Martin Wolf says that in the current context, with Trump on his own and Putin normalised, "Europe either rises to the occasion or it will disintegrate. Europeans need stronger cooperation within a robust framework of liberal and democratic norms. If they don't, they will be annihilated by the great world powers." In other words, Europe is currently in a critical situation, which shows that it is cramped and short of breath, cornered by two autocrats who despise the values of Western modernity.
In these circumstances, vacillations and petty miseries of everyday politics are not worth it. The democratic right and left must come to an agreement when it comes to facing the current situation. Europe must act with coherence and consistency, because its adversaries have seen the opportunity to marginalize it, minimize it, and will not stop trying to penetrate European nations and neutralize it from within. The United States and Russia, with Ukraine as an instrument of opportunity, have it under siege, at a time when weak leadership abounds and citizen confusion is profound. The European right is besieged by the authoritarian temptation – which increasingly has more followers among its voters – and overwhelmed by extreme right-wing parties that eat up their space. Trump's gestures with Abascal are significant. What does the American president know about this character? He has simply been pointed out as the pawn that can open the way for him in Spain and drag along a PP that is striving for ambiguity. And yet, Feijóo gets down on his knees and asks Sánchez not to exclude Vox from the meeting he called to discuss Ukraine and the European crisis. The enemy at home?
Europe is at a critical moment and party unity is not guaranteed. The authoritarian temptation is spreading. Electorates are moving towards the extreme right. The PP flirts and makes pacts with Vox whenever it suits them. In two years Marine Le Pen could be president of France, in Italy there is already Meloni, and the list is long. The democratic right cannot hesitate when it comes to reinforcing the power of a bearish Europe, because we risk passing into irrelevance.
Can Europe be able to build a shared resistance to the authoritarian threat that looms everywhere? It is not easy, because not all the European right-wing parties have an unequivocal commitment to democracy and above all because the new economic powers, those who rule in Washington – and to a certain extent in Moscow – recognise that democracy bothers them. And European moral institutions are fading away. Fortunately, Friedrich Merz, the new German prime minister, has opted for a coalition with social democracy and has left the extreme right in the lurch. May it last.
