As Malta takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union, we should brace ourselves for what lies ahead. If you thought 2016 provided a rough ride for the European Union’s prospects, just wait for the 2017 upheavals. Testing times lie ahead. David Cameron, François Hollande and Matteo Renzi are the dominoes that have already tumbled as disgruntled voters across Europe snub the establishment.
The first few months of 2017 will usher in a number of potentially disruptive events. Dutch elections will be taking place on March 15, with the far-right anti-European Union, anti-Muslim party of Geert Wilders running neck and neck with Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the polls.
The United Kingdom intends to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty before the end of March. Its leaving process – still mired in uncertainty – will heighten business and consumer uncertainty in the eurozone, substantially hitting exports to Britain. This will upset financial markets and exacerbate sporadic political turmoil in some European countries.
The first round of the French presidential elections will take place on April 13, followed by a second round on May 7. Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front will be standing against François Fillon’s conservative Republican Party and an enfeebled Socialist Party. Le Pen is expected to reach the final round.
German national elections, where Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a backlash against her refugee policies, are expected around September.
Barely a generation since the collapse of Soviet communism, liberal democracy across the West is under threat as the blueprint for effective government. The power of the ballot box is not in doubt. Yet from Washington to Westminster and Rome to Brussels, representative democracy is floundering. It is failing to produce convincing leaders and not matching its authoritarian rivals in an ideological battle many thought had been won with the Cold War.
Faith in the power of democracy to implement positive change is stalling. As European elites race to catch up with populist waves rolling in from the left and right of politics, democracy is on trial and losing across huge swathes of the Union.
Not all is doom and gloom. There have been recent signs of improvement and greater resilience from continental Europe’s economy. There are grounds for hope of rising growth and falling unemployment. Most encouraging, in European economies scarred by joblessness, there has been a slight fall in unemployment – down to about 16 million, or 10 per cent throughout the eurozone, the lowest since the Greek debt crisis in the summer of 2011.
Nothing short of finding a new language for upholding EU values will stem the populist momentum
But this remains a significant indictment of Europe’s politicians since the statistics disguise serious imbalances in Eurozone unemployment rates, varying from Germany’s 4.1 per cent to 23 per cent in Greece, 19 per cent in Spain and 12.4 per cent in Italy. The political backlash against the single currency’s austerity policies and EU migration could blow continental Europe off course.
A year of political shocks ahead could reverse the hope in the eurozone that the worst is behind it. 2017 will be marked by uncertainty after the inauguration of Donald Trump as President on January 20 and Britain’s triggering of Article 50. The elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany could bring further uncertainty or shocks.
A surge in support for populist and nationalist movements threatens Europe’s prosperity, values and collective security. The electoral earthquakes that have sundered Britain’s relations with the EU and returned an isolationist to the White House have strengthened similar movements in Europe. If the next seismic political surprise – after Trump, Brexit and Italy – were to come in France, a bulwark of the European Union alongside Germany, then democracy and the future of the EU would really be under the microscope.
The next shock could indeed occur in France. Le Pen, a strong contender for the French presidency welcomed the election of Donald Trump because it “made possible what had previously been presented as impossible”. Her prognosis may be right. Her National Front party won 28 per cent of the vote in the 2015 regional elections, tripling its number of councillors and making it the official opposition in four regions.
She herself regularly polls above 25 per cent and may well win the first round of the presidential race against the Republican Fillon. The conventional wisdom is that her lead will expire in the second round as tactical voting gives the Republican candidate a clear victory. But Fillon, an establishment figure, is promising a Thatcherite revolution which could drive blue-collar, traditionally left-wing voters into the arms of Le Pen.
The social strains and divisions in French society are deep seated. If Britain’s departure from the EU seems to be proceeding smoothly, many Eurosceptics in France may be emboldened to support Le Pen.
Throughout Europe, the radical right and left point to genuine grievances. But neither have plausible remedies or redeeming characteristics. Populist parties are shaking the confidence of western societies in adhering to their liberal values. The common ground of these movements is a revolt against tolerance, openness and integration. These primitive movements threaten a new dark age for Europe.
There is much that democratic European governments need to do to alleviate the inequalities that have given credibility to the siren voices of populism and nationalism. The depths of popular disgruntlement with elites in their own countries – and, overwhelmingly, in hated Brussels - who have failed to deliver a prosperous or secure Europe , and the eurozone crisis which has pitted North against South, and creditor nations against those in their debt, have fostered an anger which is changing the face of politics throughout the West.
The world is going through a process of realignment and change. In Italy, we have a shaky government in place. And by May, just possibly a President Le Pen threatening to blow up the European dream.
The challenge for Europe’s leaders in 2017 is twofold. First, it must deliver economic growth and a slashing of youth unemployment. Equally, it must overcome the helplessness of governments in the face of mass migration and an unwillingness to speak publicly about a defunct model of multiculturalism. Europe must search for a new consensus.
Brexit, the Italian referendum and the close-shave Austrian presidential election, are symptomatic of a continent that may be teetering on the brink of political disintegration. With the rise of nationalist parties in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Britain, the possibility that the European Union in Brussels has fomented, rather than suppressed, nationalism can no longer be dismissed. The EU may be encouraging precisely what it was founded to avert. Greater integration and ever-closer union are definitely not the solution.
If 2016 taught us anything, it is that predictions for 2017 are at best precarious. Political leaders must avoid complacency. If they are to hold on to the centre ground in the face of populism from both left and right they must invest in more effective and better institutions. They must find workable solutions to economic growth and mass migration.
Leaders must find ways of credibly communicating with those people who no longer feel needed by society, the citizens who have been “left behind”. Nothing short of finding a new language for upholding EU values will stem the populist momentum. 2017 cannot be business as usual for the EU.