Europe of nations vs. Europe of the Europeans

Abstract

On the verge of the second decade of 21st century Europe looks less European and increasingly nationalist. There are plenty of reasons behind the remarkable march to power of the likes of Victor Orban in Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Andrej Babis in the Czech Republic. Let’s not forget the role of Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage in the UK and Carles Puigdemont in Catalonia, in Italy it is Cinque Stelle Movimento of Beppe Grillo and its current leader Luigi Di Maio and Liga Nord’s chief Matteo Salvini, without forgetting, of course, AfD in Germany. Regardless of the variety in the names included in this list, there are lot of common features for their rise to prominence, probably the most notable being the failure of the old liberal democratic elites to deliver on the new demands of the post-2008-economic crisis European societies. Just to mention a few of the others will mean to refer to the consequences of this failure, i.e. the phenomenon of state-capture, which resulted in the ascendance of extreme left and right political entities; the mishandling of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas that caused the outburst of nationalism and chauvinism across Europe, most notably Central and Eastern, and of course, the most troubling one – the rising insecurity among the European citizens about the capabilities of liberal democracy to prove its “only-game-in-town” status as a successful political formula.