Europe is living through an autumn of unusual discontent. What protesters from Paris to Milan to Madrid share is a deepening anxiety about the future and a growing anger at the gap between what they expect from their governments and what they feel governments are delivering, whether the issue is unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, the spiralling cost of living or failing schools.
The electoral consequences of the failure to get a grip on this public anger are already with us. Spain goes to the polls next month in a snap election called after parliament voted down key housing reforms. France begins the process of electing a new president in April, while Poland, Italy and a string of smaller states will vote before the end of 2027. The stakes could not be higher.
At the same time, national leaders face mounting pressures from abroad. Issues such as Ukraine, uncertainty over US security guarantees and economic competition with China demand more European cooperation, even as national politics makes this increasingly difficult. Governments face popular demands to deliver security and prosperity, just as their capacity to do so independently is shrinking. This leaves Europe with a difficult question: how can countries whose leaders are increasingly struggling at home find the common ground needed to act together abroad?
If the EU did not exist, Europeans would have every reason to invent it. Together, its members form a market of 450 million people and an economy of almost €19tn, the third largest after the US and China. No individual EU country comes close to that weight on its own. Germany, the largest, has 84 million people and an economy about a sixth the size of the US’s. Twenty of the 27 member states have fewer than 12 million inhabitants, less than half of Shanghai’s. In a world of tariffs and export controls, it is scale that secures a seat at the table.
But this rationale for cooperation does not make the EU’s survival inevitable. This political project has often been declared on the brink of collapse; the most recent crises include Brexit, the pandemic and energy shocks. Yet it has proved remarkably durable, responding with improvised solutions that previously seemed impossible.
The very traits that infuriate Eurosceptics – slow decision-making, endless negotiations and messy compromises – are, counterintuitively, sources of strength for Europe. The dispersion of power between governments, parliaments, courts and EU institutions makes the system hard to capture and compromises tend to stick.
The EU’s staying power lies in its capacity to adapt despite disagreements, while helping countries achieve what is termed “effective sovereignty”. Nominal sovereignty is the right to decide alone, even when deciding alone – as the UK has discovered to its cost since it left the club supposedly to regain its sovereignty – changes little. Effective sovereignty is the capacity to shape outcomes on energy, trade, migration or defence that no European state can control by itself. And the EU has itself adapted: its fully paid-up members remain the core but non-members such as Norway and Switzerland participate on defence, security, energy and economic policy. The EU has an interest in bringing Britain back into closer cooperation too, even if not exactly as it looked pre-Brexit.
But the EU’s resilience should not be taken for granted. Negotiations over the next seven-year budget, worth almost €2tn, show just how hard it is to achieve consensus. While everyone agrees on the need for greater European security and economic competitiveness, countries can’t agree on who should foot the bill. France, for example, is pushing for new EU-wide taxes, which others resist.
Even so, growing domestic political instability does not necessarily mean there will be paralysis in Brussels. Quite the opposite – it creates an impetus to act. With France’s presidential election approaching, Emmanuel Macron has urged fellow leaders to strike a budget deal by Christmas, warning that political room for manoeuvre would shrink in the new year if Marine Le Pen succeeds him.
Le Pen no longer talks about taking France out of the euro or a Brexit-style referendum. But her platform would undermine the union from within, turning the EU into a “Europe of Nations” and threatening cuts to France’s contribution to the EU budget.
Whether political change comes through elections, protests or new compromises in Brussels, public discontent cannot simply be negotiated away. This brings us back to the streets. French, Italian and Spanish citizens want functioning public services, affordable housing, economic and national security, and a sense that they have some control over their futures.
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Younger Europeans, in particular, face growing uncertainty about their economic prospects, from finding affordable housing to securing stable employment. So far, this pessimism has not translated into widespread rejection of the EU. Recent polling suggests that young Europeans remain among the EU’s strongest supporters, with 90% favouring greater unity among member states and 78% wanting the EU to have more resources to act.
This gives Europe an opportunity, but also a responsibility, to turn that support into tangible improvements in their lives. That is the real test in the years ahead. Decisions about defence, industrial policy and social protection will involve difficult trade-offs, and not everyone will benefit equally. But if European cooperation becomes better at preserving institutions than at responding to citizens’ concerns, the discontent now spilling on to the streets could increasingly turn against the EU itself. The EU has repeatedly shown that it can survive political crises. Now it must ensure that the people living through them can do more than merely get by.
