Europe's center is crumbling as nationalism surges

Support for mainstream political parties in Europe is crumbling against a rising tide of nationalism as voters increasingly want their governments to prioritize domestic issues.

This might not be enough to end the war in Ukraine, which will cost Europe $50 billion it can ill afford in 2026. But we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the uniparty in Europe.

On October 6, France lost a fourth prime minister in little over a year with the unexpected resignation of Sebastien Lecornu.

The country’s problem is not new. With national debt at 114% of GDP a succession of prime ministers have fallen at the altar of trying to impose deeply unpopular budgetary cuts. One way out, which at the moment seems unlikely, is for President Macron to resign before his term expires in 2027. But polls suggest that the National Rally of Marine le Pen would stand a good chance of winning should fresh presidential elections be held.

The National Rally has seen a stunning surge in popularity over the past year — garnering 31.5% of parliamentary votes in 2024 — by focussing on local economic concerns and tapping into dissatisfaction with traditional political parties.

And there’s the rub. This pro-war internationalism of the mainstream in Europe is crumbling in the face of rising nationalism, in which citizens want their governments to focus on domestic issues, not foreign adventurism. As it stands, France will need to double its yearly defense spending to €100 billion by 2030 if it is to stay on course to hit the 5% of GDP target. It simply doesn’t have the money and any government that tries to obtain it through taxes or cuts will fall.

We are seeing the same in Britain. Given burgeoning government debt, bond yields in the UK are now consistently the highest among G7 nations. Britain seems unlikely to face a debt crisis as some fear. But as in France, the nationalist Reform Party in Britain is turning the political tide. It is now surging ahead of the incumbent Labour Party in opinion polls, with 35% share of the vote, from the eight main parties.

Mid-term elections are seldom a reliable bell-weather of electoral success. And yet, when it came to office in July 2024, the Labour Party amassed a seemingly unassailable majority of 152 seats in Parliament. Just 15 months later, it now looks beatable.

There is an increasingly widespread view that Keir Starmer’s government is not performing well on the issues that matter, on the economy, the cost of living and immigration. Yet Labour continues to pump $6 billion each year into the war effort in Ukraine and has committed, gradually, to hit 5% of GDP in defense spending by 2035. The latter would increase government spending by $80 billion per year, money which manifestly the country cannot afford without increasing taxes or cutting services to ordinary people. This continued fiscal pressure will simply funnel more votes to the Reform Party, increasing the chance that it comes to power in 2029.

While Germany does not face as severe a debt crunch as either Britain or France, it is deindustrializing in the face of high energy prices accelerated by the war in Ukraine and decisions to cut off Russian energy supplies. There, the nationalist Alternative für Deutschland is also on the rise and some fear it could compete for victory at the next Federal election in 2029.

In Czechia, the populist Andrej Babis is trying to form a coalition having won parliamentary elections with 35% of the vote. Among other things, he has vowed to scrap the Czech ammunition initiative which has supplied Ukraine with 3.5 million artillery shells since 2022 and criticized the previous centrist government for giving “Czech mothers nothing and Ukrainians everything.” That country appears to be shifting gradually towards the position of Slovakia and Hungary that want to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

All across Europe, the mainstream appears to be falling out of favor. Part of the reason for that is a sense that all the traditional parties form a so-called uniparty in which the needs of big business and internationalism come before the needs of ordinary people. Liberals deride this notion, yet the concept appears to be gaining traction with ordinary people who increasingly want their governments to tackle issues that matter to them and to their children.

It is precisely this wave of disenfranchisement that swept Donald Trump to power in 2016 and 2024.

This shifting political arithmetic in Europe will ultimately seal the fate of the war in Ukraine, although not necessarily in the short term.

With no signs that the major powers in Europe want to get behind a negotiated end to the war, Ukraine is already signalling that it will need an additional $49 billion in Western financial support in 2026 to balance the books. With, at best, a fraction of that coming from the United States under President Trump, that leaves Europe largely on the hook for a cost that European governments can ill afford, either economically or politically.

That will weigh ever heavily on the shoulders of the mainstream across the continent who try to justify the cost of an unwinnable war to increasingly sceptical voters. France will not likely be in a position to double its financial contributions to Ukraine at a time it is trying to force through €44 billion in spending cuts. Britain is unlikely to increase its funding having already been forced to backtrack on attempts to cut welfare benefits over the past year. Where will the money come from?

The European Commission has so far been unable to extend a $140 billion credit facility to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian assets in Belgium that would allow that country in theory to continue fighting through 2027. Belgium, which houses Euroclear where the monies are held, has long opposed this move and the French, already in strife politically, are also sceptical.

Nevertheless, if Macron clings to power, and with Starmer and German Chancellor Frederich Merz relatively safe in their roles for at least another three years, it’s likely the major European powers will continue to back a continuance of war, despite its unaffordable cost, and will search for ways to make the finances work. This will have continued heartbreaking consequences for Ukraine itself.

But, it also seems obvious that the traditional parties in France, Germany and Britain will bear a painful political cost. Macron and Merz both recently decried the assault on European democracy, with the German chancellor claiming "our liberal way of life is under attack, from both outside and within."

But that is not the point. Democracy functions specifically to evict governments who aren’t delivering what their voters want. What we are starting to witness in Europe today is a natural and inevitable shift from internationalism to nationalism. Europe is simply coming to the party a few years after the United States.