Time Asia — October 10, 2017

THE RISK REPORT

Yes, Merkel won again.

But the fires of European

populism are still raging

By Ian Bremmer

The Brief

THE POPULIST WAVE OF 2017 MAY NOT HAVE DESTROYED

the European order in the way some predicted, but there

are still many Europeans who want to upend the status quo.

Look at what happened in Germany’s elections on Sept. 24:

Angela Merkel, a leader best known for prudence and

experience, won a fourth term as Chancellor. But just as

anti-E.U. firebrands Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen

pushed past Establishment parties to finish second earlier

this year in Holland and France, respectively, Germany’s

anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic party Alternative for

Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win seats

in the German Parliament since the Nazi surrender in 1945.

In Spain, meanwhile, a different sort of anger is brewing.

On Oct. 1, Catalans will cast ballots in an independence

referendum that has generated outrage across the country.

The constitutional court declared the vote illegal, but

separatist leaders have defied orders from Madrid to call it

off. Spanish police have raided regional government offices,

arrested more than a dozen

separatist leaders and seized

millions of ballots—provoking

protests involving tens of

thousands of people in Barcelona

and across Catalonia. Podemos,

a left-wing Spanish political

party fueled by anger at E.U.-

imposed austerity, has called on

the Socialist Party to join in a bid

to remove Spanish Prime Minister

Mariano Rajoy from office so that

a new government in Madrid can

negotiate terms of a referendum with Catalan officials.

In France, voters elected pro-E.U. centrist Emmanuel

Macron as their President earlier this year, but this was

no vote for the Establishment. The traditional parties of

center right and center left that have dominated French

politics for decades were humbled in the election. Macron

leads a party that he invented from scratch less than two

years ago. Yet French voters are still discontented; Macron’s

approval rating fell from 62% in May to just 40% in August

(although it has since risen to 45% in September), and

tens of thousands of people took to the streets against the

President’s new labor reforms on Sept. 23.

In the U.K., the Labour Party and its far-left leader,

Jeremy Corbyn, picked up enough new seats in the

June elections to strip Prime Minister Theresa May’s

Conservative Party of its parliamentary majority. But don’t

count on a strengthened opposition to push for a softer

Brexit; majorities in 162

of the 262 constituencies

that Labour won voted

last year to leave the E.U.,

and there’s no sign they’ve

changed their minds.

British working-class

voters have proved they

can reject both Europeans

and their Prime Minister.

THEN THERE’S ITALY.

Currently locked in a

political stalemate, the

country will likely go to

the polls again next year,

electing either another

fragmented government

that can’t advance political

or economic reform,

or a government led by

comedian Beppe Grillo

and his virulently anti-

E.U. Five Star Movement.

Anger here is fueled in part

by a migrant crisis that has

eased elsewhere in Europe

but has grown more

intense in Italy. In the first

half of this year, 10,

migrants reached Greece

and 6,000 arrived in

Spain, while Italy accepted

more than 80,000.

It doesn’t help that

eastern E.U. members—

Poland, Hungary, the

Czech Republic and

Slovakia—have refused to

take even modest numbers

of migrants. Under an E.U.

quota system, these four

nations were expected

to accept about 11,

refugees. Slovakia and

the Czech Republic have

taken 28 people. Poland

and Hungary have taken

none. The European Court

of Justice has rejected

appeals by Hungary and

Slovakia, and the E.U.

has threatened to reduce

subsidies if they don’t

comply. Angry people in

Eastern Europe may be

about to become much

angrier.

Media attention

has focused on the

charismatic populists who

play leading roles in these

stories: Le Pen, Wilders,

Grillo and Hungary’s

Viktor Orban. Instead,

it’s the crowds cheering

at their rallies that are

the real story. They want

fundamental change,

inside their countries and

across Europe. So far,

they’re not getting it. 

Catalans are determined to vote in an independence referendum

on Oct. 1 in defiance of the Spanish government

In Spain, a

different sort

of anger is

brewing, at a

referendum

generating

outrage

across the

country

AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK