so-called great replacement theory, a racist conspiracy theory. Free speech — in the MAGA definition, at least — is another casualty of conventional centrist rule in Europe, as political correctness veers into “censorship,” the U.S. document said. Protesters demostrate under the motto “Loud against Nazis” in early February in Berlin. After years of decline, The Left party  pulled off a stunning revival in the general election later that month. | John MacDougall via AFP/Getty Images In his interview with POLITICO earlier this week, Trump aligned himself fully with the strategy paper. European nations are “decaying” and their “weak” leaders can expect to be challenged by rivals with American support, he said. “I’d endorse,” he added. In Brussels, the double-punch of the president’s interview and the strategy document left diplomats and officials feeling bruised and alarmed all over again, after a period in which they allowed themselves to hope that the transatlantic alliance wasn’t dying. One EU diplomat was blunt in assessing Trump’s new method: “It’s autocracy.” THE STOLEN JEWELS  Sometimes, it takes a random news event — ostensibly unconnected to politics — to crystalize the national mood. In Paris, the theft of France’s priceless crown jewels from the Louvre provided just such an opportunity, morphing into an indictment of an establishment that can’t get the job done, even when the job simply involves thoroughly locking the windows at the world’s most famous museum. National Rally leader Jordan Bardella called the incident a “humiliation” before asking: “How far will the breakdown of the state go?”   In Britain, just a month after Starmer’s victory last year, riots broke out across the country, fueled by far-right extremists. The catalyst was the murder of three young girls aged 6, 7 and 9, in Southport, northwest England, by a Black teenager wrongly identified at the time on social media — in posts amplified by the far-right — as a Muslim.   At the time, Farage suggested the police were withholding the truth about the suspect, earning him the fury of mainstream politicians. While stressing he did not support violence, Farage railed against what he called “two-tier policing,” a phrase popular among far-right commentators who claim police treat right-wing protesters more harshly than those on the left.  It’s an opinion that resonates in Jaywick. Chennelle Rutland, 56, is walking her two dogs along the beachfront, admiring the view as the sun sets, flaring the sky orange, then purple. The colors catch the surface of the flat sea. “It’s one rule for one and one rule for the other,” she says. “The whites have got to shut up because if you do say anything, you’re ‘racist’ and ‘far right.’”   Far-right activist Tommy Robinson invited his supporters to attend the “Unite The Kingdom” rally in September. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images It would be wrong to characterise residents of Jaywick as simply ignorant or full of rage. Many who spoke to POLITICO there were cheerful, happy with their community and up to speed with the news. But, just as they’d soured on their country’s centrist establishment, they were also tuning out its favored news sources.   In Jaywick, some of Farage’s voters prefer GB News, Britain’s answer to Fox News, which launched in 2021, or learn about current affairs from YouTube and other social media. The BBC — for decades the mainstay of the British media landscape — has lost a portion of its audience here. Right-wing commentators and politicians attack it as biased. Trump has lately joined in, threatening to sue over a BBC edit that he said deceptively made it look as if he was explicitly inciting violence. The BBC’s director general and head of news both resigned. In the process, another piece of Britain’s onetime centerground was giving way.   WHAT NEXT?   There are reasons for centrists to hope. In Rome, Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party has become less extreme in power, and the worst fears of moderates about a group with its historic roots in neo-fascism have not come to pass. She remains popular, and while pushing a culture war at home, she has avoided the wrath of the EU leadership and kept Trump onside.   Populists and nationalists don’t always win. Trump lost in 2020. In the Netherlands, Wilders lost in October this year, though only by a whisker. Romania’s Nicușor Dan won the presidency as a centrist in May, but again only narrowly defeating his far-right opponent.   Structural obstacles may also slow the radicals’ progress. The U.K.’s first-past-the-post voting system makes it hard for new parties to do well. The two-round French system has so far stopped Le Pen’s National Rally from gaining power as centrists combine to back moderates. In Germany, a similar “firewall” exists under which center parties keep the far-right out.   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned. | Tolga Akmen/EPA Even as he enjoys a sustained lead in the polls and wins local elections in the U.K., Farage has not convinced voters that Reform would do a good job. Even some of his supporters worry he will be out of his depth in government.   The problem, for the centrists who are in power, is that a lot of voters seem to think they, too, are out of their depth. And, whether that involves dealing with migration, combatting inequality, or just boosting the security around the Mona Lisa, it’s a reputation they’ll need to fix in order to survive — no easy task given the intractability of the challenges facing the rich world.  The next year will see more elections at which the centrists — and their populists rivals — will be tested. In Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, long seen as the far-right bad boy of EU politics, is fighting to keep power at an election expected in April. There are regional votes in Germany where the AfD is on track to prosper. France may require yet another snap election to end its political paralysis. Trump’s diplomats and officials will be ready to intervene. Farage’s party, too, will be on the ballot in 2026: It is expected to make gains in Wales, Scotland and local votes elsewhere next spring. After that, his sights will be on the U.K. general election expected in 2029, by which time European politics may look very different.   “Of course I know Mr. Orban and of course I know Giorgia Meloni, of course I know these people,” Farage told POLITICO at a recent Reform rally. “I suspect that after the next election cycle in Europe there will be even more that I know.” Natalie Fertig in Washington, Clea Caulcutt in Paris and James Angelos in Berlin contributed to this report.  

Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from the latest session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through. What they sparred about: The budget. Yes, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ second financial statement might not be until next week, but that didn’t stop Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch from having a trial run and probing Prime Minister Keir Starmer about what might, or might not, appear from the red box. Sum confusion: Badenoch unsurprisingly started on the income tax U-turn, where Reeves decided to break Labour’s manifesto promise on hiking income tax — before U-turning on that (still with us?). Why did Starmer “float increasing income tax rates only to then U-turn on it all after the actual budget?” The PM, eager to spot a gotcha, reminded Badenoch the budget was “actually next week,” but ducked the substance. To be fair: No prime minister or chancellor generally chats about the budget in public until it’s been delivered. But Reeves set a new precedent earlier this month by giving a “scene setter” speech in Downing Street, which rolled the pitch for raising income tax in all but name. Pressing the point: “We’ve read all about it in the papers,” Badenoch cried, saying this fall’s budget was the first “to unravel before it’s even been delivered.” The Tory leader interrogated Starmer on whether the freeze on income tax thresholds (a way of dragging people into higher tax bands and getting more revenue) would be extended. Cross the bingo card: The PM, eager to avoid any premature rabbits out of the hat, reiterated that the budget was next week but promised “what we won’t do is inflict a borrowing spree like Liz Truss.” Britain’s shortest-lived occupant in No. 10 continues to live in her successor but one’s head rent-free. Guessing game: Aware, er, no answer was forthcoming on the freeze, Badenoch dared to have another go. The PM was having none of that, stating she “speculates and distorts” and wished to go “back to the same failed experiment.” Badenoch threw the charge back at him, arguing, “the only people who have been speculating are his government every day for the last three months.” That’s a lucky escape for the political obsessives of all stripes across the land. Biting words: The Tory leader had one last go at getting a response on thresholds, flagging that Reeves pledged to unfreeze them in the Commons. “If she breaks such a clear promise, how can the public trust a word she says next week?” Starmer stepped aside from the specific charge, throwing back Badenoch’s time as a Treasury minister “during the worst decline in living standards on record.” Helpful backbench intervention of the week: Normanton and Hemsworth MP Jon Trickett lambasted the last government’s record on inequality and austerity, pleading with the PM to eliminate economic injustice in the budget. Starmer, pleased to receive an easy question from the often Labour rebel, happily obliged. Totally unscientific scores on the doors: Starmer 6/10. Badenoch 6/10. The exchanges were an underwhelming pre-budget joust ahead of the real action next week. The Tory leader rightly pointed out the carnage around the non-income tax rise and all but penciled in a frozen threshold extension. Starmer, naturally, kept her requests on ice and rehashed anti-Tory talking points. Whatever anyone thinks of the budget’s contents, we’ll all be glad when it’s out in the open.

The problem of inequality has become so pressing that it needs coordinated global action to address it, a group of over 500 economists and scientists said on Friday. The group, which includes former Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen along with French economist Thomas Piketty and Nobel Prize winner Daren Acemoglu, called in an open letter for the creation of a body akin to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to coordinate action against what it saw as disastrous effects on modern society. “We are profoundly concerned, as they are, that extreme concentrations of wealth translate into undemocratic concentrations of power, unravelling trust in our societies and polarising our politics,” read the letter, referring to the findings of a G20 research committee led by noted American economist Joseph Stiglitz. Just last week, shareholders of electric vehicle company Tesla voted to award the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, a pay package potentially worth $1 trillion, the largest in history. Musk, also the owner of social media platform X, is already the richest man in the world. The IPCC has spearheaded the collection and dissemination of the scientific consensus on climate change over the past four decades and acted as a powerful force to push green policy forward. The economists said a new “International Panel on Inequality” would play a similar role, gathering evidence and pushing governments to act to tackle wealth gaps.  The proposal was first contained in a recent report on inequality authored by a G20 research committee led by Stiglitz, who focused on inequality in his time as chief economist at the World Bank in the 1990s. The report found that between 2000 and 2024, the richest 1 percent of humanity had accumulated 41 percent of all new wealth — versus the 1 percent that had gone to the bottom half of the global population. That’s equal to an average gain of $1.3 million for the top 1 percent, versus $585 for people in the poorest half. There have been marked political consequences of these large differences between the rich and the poor, with the report finding that countries with high levels of inequality were “seven times more likely to experience democratic decline than more equal countries.”  Stiglitz said in an interview with POLITICO that the growing gap between rich and poor is evidence that the past four decades of middle-of-the-road governance on both sides of the Atlantic has failed. Populists across the West, including U.S. President Donald Trump, had seized the moment, playing on the grievances that failure had stoked, he said.  “I do think that centrist politicians on both sides of the Atlantic bought into the neoliberal fantasy that if you had trade liberalization, financial liberalization, privatization, you would have more growth, and trickle-down economics would make sure that everyone would benefit,” said Stiglitz.  He praised the recent victory of the Democratic Socialist mayor-elect of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who he said was addressing people’s everyday concerns, in contrast to politicians of both the center-left and center-right. Mamdani, who last week surged to victory after defeating both Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa, ran a strikingly effective media campaign centered on the city’s spiraling cost of living. His platform included promises to provide free bus travel, state-owned supermarkets and rent-controlled apartments.   Stiglitz, who described himself as “very market friendly,” nonetheless said he thought the left-wing mayor had opened up space for debate. Zohran Mamdani, who last week surged to victory after defeating both Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa, ran a strikingly effective media campaign centered on the city’s spiraling cost of living. | Sarah Yenesel/EPA “He’s saying things that are important to people: things like housing, food, transport, health care,” said Stiglitz. “He’s just ticking down the list of things that make for the necessities of a decent life, and he’s saying things aren’t working right.”  Stiglitz won his Nobel Prize in 2001 for work on information asymmetries in markets, and served as a chief economist at the World Bank and as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during former President Bill Clinton’s administration, where he had a famously rocky relationship with Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. With its embrace of globalization and the Internet revolution, Clinton’s team was hugely influential in drawing the parameters for the modern world economy. The influential economist said that tackling inequality wasn’t just a moral choice, but a political necessity. He added that the yawning gap between the rich and poor was undermining the U.S. in its economic and technological competition with China. “[The U.S.] won’t win if we are a divided society, a polarized society,” said Stiglitz, echoing rhetoric of the last Cold War. “The greatest weakness in the U.S. today is this division.”

LONDON — Voters across the Western world are alarmed about threats to democracy, worrying that extremist parties, fake news and corruption will undermine elections.  A major poll by Ipsos of almost 10,000 voters in nine countries — seven in the European Union, plus the U.K. and the U.S. — found about half of voters are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working.  With the exception of Sweden, where people think democratic politics is working well, a clear majority worry about the risks to their systems of self-government over the next five years, according to the survey shared exclusively with POLITICO.  “There’s widespread concern about the way democracy is working, with people feeling unrepresented particularly by their national governments,” Gideon Skinner, senior director of U.K. politics at Ipsos, told POLITICO. “[There are] particular concerns around the impact of fake news, disinformation, lack of accountability for politicians, and extremism. In most countries there is a desire for radical change.”  The survey comes amid growing concern that democracy across the West is under threat. Wealth inequality around the world is driving support for extremist parties, undermining debate and preparing the ground for authoritarianism, according to a recent report for the G20. This week, the European Commission unveiled its plans to strengthen democracy across the EU’s 27 countries. But critics said its proposal to tackle foreign interference in European elections was too weak, with participation voluntary across the bloc. Authorities have identified Russian disinformation and meddling in elections in many European countries over the past year, from Romania to Germany.  For the new poll, Ipsos questioned more than 9,800 voters in the U.K., France, the U.S., Spain, Italy, Sweden, Croatia, the Netherlands and Poland between Sept. 12 and Sept. 29. The pollsters found an average of 45 percent of respondents across all nine countries examined were dissatisfied with the way democracy was working, Skinner said.  Voters who identified as belonging to the political extremes — both on the far left and far right — were most likely to say democracy was failing.  In France and the Netherlands, satisfaction levels have fallen over the past year in response to political turmoil. The French government has repeatedly collapsed amid an ongoing crisis over the national budget, while the Dutch coalition fell apart earlier this year, triggering an election that was held in October. In none of the nine countries surveyed did a majority of voters believe their national government was representing their views well. Voters in Croatia and the U.K. were the least likely to agree that their governments were representing them effectively, with just 23 percent saying so in both cases.  In every country surveyed apart from Poland — which saw a high turnout in presidential elections this year — more voters said the way democracy was working had worsened over the past five years than said it had improved. In the U.S. 61 percent of voters thought the state of democracy had worsened since 2020.  Voters in France (86 percent) and Spain (80 percent) were the most worried about what the next five years would mean for their democratic systems. Respondents identified the biggest risks to democracy as disinformation, corruption, a lack of accountability for politicians and the rise of extremist politics.    Generally, most people questioned still strongly supported democratic ideals, though in Croatia more than half (51 percent) said keeping democracy was only worth it if it delivered a good quality of life.  Ipsos found that respondents backed action to protect democracy, especially laws and enforcement to combat corruption, protecting the independence of the courts, better civic education in schools, and regulations against fake news and hate speech on social media.

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth secretary-general of the U.N. and the co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. Ana Toni is the CEO of COP30. As world leaders gather in Belém, Brazil for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), we are standing at a global tipping point. 2024 broke temperature records, as the world temporarily surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius target for the first time. And now, we’re on track to cross it permanently within just five years. This means adaptation action has never been more vital for our survival. From the year 2000 to 2019, climate change already cost the world’s most vulnerable countries an estimated $525 billion. This burden only continues to rise, putting lives at risk and undoing hard-won development gains, with global annual damages likely to land somewhere between $19 trillion and $59 trillion in 2050. Even more sobering, the world economy is already locked into a 19 percent loss of income by 2050 due to climate change, no matter how successful today’s mitigation efforts are. This makes one thing clear: The consequence of inaction is far greater than the consequence of action. The world must stop seeing adaptation as a cost to bear but as an investment that strengthens economies and builds healthier, more secure communities. Every dollar invested in adaptation can generate more than 10 times that in benefits through avoided losses, as well as induced economic, social and environmental benefits. Every dollar invested in agricultural research and development generates similar returns for smallholder farmers, vulnerable communities and ecosystems too. This remains true even if climate-related disasters don’t occur. Effective adaptation does more than save lives — it makes the economic case for resilience. And if we really want to tackle the crises of today’s world, we need to put people — especially those most vulnerable — at the center of all our conversations and efforts. Those least responsible for climate change are the ones our financing must reach. Here, locally led adaptation provides a path forward, focusing on giving communities agency over their futures, addressing structural inequalities and enhancing local capacities. Today, more than 2 billion people depend on smallholder farms for their livelihoods, but as little as 1.7 percent of climate finance reaches Indigenous communities and locally operated farms. Small-scale agri-food systems, which are essential to many in developing countries, receive a mere 0.8 percent of international climate finance. This is deeply unjust. These are the people and systems most threatened by climate impacts — and they’re often the best-placed ones to deliver locally effective and regionally adaptive solutions. To that end, appropriate investments in global networks like the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) could accelerate and scale technologies that can be adopted by these local systems. These tools could then be used to improve resilience and increase productivity in low- and middle-income countries, while also reducing inequalities and advancing gender equity and social inclusion. The world economy is already locked into a 19 percent loss of income by 2050 due to climate change. | Albert Llop/Getty Images Scaling such efforts will be crucial in moving toward systemic climate solutions. Our ambition is to move from negotiation to implementation to protect lives, safeguard assets and advance equity. But it’s important to remember that adaptation is distinct — it is inherently local; shaped by geography, communities and governance systems. Meeting this challenge will require more than just pledges. It will necessitate high-quality public and private adaptation finance that is accessible to vulnerable countries and communities. That’s why governments around the world — especially those in high-income countries — must design institutional arrangements and policies that raise additional public funds, incentivize markets and embed resilience into every investment decision. The decade since the Paris Agreement laid the foundations for a world at peace with the planet. And with COP30 now taking place in the heart of the Amazon, we must make adaptation a global priority and see resilience as the investment agenda of the 21st century. At its core, climate finance should be driving development pathways that put people first. In Belém, leaders must now close the adaptation finance gap and ensure funding reaches those on the front lines. They need to back investable national resilience strategies, replicate successful initiatives and put resilience at the center of financial decision-making. COP30 needs to be transformative and lead to markets that reward resilience, communities that are better protected and economies built on firmer, more climate-resilient foundations. Let this be the moment we finally move from awareness to alignment, and from ambition to action. Our collective survival depends on it. Question is, will our leaders have the political will to seize it?

LONDON — For Britain’s government, it’s a no-go. For the Greens’ new leader Zack Polanski, it’s a must. The end of free movement of people with the EU has been a “disaster” for the U.K. that should be urgently reversed, Polanski told POLITICO — in his first major intervention on EU policy. Elected leader of the left-wing environmentalist party last month, Polanski’s brand of “eco populism” is already cutting through with some voters. POLITICO’s polling average shows his party steadily climbing to 13 percent — more than double the 6 percent they won in last year’s general election. One outlier even shows them drawing level with Labour. While Polanski — a relative outsider who sits in London’s regional assembly rather than Westminster — has so far cut through by focusing on domestic policy, inequality and the cost of living, he’s now setting out his stall on Europe. Though Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to reset relations with the EU, he’s done so within tight red lines designed to appeal to Brexit supporters: no re-entry to the single market, no rejoining the customs union, and absolutely no return to freedom of movement. Polanski has no such qualms, and he’s not impressed with the prime minister’s caution. “It all feels a little bit ‘meh,’ for want of a better description,” he told POLITICO of Starmer’s reset so far. “It doesn’t really feel like he has any kind of passionate vision of what the future looks like, or any real direction that he’s driving it in. He doesn’t really have a vision for this country. So how is he going to have a vision of what the future of Europe looks like?” ‘DISASTER’ In particular, the Green leader is unapologetic about a return to free movement of people — which ended in 2021. It’s an issue most politicians in Westminster won’t go anywhere near for fear of landing on the wrong side of voters annoyed about immigration. “The restriction on free movement has been a disaster,” he said, adding that it should be in the “first phase” of any rapprochement. “It’s interesting to see [Nigel Farage’s party] Reform banging on about immigration, but we know immigration has risen since Brexit. “It’s just risen from countries outside of Europe. So even on its own terms, Reform and the Brexit Party’s own project was a disaster by their own criteria. And I think free movement is really important, both for our citizens and citizens around Europe.” Though Keir Starmer has sought to reset relations with the EU, he’s done so within tight red lines designed to appeal to Brexit supporters. | Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images Net migration to the U.K. was 431,000 in 2024 — significantly higher than rates in the 2010s when numbers were typically between 200,000 and 300,000. But despite welcoming more newcomers than ever, Brits have lost their right to move abroad within the EU. Polling commissioned by POLITICO shows voters aren’t impressed with the new system and are open to turning back the clock, if somewhat disinterested in the policy detail. Starmer’s EU reset, primed at a summit in May this year, involves negotiating a new agrifood deal with the EU to smooth trade in food, closer cooperation on energy, and a “youth experience” scheme that doesn’t restore free movement but would give a capped number of young people time-limited visas to live abroad. Polanski, however, thinks the government should go further on building ties with the EU in other areas. “I think rejoining the customs union is something we should be doing as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s just resulting in higher prices for people.” It’s a policy also backed by the opposition Liberal Democrats, with whom the Greens are bidding for disillusioned Labour voters. As for rejoining the bloc altogether? “Over longer term, absolutely we should be rejoining the European Union. But we’ve got to make sure that that conversation is a conversation all the public’s involved with. I think one of the reasons Brexit happened is because so many people feel like politics is done to them rather than with them,” he said. “I think Brexit was a catastrophic decision. I think it’s also important that politicians listen to the fact that the public made that decision, and I believe they made that decision because of the lack of investment in their communities and need and want of something different. I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone, though, who thinks that was a right decision that has made our communities any wealthier.” INTERNATIONALISM The Green leader told POLITICO that “really grim” plans by the Tories and Reform to leave the European Convention on Human Rights show “the slow march towards fascism that this country is on.” But he said the rightward drift across Europe is a reason to get stuck in, not to hang back. “I think there’s some really worrying trends across Europe, particularly around the far right, and we’re seeing the beginnings of some of those trends in our own country. I think any political party has a decision to make, which is: Do you stay isolationist and out of Europe and say, ‘Well, you know, they’re going right wing, so we’re not going to get involved.’ “Or do you say actually: International and indeed, socialist solidarity looks like working with left-wing or progressive movements across Europe in ways that look to reform Europe; to make sure that the entire project is moving in a direction that ultimately protects people’s freedom, protects the poorest communities across Europe, and is the best thing for our country, too.”

AMSTERDAM — The Party of European Socialists’ top brass huddled in Amsterdam last week to take stock of their waning influence across Europe. Apart from being an opportunity for national party leaders to meet bilaterally and rally participants with panels and speeches, the congress was framed as a grand debate on the future of social democracy. It was also a chance for observers to do a temperature check on a political family that is hoping to claw back power in upcoming elections in the Netherlands and Sweden. So who’s up in Socialist world, and who’s down? And what solutions were proposed to battle the far right? POLITICO reads the runes. WINNERS * Europe’s far right The guests of honor, present on almost all panels and yet not physically in Amsterdam, were transatlantic right-wing populism and the far-right leaders surging across Europe. “We cannot go back to that dark past, we will fight the far right with all our might,” PES President Stefan Löfven concluded, framing the struggle as social democracy’s central mission in the coming years. In sketching out the future of social democracy, many leaders positioned it squarely against the far right, using the contrast as a roadmap for renewal. Others were more open to play within the right-wing populist terrain, giving topics such as migration and national identity a Socialist twist.  “There is an anxiety about identity, which doesn’t mean that we should take the obsession of the far right on our side, but it means we have to respond to this anxiety,” said French social democratic leader and MEP Raphaël Glucksmann. “In France, we have to say something about what it means to be French … and it will be even the opposite response to the far right, but … we have to respond to the fears that do exist.” Romania’s Social Democratic Party will amend its statutes to change its definition of itself from “left-wing” to “center-left,” and will drop the “progressive” descriptor for attachment to the “democratic, national, religious, traditional and cultural values of the Romanian people.” * Sánchez’s ego During the congress, many national party leaders praised Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for boosting Spain’s economy while reducing inequality — in other words, using his policies to show that social democracy can work. “They raise the wages, they raise the pensions, they tax the rich, they invest massively in climate transition, they invest massively and they regulate housing and they legalize thousands of migrants … and it works,” said the leader of the Belgian Walloon socialists, Paul Magnette, pointing to the success of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in polls after governing for seven years. During the congress, many national party leaders praised Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for boosting Spain’s economy while reducing inequality — in other words, using his policies to show that social democracy can work. | Fernando Otero/Europa Press via Getty Images Sánchez received a standing ovation at the congress, with leaders tripping over each other to shake his hand as he arrived for a group photo. In an early morning closed-door meeting on Saturday, Sánchez told his lieutenants in Brussels and beyond to be ambassadors for Spanish social democracy. “They say we are the last bastion of social democracy in Europe, but in reality, we are the seed,” he said, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. * Workers Many leaders agreed that the main problem with social democracy was that politicians had forgotten their roots in labor movements. They vowed to listen again to workers’ concerns and to double down on investing in the welfare state. “We have to bring back workers at the core of our decisions … Workers now vote for [the] far right and that’s a harsh truth … because choices that were made were to the disadvantage of workers,” Glucksmann said. The party doubled down on social democracy’s mainstays — health care, job creation, affordable housing and renewable energy — as the core of its campaign program. LOSERS * Migrants The Socialists were unable to agree on how to tackle migration. The party kept mum on the topic in its congress resolutions and campaign plans, although many leaders locked horns on the issue when it was brought up during panels. During a debate on Saturday, Swedish Social Democratic Party chief Magdalena Andersson said her party’s key to success in the polls has been to get tough on migration.   During a debate on Saturday, Swedish Social Democratic Party chief Magdalena Andersson said her party’s key to success in the polls has been to get tough on migration. | Nils Petter Nilsson/Getty Images “We are way stricter on migration and on crime than we were before, because of the situation in Sweden, we took more refugees than any other European countries during the crisis [in] 2015,” Andersson said. “We have a lot of shootings, we have to take this [seriously], we are much tougher on crime than we were before.” Italian Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, who promotes a humanitarian approach to migration with a focus on inclusion rather than deportations, seemed to rebuff Andersson, arguing the Socialists can’t defeat the far right “by running after their agenda.” Similarly, Sánchez said during a speech: “To be credible, we must also remain loyal to our principles, we cannot accept the far right’s frameworks, we cannot renounce our convictions for the sake of political convenience.” * Actual voting Everything the congress was meant to vote on had already been decided beforehand behind closed doors, with many of the attendees seeing the gathering as a talking shop. Löfven was reelected president by ballot on Friday night unopposed. His team of vice presidents remains largely unchanged and was agreed on by party leaders behind closed doors during a dinner and without an open contest or vote. Delegates also rubber-stamped membership and policy resolutions with an informal show of hands — no roll call, no records kept and no one counting the votes. The setup left little room for dissent in public, and even less for accountability. * Smer The Socialists also kicked out Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer party. (Its membership was previously suspended in October 2023 and its MEPs were ejected from the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament.) “If they want to punish us because we have defined marriage as a unique union between a man and a woman, that we said there are only two sexes and that we said that in these issues our law takes precedence over European law, if that’s why we have to be expelled, then it’s an honor for us,” AP reported Fico as saying in reaction to the expulsion.

François Bayrou, France’s latest embattled prime minister, is blaming the country’s 19 million over-60s for pushing state finances to the brink. Looking likely to be the latest French leader to fall on his sword, Bayrou is going down fighting — albeit fighting old people. The working-age population faces “slavery,” he said, because it’s having to repay “loans that were light-heartedly taken out by previous generations.” Bayrou wants to force through €43.8 billion worth of budget cuts to bring French spending under control. But he faces a largely hostile French parliament, with the left and the right signaling they will vote him down at a confidence vote he’s called on Sept. 8. Where France, Europe’s second-largest economy, is going, the rest of the continent will probably follow. Not only do the country’s unsustainable finances threaten to drag the rest of the EU into a debt crisis of the kind that rocked the eurozone a decade and a half ago, but France’s troubles foreshadow a phenomenon that’s going to hit pretty much every European country sooner rather than later: Populations are getting older, meaning there are fewer workers to pay for an ever greater number of pensioners. How governments tackle that could be the challenge of our age.  NOT OK, BOOMER Bayrou, born in 1951, is blaming his fellow boomers. The over-60s make up over one-quarter of France’s population ― a share that is expected to rise to a third by 2040. They are either drawing a pension or about to, putting increasing pressure on France’s exploding public debt, which now exceeds €3.3 trillion.  The centrist prime minister, allied to President Emmanuel Macron, staked his reputation on insisting there’s no alternative to a path of fiscal rectitude. France’s €400 billion annual pensions bill is equal to 14 percent of national gross domestic product. The costs will increase by €50 billion by 2035, while a decade later the bill will be a cool half a trillion euros. Bayrou, a former justice and education minister who has tried three times to become president, has long been a proponent of putting the national books in order. But going after the oldies in such a blatant way is a new twist.  That’s probably because he knows he’s got little left to lose. As France’s third prime minister in a year, Bayrou has served a little under nine months and doesn’t look likely to make it past that. France’s Socialist party, which Bayrou would once have counted on as an ally, has turned its back on him over pensions reform — an issue that exploded after the government raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. Last week, Bayrou warned that young people will be the biggest victims of the ballooning debt.  The over-60s make up over one-quarter of France’s population ― a share that is expected to rise to a third by 2040. | Patrick Landmann/Getty Images “All this to help … boomers, as they say, who from this point of view consider that everything is just fine,” he said in a televised interview. He has since clarified that he never advocated “targeting boomers” ― technically those born between 1946 and 1964 when the postwar population exploded ― but the message is clear: The older generation needs to do some belt tightening. “There is a risk of cannibalization, whereby we finance the present and the past at the expense of the future, and we are doing this more and more,” said Maxime Sbaihi, a fellow and former director of Institute Montaigne, an economic think tank. “The French are not aware of the demographic situation in France, they think that France is a young country, that we can stop working at 60, there is a kind of collective imagination that is difficult to shake,” he added. This ignorance, he said, is leading France toward a brutal, painful adjustment of its social system. TO THE GUILLOTINE! France’s pensions bill accounts for one-quarter of all government spending; Italy is the only European country paying out a larger share proportionate to its economy. Pensions account for over half of France’s €839 billion increase in public debt between 2018 and 2023, former Treasury official Jean-Pascal Beaufret warned. “For us millennials, Bayrou’s speech about boomers … will be our Robespierre at the Convention of the 8th of Thermidor,” Ronan Planchon, a journalist for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, wrote on X, a reference to how the French revolutionary leader was sent to the guillotine after denouncing his own compatriots. Bayrou has warned the biggest victims of the ballooning debt will be young people.  | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images Pensions have long been a political taboo, with France nearly always seeing street protests whenever an overhaul is mooted. Fresh demonstrations are planned for Sept. 10.  But given the country’s aging population, politicians are reluctant to challenge a group that represents a big slice of their vote, and that holds the lion’s share of the country’s wealth and savings. Compared to other items on the budget, pensions are particularly hard to adjust, said Hippolyte d’Albis, an economist and professor at the ESSEC Business School. “It’s an expenditure that is binding on society because the parameters that determine it — most notably the annual indexation of basic pensions — are set by law and can only be changed by passing a new law,” he said.  In 2024 the national deficit stood at 6.1 percent of GDP — double the 3 percent allowed under the EU’s fiscal rules. Paris forecasts that the deficit will not fall below 3 percent until 2029.  Economy Minister Eric Lombard suggested things could get bad enough to require the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail the country out — treatment usually reserved for financial basket cases like Argentina. He backtracked a few hours later after a large wobble in the stock market.  François Bayrou wants to force through €43.8 billion worth of budget cuts to bring French spending under control. | Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA The markets are already well aware of France’s troubling fiscal trajectory; the country has already had its credit rating cut by the major credit ratings agencies. It’s now a stone’s throw away from seeing its borrowing costs surpass those of Italy, long a byword for reckless spending and unsustainable debt.   France’s pensions system is unbalanced, but in demographic terms the country is actually a lot better off than many of its peers, with the second-highest fertility rate in the EU, at 1.7 births per woman. Italy and Spain, for example, face an even more stark fiscal cliff as the population ages, with only 1.1 to 1.2 births per woman. “France is the developed country where the standard of living in retirement is the highest compared to the average standard of living of working people,” said Thierry Pech, director general of progressive think tank Terra Nova. He said that raising the working age, which France has already done, is in some ways the “most brutal method.” “It wouldn’t be unfair to involve the wealthiest retirees,” he said. “But it would require a bit of political courage and a lot of education.”