Even though conservatives, the right, right-wing extremists, and outright neofascists are seemingly on the fore-march in Europe, European progressive parties remain a force to be reckoned with. Whether in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Spain, in Greece or elsewhere, Europe’s progressives are said to be in crisis.

Perhaps this has been designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it has been broadcast so frequently by the corporate-owned mainstream media.

Whether progressives are in crisis or not, the European elections, coming up in June 2024, are going to be crucial for the future of Europe’s progressives. As it stands now, the troubles for EU progressives are not confined to Germany. This becomes clear when looking at Spain, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Poland, Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Spain

Recently, things were likely to get even more dramatic for Podemos in Spain. This is not least because of the fact that the progressives in Spain have been in a process of upheaval. Firstly, Podemos experienced a split. After that, the alliance with the Izquierda Unida (the United Left) broke up.

Podemos was still allowed to participate in the recent Spanish parliamentary elections in Spain’s Sumar electoral alliance. But the European Parliament elections could herald the political end for the former left-wing hopefuls.

Unfortunately, this might mean not only at the EU level but at home as well. On the other side of the coin, there is still the hope that overall there might be more Spaniards in Europe’s left faction.

It all started for the party in 2014 with the surprising victory of electing five members to the  European Parliament. And now it all might end, ten years later, with the EU elections set for June 2024.

Founded in January 2014 by a group around a political science professor and talk-show star, Pablo Iglesias, the protest party achieved almost everything it set out to do. Podemos was even on the verge of surpassing the Spain’s traditional socialists in 2015, eventually ruling with them as a junior partner  from 2019.

Next, Podemos merged with the post-communist United Left to form Unidas Podemos (UP). Its new motto became, “together we can”. UP was hoping to outflank Spain’s socialist PSOE of today’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in 2016. It was not to be. It received one million fewer votes compared to the previous election.

Meanwhile, framing progressive politics as “common sense” found broad approval among Spain’s crisis-ridden population. But when the same policy was counter-framed by the corporate media as a dangerous left-wing program, the tables were turned.

The attackers swarmed with a virulent media campaign that targeted the UP. No party had ever had to endure such an onslaught of viciousness before. Corruption, illegal financing, personal missteps – in short almost everything – was alleged. Nothing stuck.

All court proceedings have been discontinued. Yet the goal – and this is the important part – was achieved. The damage was done. The UP won the various battles but lost the war.

Meanwhile, the Podemos merger with the UP led to an internal party split. There were those who followed the new progressive course around Iglesias and those who continued to strive for Latin-America-style left-wing populists.

This let to internal party purges. Iglesias surrounded himself with politicians from one of the numerous factions of the Communist Party. He lost election after election. His people were removed from regional parliaments and local councils.

Today, Podemos is Spain’s only progressive party that does not conform to the demands of the capitalist system. In the upcoming European elections it will have to be seen whether Spain’s progressives will attract a sufficient amount of voters. If it declines to less then 8% (its result in 2014), it would mean the death of Podemos.

Greece

What appears to be certain is that the Greek Syriza will no longer be represented in the European Parliament with its meager six members. Although it has not yet been determined whether its remnants will then join the Left faction.

Under party leader Alexis Tsipras, Syriza was by far the most successful progressive party in the EU, gaining 23.8% of the vote in the 2019 election.

But things have changed. Today, Syriza can be happy if the party receives half of what it had before. Syriza might even end up behind the post-Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Although an outcome like that could be likely, it is still not clear whether it will actually happen.

There has been a radical political shift away from previous Syriza policies which have now been replaced by the neoliberal policies associated with the openly gay charismatic 35-year-old Greek-American businessman Stefanos Kasselakis, who became the party’s chairman.

Because of their disagreement with this shift to the right, four of the six parliamentary members of Syriza have since left the party. This includes Dimitrios Papadimoulis, one of the European Parliament’s vice-presidents.

Unknown is whether the keepers of the EU progressive tradition around ex-minister of Labour (Effie Achtsioglou) and the ex-minister of finance (Euclid Tsakalotos) will be successful with their own grouping.

Meanwhile, Greece’s traditional communists, the KKE, has always been and will remain an autonomous force, particularly since its withdrawal from the EU’s Left group in 2014. Tragically, the KKE remains without any ability to connect to anyone.

Under Tsipras the long-lasting Syriza (Alliance of the Radical Left) became a realistic option in the tumultuous and often rather disastrous continuing crisis that is Greece. Under him it became the ruling party at the beginning of 2015. It was also widely respected internationally.

The power of the party peaked in the elections of 2015 when Syriza received 36% of the vote. In 2019 it fell to 31.5%. Those years were the zenith of its popularity. It was the undisputed leading progressive party in Europe.

Then along came Angela Merkel and the EU to impose austerity measures. Yanis Varoufakis, Minister of Finance, resigned from Syriza because he had been undercut and, he felt, betrayed by Tsipras. After that, the radical progressives collapsed to just 18%.

Today, this is an incredible 23% behind the Greek conservative, euphemistically named, “New” Democracy. And then the enthusiasm ignited by the neoliberal savior Stefanos Kasselakis quickly fizzled out. Eleven deputies have left the now neoliberal party in protest against the course being taken by Kasselakis.

Beyond all that, the newly founded Nea Aristera or New Left is yet another competitor for Syriza. Its members grew up in Greece’s progressive party spectrum. Nea Aristera is very fragmented. In recent public polling, Syriza is languishing at around 12%. Meanwhile, PASOK has overtaken Syriza.

If Syriza fails to turn the corner in the European elections, the air for the party could quickly become very thin. Meanwhile, former Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is hoping for a spectacular comeback to the top of the Syriza party.

Belgium

2024 will be a decisive year for the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB), or Partij van de Arbeid (PVDA), not to be confused with the Dutch Social Democrats. In addition to European elections, Belgium’s new federal and regional parliaments will also be elected in the multilingual Kingdom of Belgium on June 9th.

Only political parties that are active in the Dutch-speaking north as well as in the French-speaking south can continue to be on an upward trend.

So far the Socialists, with their political catchphrase “people before profits” are represented by just twelve out of 150 members of parliament. Belgium’s monthly polls – as it has become customary in the country – separate out three regions: Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels. Wallonia is traditionally dominated by progressives, but these are now down to 14%.

In Bruxelles, Belgium’s capital, with 19%, progressives remain the strongest party. With a pinch of optimism for the future, there has been a jump from 5% to almost 10% for progressives in Flanders, which is traditionally dominated by Belgium’s right.

In Belgium, compared to all other political parties, the progressives (PTB/PVDA) are more committed to the unity of Belgium. The progressives have established themselves throughout Belgium as the party of hope for EU progressive social policies and distributive justice.

The fact that the party actually practices this approach is shown by a network called Medicine for the People. The network has been in existence for 50 years and was created through the initiative of the progressive party.

In addition, members of the PVDA/PTB limit themselves to an average employee salary and assign the rest of their salaries to a fighting fund from which campaigns, rallies, and protests against antisocial measures are financed.

In Belgium’s rather complex political structure, the post-Maoist PVDA/PTB offers a counter-model to the current uninspiring Grand Coalition under neoliberal leadership.

Progressives also challenge the secessionist nationalism of the far-right Vlaams Belang. Currently, the Vlaams Belang is threatening to become the strongest force in Belgium’s Flanders region.

Italy

Once upon a time there were between 100,000 and 200,000 people in the streets every year when Italy’s political party Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) called for a big rally in Rome, Italy’s capital. For that to happen there was no need for a special occasion.

In those days, the streets were filled with  a sea of red flags. Those days are long gone. The last mass rally of this kind took place in 2007, seventeen years ago.

At that time, Rifondazione could claim to be one of the most stable communist parties in Western Europe. No wonder. In 1976, Italy’s communist party, the PCI, won a stunning 34% in Italy’s parliamentary elections. By 1991, it was all over.

The majority of the party had decided to say, “arrivederci comunismo.” The party continued as a social-democratic-inspired Democratic Left.

This opened up room for the radical leftists. Many ex-PCI members did not support the swing towards social-democracy. In every election until 2006 it was enough to gain 5%-6% of the vote.

The high point was reached in the years 2006 to 2008: Rifondazione not only appointed the President of the Chamber of Deputies, but also the Minister of Social Solidarity in the cabinet of Romano Prodi. The PRC supported Prodi’s centre-left coalition.

This coalition was the beginning of the end for Rifondazione. It was divided between those who were willing to compromise with the more moderate centre-left and the indomitable radical left. Since then, those who sailed under the reform label, have dropped to a pitiful 1.5%.

Today, the PRC no longer appears in public discourse or in the media. Media capitalism operates rather relentlessly and mercilessly against progressives.

On the positive side, things are better for those who remained inside the broad centre-left alliance, which presents itself under ever-changing names: Left, Ecology, Freedom, and Italian Left, the current name.

Sadly, more than a meagre 3% are no longer achievable for them. To a large extent Italy’s progressives owe their malaise to the success of the Five Stars Movement.

It ran in national elections in 2013 with the promise that they were “neither right nor left.” With crude anti-system posturing the party became attractive to millions of left-wing voters.

Austria

Austria, with its well-known Nazi sympathies and history of right-wing parties, has traditionally been a tough place for progressive parties. The many scandals of the conservative-reactionary Sebastian Kurz era didn’t change that.

The most recent crises – corruption, Covid-19, inflation – made the conservative-environmentalist black-green government appear to be the right thing. So far only Austria’s right-wing extremist FPÖ – which leads all recent polls – has been benefiting from all this.

Austrian elections will be held in autumn 2024. The environmentalist Greens are currently the most progressive party in the Austrian parliament, although it is not a classical progressive party. As a junior partner in Austria’s government, the environmentalists repeatedly got caught under the wheels of the conservative ÖVP.

The current situation of Austria’s Social Democrats – who have been weakening for years – is hardly better. Even the more progressive course of the new party chairman Andreas Babler hasn’t resulted in a notable improvement so far.

On the side of Austria’s Communists, surprisingly, things look a bit more exciting. In the regional state election in not-so-progressive Salzburg, the KPÖ came in with just under 12%. Since the end of 2022, Elke Kahr – a Communist – has been the mayor of Graz.

Kahr, the communist, continues to be incredibly popular. Of course nationwide the KPÖ currently reaches no more than between 3% and 4% of the people. Still, entry into Austria’s federal parliament seems within reach.

One of the main reasons for the success of the KPÖ is that its leading candidates have a close proximity to the people. This is the case with Elke Kahr in Graz, but also for Kay-Michael Dankl in Mozart’s home town of Salzburg.

Both have been actively involved in progressive civil society projects for many years, for example with local tenant associations. To this day, both donate a large part of their salaries to people in need.

The progressive Beer Party – yes, the alcoholic beverage – clearly missed its entry into Austria’s federal parliament in 2019. Today things are different for the Beer Party. There is a real chance for the party to enter Austria’s federal parliament.

In Austria’s presidential election, Beer Party founder and leading candidate Dominik Wlazny came in at 8%. He sees himself as being half “fun party” advocating for an eternal beer fountain, but also fighting for the rights of children, environmental protection, and social justice.

Poland

For the first time in eighteen years the progressives – Wlodzimierz Czarszasty – are participating in a government. Czarszasty heads the Alliance of the New Left. Poland’s progressives are rejoicing after the parliamentary elections that were held in mid-October 2023. For Poland’s progressives, their political demands are no longer dreams.

Today, Poland is governed by an alliance of three progressive parties. Without the progressives, there cannot be democratic government. Perhaps, the ultimate European progressive, Rosa Luxemburg, was right when she said there is

“no democracy without socialism,

but also no socialism without democracy.”

The strongest position within Poland’s governing alliance is held by the post-communist leftists of Czarszasty, followed by the Wiosna (Spring) founded in 2019 by Robert Biedron. He is the first politician in Poland who came out of the closet to declare he is gay. He campaigned strongly for the rights of all minorities.

In 2021 Wiosna merged with New Left, which was joined by the Razem party (Left Together). It was founded in 2015. Back in 2015, Razem caused an unprecedented electoral disaster for the progressives in Poland under its chairman Adrian Zandberg.

The small progressive alliance worked with Razem and was very proud to be an independent progressive, if not, individual party.

In the end, not a single progressive party entered the Polish parliament – everyone remained below the 5% (party) and 8% threshold for alliances, respectively.

Razem did not repeat this mistake again in the 2019 and 2023 elections. Still, Razem – unlike Nowa Lewica – is not involved in the current centre–progressive government that has just been elected by twelve million citizens.

They dropped out of the coalition talks when it became clear that conservative parties in the new government would struggle on one of the most contentious issues in Poland: the restoration of women’s rights. The previous government – the reactionary-nationalist-populist Law and Justice (PiS) – had severely curtailed women’s rights.

Razem entered Poland’s parliament on a list of the current ruling parties, and today – with just seven parliamentarians – it shares the opposition bench with 194 reactionary-nationalist-populists and the far-right Confederation with 18 seats.

Denmark

In Denmark, the current coalition government led by Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen appears to be on the right track when it comes to migration policy. Beyond that, the Red-Green Alliance (RGA, Enhedslisten) and the Socialistik Folkeparti (environmentalist Green Left) have been in parliament for decades.

However, they have undergone amazing transformations. The Socialistik Folkeparti – which split from the Communist Party in 1959 – propagates a democratic-socialist Denmark.

It is committed to feminism, human, and minority rights. Strangely, their critique of capitalism is on par with its pronounced euro-scepticism. This continued until the early 2000s. In 2006, 66% of the members spoke in favor of participating in the “Yes campaign” as part of a referendum on a European Constitution.

In 2022, the Socialistik Folkeparti was a member of a broad coalition that ended Denmark’s special path in the area of a common EU defense policy. The party has tried out all kind of roles:

  • as an opposition party;
  • as a supporter of a minority government (2019 to 2022 under Frederiksen); and,
  • as a member of the government (2011 to 2014).

In the 2022 election, it received 8.3%. Still, it is Denmark’s largest opposition party. In the European Parliament it is part of the Green Group.

The RGA – which emerged from Marxist groups – advocates a socialist transformation of Denmark, if necessary by means of a revolution.

The party demands a fight against inequality, the expansion of the welfare state and more diversity. The RGA also promotes a withdrawal from NATO, but no longer advocates leaving the EU.

As of 2019, it supported Frederiksen to some extent. This might be one reason for its miserable result in the 2022 election. Although the RGA was the strongest force in the city of Copenhagen with 24.6%, it only received 5.1% nationwide.

The progressive alliance has a chance to get back on its feet by fighting the current government and by offering a credible alternative.

Portugal

Progressive Mariana Mortágua – who is a 36-year–old economist and is known to the Portuguese mainly through her participation in TV debates, has been the head of the Left Bloc or Bloco de Esquerda since spring of 2023. In 1999, the party emerged from two relative small but progressive organizations:

  1. the Democratic People’s Union that is loyal to Albania; and,
  2. the Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Today, the Bloco is again in crisis. After a sensationally good performance in 2015 (the Bloco became the third strongest force with 10.2%) the Bloco lost 14 of its 19 parliamentary seats in 2022.

Middle-of-the-road pragmatic politics seems to be a problem for Portugal’s progressives. Things aren’t much better with the ruling Socialists. António Costa resigned recently. Back in 2015, the progressives had supported Costa and helped him to form a minority government.

But in 2022, after refusing to support the budget of the socialist minority government, the Bloco’s voter support declined as never before. In the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, the Bloco faces a renewed test run under the experienced Bloco leadership of Mortágua.

Despite its rather unorthodox past, the Bloco did not shut itself off from engaging with other political parties. Furthermore, Portugal’s progressives remained open to new entrants, modernized itself, and understood how to become an alternative for young, urban voters.

In addition to social issues, the Bloco stands for environmental policy, and for the rights of sexual and social minorities.

Mortágua’s Bloco seeks to bring back voters that have migrated to the Socialists. The Bloco focuses on traditional progressive issues. Mortágua is using her progressive tax policy as a signature polity. For example, levies on real estate ownership valued above €500,000 and introduced in 2016, was due to her initiative.

The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), on the other hand, is among the last of its kind in Western Europe. The more than 100-year-old party is entering the Portuguese Parliament again, election after election.

Strongly orthodox – as nowhere else in Europe – Portugal’s Communists are trying to give themselves a more modern image for the next election, which to be held on 10 March 2024.

In this election, the PCP will compete under the name CDU, Coligação Democrática Unitária (Unified Democratic Coalition), banding together with the small environmentalist Greens.

Historically, the great era of the communists were the years after the Carnation Revolution, which moved Portugal away from dictatorship and towards democracy. In 1979, 18.8% voted for the PCP under its historical leader Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal.

The PCP was the party of anti-fascist resistance during the long decades of the dictatorship. It was also the determining force in the country’s trade union movement.

Despite decreasing to only 4.3% in voter popularity, the communists have even been decisive for a parliamentary majority of the Socialists in recent years.

But it was precisely this rapprochement with the now-departed Prime Minister António Costa that caused the PCP – or rather the CDU, as it is called today – to collapse at the polls. If the new CDU fails to gain voter support during the upcoming European elections it might well mark the beginning of a slow but certain end for the Portuguese communists.

Netherlands

When the members of the newly elected parliament in the Dutch capital of The Hague were sworn in a few weeks ago, the Socialist Party (SP) accounted for just five of the 150 seats.

The seemingly unstoppable decline of the party – with its bright red tomato logo – continued in the most recent election held at the end of November 2023 in the Netherlands.

While the SP was still the third strongest party back in 2006 with 25 members of parliament, it lost four of its nine seats in November 2023. This marked a low point in the 51-year history of the ex-Maoists.

The SP’s decline is accompanied by the steady shrinking of the progressives in the Netherlands. The SP is focused on a social-democratic-left-green cooperation.

Meanwhile, the SP is moving away from this by taking a more energetic course against the harsh neoliberalism of the past few decades. Unlike the SP, neoliberalism was supported by the Labor Party and the environmentalist GroenLinks partly.

GroenLinks, in turn, distanced itself from the SP, which is much more culturally conservative, has more reservations about immigration, and is ready to point out that there have been integration problems for the so-called “guest workers” since the 1980s.

Actually, the profile of the Socialist Party as being close to people with socio-economic problems, as being populist, and as being distant from Brussels (the EU), fits to those topics that are currently seen as important to Dutch voters.

The fact that the SP is being punished, shows that voters are increasingly looking to the right for easy and simple answers to the current social malaise.

In response to the decline, the long-standing group leader Lilian Marijnissen resigned in December 2023, although she enjoys a high popularity outside and inside parliament. Meanwhile, her successor, Jimmy Dijk, wants to make The Netherlands a place where “hardworking people feel represented.”

Germany

The newest members of the European progressive movement are the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance or BSW, the group of former Die Linke politicians who split from Germany’s traditional leftist progressives. BSW is seeking to join the left-wing faction in Strasbourg, the seat of the European parliament. This could very well happen after the European election.

Fabio De Masi is the leading candidate for the European parliament from the newly formed BSW. Strangely, Germany’s newest political party doesn’t see itself as left-wing in the traditional sense, even through it was born, like Athena, from the head of the Zeus-like Die Linke.

As it is, many people in Germany might argue that the last thing progressives need is a split in their ranks, especially with Germany’s Neo-Nazi party, the AfD, on the rise.

The question is whether BSW can be seen as progressive or not in the broadest sense of the word. “The party’s platform calls for a ban on immigration and relaxing sanctions against Russia. It also advocates raising the minimum wage to €14 an hour, increasing tax deductions, and significantly boosting taxes on higher incomes and assets.”

The raising of the minimum wage and taxes on the rich sound like solid progressive goals, but on migrants and Russia many progressives might disagree with BSW.

It appears as though über-charismatic Wagenknecht and her party – for rather obvious reasons – do not seem to want much to do with their former comrades from Die Linke. Many leading BSW members are “not even sure” whether Germany’s traditional Die Linke, will still exist in the next EU parliament.

For the BSW to set up their own group in the European Parliament (EP), Germany’s newest progressive party needs to jump over a hurdle which is set rather high.

According to EU rules, a political group must have at least 23 members of parliament coming from at least seven member states to form a group. A group gives a political party real influence. With (currently) thirty-eight members in the European parliament, coming from 13 out of 27 countries, the European Left is already the smallest group in the EP.

Still, the EU’s progressives are set to win enough seats to continue to qualify as a group. But there is no denying that the political parties to the left of Europe’s traditional Social Democracy Parties are in a kind of crisis.

Germany is precisely where EU progressives have one of their key strongholds, so the splitting of Germany’s progressives does not help.

Die Linke is already fighting for its political survival in Germany. With party leader Martin Schirdewan and the 35-year-old non-party climate activist, ship’s captain, and rescue-worker Carola Rackete at the helm, Die Linke hopes that the upcoming EU election will bring a turnaround. However, a dramatic crash into a bottomless pit is also conceivable.

It remains unclear, however, if the BSW will join the progressives in Strasbourg after the European elections.

And in the end…

And in the end, with rising neofascism visible almost everywhere in Europe, European progressives show a mixed picture before what many see as a decisive European Parliament election.

The big distraction in the European political theater is a fringe issue: migration. The issue that will  actually dominate the 21st century is: Will humanity survive? Our era will be defined not by migration and refugees but by global warming.

A better way of describing the trend could be “slouching toward” an Uninhabitable Earth. Today, humanity has what Rosa Luxemburg once called the choice between socialism or barbarity. The wrong choice this time around might well end in humanity’s final agonizing crawl towards barbarity.

Thomas Klikauer is the author of German Conspiracy Fantasies – out now on Amazon! Danny Antonelli grew up in the USA, now lives in Hamburg, Germany and writes radio plays, stories and is a professional lyricist and librettist.