The Future of Europe and the European Union in the Context of Populism and Euroscepticism

Editors: Leire Lopez de Goicoechea & Jannis Gesemann

Introduction

While European countries have been facing never-ending populism over decades, the European Union (EU) also faces the closely intertwined phenomenon of euroscepticism (Usherwood and Startin, 2013). The link between populism and euroscepticism can be seen in their anti-elitism and anti-immigration as core values. Thus, the rise of populism, as a thin-centred ideology, might lead to that of euroscepticism. Having negative effects on liberal democracy and European integration, they are likely to damage the integrity of the EU and Europe. Therefore, to understand the future of these communities in a context of populism and euroscepticism, this paper will focus on grasping the roots of both trends. Then, the current situation regarding these movements will be presented. Finally, upcoming likely future threats, such as digitalisation and climate refugees, as well as their possible effects, will be discussed.

The Roots of Populism and Euroscepticism

The emergence of nation states in the 19^th century changed the surface of the European state model entirely. They broke out of the powerful empires with the effect of nationalism. Therefore, the most important factor and pre-condition of a nation state is the establishment of a nation consisting of a group of people gathered around a common culture, language, and identity. Having said that, the nation is not something that has already existed but just as an “imagined community” (Anderson, 2016). However, this situation started to change with the political consequences of globalisation. This process caused the establishment of new political authorities and representation opportunities at supranational level (Kriesi et al., 2008). Gathering past rivals around common interests, the EU is perhaps the most obvious example. 

Besides the transformation at international level, some changes have also been seen at national level and in the societal sphere. In fact, apart from leading nation states sharing power with supranational authorities, globalisation has equally changed the traditional cleavages and created new ones throughout European societies. One new cleavage is determined according to people’s position against globalisation. Dividing society into “winners”, who are well-educated, highly skilled, and can benefit from opportunities coming from globalisation, as well as “losers”, feeling threatened by it, being less educated as well as low-skilled, globalisation has modified people’s opinion on nation states (Kriesi et al., 2008). On the one hand, the “losers” must stick to national boundaries since they are fragile in global competition and need protection. The “winners”, in contrast, are more cosmopolitan as they can take advantage of globalisation due to their competences. The economic competition arising from globalisation and resulting cultural diversity in society has highly affected the “losers”. Having a lack of resources to compete globally, they started to be afraid of losing their job and strongly embraced national values. Moreover, neoliberalism’s technocracy also increased inequality because of its commitment to producing innovative, successful entrepreneurial individuals who can raise competition and growth (Bang and Marsh, 2018). This inequality builds resentment and anxiety among ordinary people who feel ignored by the elites and political institutions. As a result, they started feeling that they were no longer represented by mainstream parties. This changed the political environment as new political parties were created in order to represent those “losers” of globalisation. Those parties are the so-called populist parties. 

Although populism has been mentioned in numerous books and articles over decades, it is still one of the most controversial subjects in political science. Consensus on its definition has not been reached among scholars as it can differ depending on the times and regions, the values of a society, and even the existing elites (Abromeit, 2017, 178; Çamurcuoğlu, 2019, 285; Canovan, 1999, 4; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012, 168). This paper, however, will use the definition developed by Cas Mudde (2004), who defines populism as “a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people”.

The need to create an imagined community resurged during the 20^th century due to the impacts of globalisation that led nation states to feel under threat. Populists took over the mission of constituting “the people” in a united form seeing them as a whole nation (Canovan, 1984). In populist rhetoric, the losers of globalisation become “the pure people”, while the winners of that phenomenon become “the corrupt elite”. Populism also creates a dualist division in society by calling the former “good” and the latter “bad”. Accordingly, the elites are not people with different interests and values but “evil”, damaging the purity of moral people (Mudde, 2004). Populists claim that they are the only representatives of those whose grievances and demands cannot be met by mainstream parties and political institutions (Canovan, 1999). Moreover, they accuse the elites of ignoring the people’s interests and increasing their own welfare. In doing so, they strive to mobilise one against another by warning silent people about their oppression, but in fact they are not in favour of changing either their life or values (Mudde, 2004). As a thin-centred ideology, it is easy to combine populism with other ideologies. In the context of the radical right, populism is combined with authoritarianism and nativism (Mudde, 2007). Being in favour of a homogenous society, populism embraces a hostile discourse against foreigners, including migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. They are willing to earn support through “the people”, those who do not have enough competences to survive in the global market, by considering immigration to the country as an invasion of their culture and depicting migrants as thieves of their jobs. Populists try to denounce foreigners as scapegoats by claiming that they are the only ones responsible for the unemployment and poor economic landscape. Due to their lack of specific principles and programs, their alleged solutions often involve discursive violence reaching xenophobia (Yildirim, 2017). Populists feed from people’s resentment, fear, and dissatisfaction. The more fear and bad atmosphere exists in a society, the more suitable the ground for the rise of populism.

Populists point migrants out as invaders of both their country’s culture and job market. Natives get scared of losing their work or culture and become anxious. This establishes another resentment towards one of the roots of this fear - European integration. As they consider the EU and European integration as one of the causes of increased migration, their anger is directed to them. This time, according to populists, the corrupt elites, who ignore and undermine the moral people, are the EU representatives. This makes them sceptical about European integration and, more generally, about the EU as a whole. The opposition to the EU and the sceptical feeling towards it is covered by the term “Euroscepticism”. Even though other categorisations exist, the approach which separates it as “hard” and “soft” will be used here. Whilst the former refers to opposition towards general principles of European integration and the EU itself, the latter is opposed to more specific principles and in favour of some reforms regarding their concerns (Plaza-Colodro et al., 2018). Known to be hard Eurosceptics (Brack & Startin, 2015), Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) target elites at both supranational and national level in two ways. First, they blame the elites in Brussels for triggering migration into their countries. Second, they accuse national elites of giving too much power to the EU and of being incapable of solving the problems (Rooduijn, 2018). Since European integration and migration are believed to weaken the nation state and its sovereignty, “the people”, believing their presence is dependent on the nation state, needed a leader to protect the nation state from alleged threats. Populism and Euroscepticism are known to feed each other. The reason lies in their common ideas such as the opposition towards elites and migrants. As seen in the case of Brexit, hard Euroscepticism rooting within PRRPs might be harmful to the integrity of European integration and the EU itself. Because of the close relations between these two concepts, it is fruitful to analyse the current situation in contemporary Europe in order to estimate the future of them.

The Current Situation in Europe and Future Threats 

In contemporary Europe, while some PRRPs have already managed to take part in governments, others increasingly spread their influence in the opposition (Judis John B, 2016; Mudde, 2004). In Italy, the PRRP Fratelli d’Italia has managed to become the ruling party, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni displays clear populist tendencies. Recently, Italy enacted a code to reduce the number of migrants coming to Italy by sea (The Maritime Executive, 2023). Additionally, a regulation to penalise the use of English in public is on the table (Carbonaro, 2023). Yet, despite these populist implications, she cannot embrace hard euroscepticism to not fully lose the benefits from the EU, such as current post-covid funds (Carlo, 2023). Besides, the situation in France has been worsening due to the new pension plan enacted by President Emanuel Macron, accompanied by severe protests against it. Despite the opposition of around 70% of French people, Macron used his constitutional power to pass the code without voting in the parliament. (Willsher, 2023). The resentment and dissatisfaction set further ground for the PRRP National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen, who is likely to utilise the current situation to mobilise even more people around herself. Even though she is not opposed to the EU itself, she opposes the supranational position of it. Furthermore, Germany is about to reform its immigration law to attract skilled migrants because of the lack of labour force in the country (Martinez and Hansen, 2023). Even though it does not seem to create job insecurity for natives, it might still increase the fear of losing national identity, from which the PRRP Alternative for Deutschland would benefit. In addition to these key countries, PRRPs in other European states are either already in office such as in Hungary and Poland, or have expanded their influence, as for instance in Estonia and Austria. 

The political situation at the national level is reflected in the EU as well. In the 2014 European Parliament elections, eurosceptic parties started to increase unprecedentedly. With the impacts of the economic and refugee crisis, European Integration has begun to face the increase of euroscepticism. Through the 2019 elections, the party group Identity and Democracy, which positions on the radical right of the political spectrum and embraces eurosceptic ideology, has gained 73 members in the European Parliament (European Parliament, 2019). In addition to these crises and developments, after Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to a further expansion of PRRPs at the national level, the rise of eurosceptic parties in the 2024 European Parliament elections would come as no surprise.

With respect to coming threats, there are some dynamics that might further facilitate the rise of both Euroscepticism and populism in the future. First, digitalisation, which is known to increase job insecurity and is embraced by the EU as one of its fundamental goals, requires skilled employees (Charles et al., 2022). Therefore, it is likely to further increase global competition, making “the people” feel even more anxious about their job security. It would thus be barely surprising to observe more support for PRRPs in such an environment, as in populist rhetoric, digitalisation allows foreigners to “steal” natives’ work, even without having to move to their country. In such conditions, PRRPs would benefit from being eurosceptic, and this would be a threat not only to liberal democracy but to the EU as well. Second, populism and Euroscepticism are both known to utilise hostile rhetoric against foreigners. Therefore, growing migration leading to a rise in the number of foreigners in European countries could further fuel those claims. Ever-increasing effects of global climate change are already forcing numerous people to move. Those so-called climate refugees are estimated to further increase in the future - predicted to reach 1.2 billion people by 2050 (McAllister, 2023). The resulting increase in foreigners could then further be used by populists to target the elites at supranational and national level for not providing appropriate solutions. Finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its resulting large influx of refugees, as well as high costs of living in European countries, might also increase resentment and influence of PRRPs.

Conclusion

Populism has a triggering effect for the rise of euroscepticism, and its situation in contemporary Europe gives nuances regarding its future. Thus, the increasing populist wave that Europe has been confronting might further stimulate Euroscepticism. Even though most populist parties in contemporary Europe are not fully against the EU, unlike in the British case, no one can guarantee that their position will not change in the future. As ever-increasing impacts of climate change cause more and more people to be displaced, it is likely to observe an increase in the number of refugees in the future, which might be considered as a triggering factor for populism and euroscepticism. Moreover, with technological developments, digitalisation keeps growing over time. As digitalisation is known to constitute job insecurity, it may lead ordinary people to get scared of losing their job over foreigners. Finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impacts on migration to and cost of living in Europe seem to last more, which might be used for continuous populist rhetoric in the future. Briefly, even though coming threats for liberal democracies can be anticipated, the policies supranational organisations and governments will or should embrace to deal with them remain complicated. Therefore, populism seems to be going to become more and more noticeable in Western democracies. Consequently, because of the close relations between populism and euroscepticism, the rise of the former would bring that of the latter as well.

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