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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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people previously well integrated into society in
situations of marginalisation and precarity and
laying bare the fallacy of another neoliberal
mantra, which is that growth benefits everyone
across the board. This is the root of the political
disaffection and desperation that has led so
many Europeans, including a significant number
who have traditionally voted for socialist or even
communist parties, to unwittingly embrace the
populism of the extreme right.
Disaffection would never have reached such
levels if moderate left (social democratic) parties
had offered citizens viable and coherent alterna-
tives. Unfortunately, social democratic forces,
whether in power or in the opposition, have
fallen in step with neoliberal policies in the mis-
taken belief that they constituted the only way
forward. And although it is abundantly clear
that any alternative approach is difficult, if not
impossible, for a single country to pursue in a
world in which financial markets hold sway (we
have only to look at the problems of Syriza in
Greece for an example) the prospects for doing
so on a European scale are quite different.
Nevertheless, social democratic parties have not
attempted to take this route at either the na-
tional or European level, opting instead to aban-
don concepts such the regulation and demo-
cratic control of the financial sector and the
maintenance of the labour rights and social
benefits that lie at the heart of their original
mission and essence. The adherence of the ma-
jority of them to the social liberalism champi-
oned at the turn of the century by Tony Blair in
Great Britain and Gerhard Schröder in Germany
has made social democracy irrelevant in the
eyes of voters in many parts of Europe. Social
democratic parties’ shift towards neoliberalism,
which has blurred the traditional distinctions
between the right and the left, has deprived
voters of the option of choosing an alternative
path or even dreaming of having the opportu-
nity to do so at some point in the future.
Miscalculation on this scale carries a hefty price
tag. The perception of many citizens affected by
the crisis is that conservative and socialist parties
are very much of the same ilk and that radical
parties are more likely to provide solutions to
their problems.
The last remaining liberal socialist in power,
French President François Hollande, has left his
party in a deplorable state it will take years to
recover from. All recently conducted polls have
indicated that the Socialist party candidate has
no chance of surviving the presidential elections
first round to be held in that country on April
23. The prospect that French voters will ulti-
mately choose between the centre-right,
staunchly neoliberal Emmanuel Macron and the
extreme right-wing Marine Le Pen provides a
vivid idea of the degree to which support for the
French left has deteriorated. Even if Le Pen loses
by a large margin in the second round, the tri-
umph of neoliberalism under Macron will sig-
nify a major step down the road towards finan-
cial deregulation.
Prior to this process, Geert Wilders’s ultrana-
tionalist, Islamophobic, and anti-European Party
for Freedom (PVV) may have already swept the
March legislative elections in the Netherlands or
have come in second with at least double the
votes it won in the previous election. As in
France, such a victory would come at the ex-
pense of the Labour Party, which could see its
legislative representation fall from 25 % to as
low as 8 or 9 %, although Wilders will probably
be unable to form a government if democratic
forces refuse to enter into a coalition with his
party. In Germany, public support for Germany’s
SPD, which has risen dramatically following its
nomination of Martin Schultz for chancellor, is
now close to that enjoyed by the CDU-CSU.