Algemeen·NRC·15 mei

Socialism is being left behind in Europe

Anyone despairing at the trajectory of their career should spare a thought for Europe’s socialist politicians. At the turn of the century over two-thirds of citizens in the European Union lived in countries run by leaders from the centre-left. The continent’s future looked red, or at least rose-tinted. Granted, the likes of Gerhard Schröder in Germany and Tony Blair in Britain were hardly dyed-in-the-wool pinkos; they aimed not to overthrow capitalism but to temper its excesses. Yet their trick of pinching the right’s best ideas and mixing them with leftie shibboleths soon lost its lustre. By 2016 the number of Europeans living in countries run by social democrats had slumped to just one-third. Those who assumed the pendulum would soon swing back leftward have had their hopes dashed, then dashed again. Today only three of the  EU ’s 27 national leaders are progressives—Pedro Sánchez in Spain, Mette Frederiksen in Denmark and Robert Abela in tiny Malta. They represent just a tenth of the union’s population.