A large percentage of people are of the opinion that the European Union is sweeping by a wave of populism. In practice, however, populism as a denial of the institutions of liberal democracy thrives in only a few and not in all the member states of the Union. The correct picture is that the EU and consequently Europe are now divided into two different geographical and political units.
The first of these consists of countries in the north and west of the Union, where liberal governments still dominate. The second unit includes the southern and eastern member states, where liberal institutions are weak, while liberal populist parties are powerful and often occupy the executive power.
The people and, more generally, the citizens of Europe from the north and west of the Union, whose countries show a relatively high degree of cultural homogeneity, economic prosperity and trust in state institutions and a belief in the principle of equality against the law respectively, when they hear the word “populism” in everyone’s thought goes to conservative parties, especially the parliamentary opposition parties that have developed in recent decades in their countries, as a reaction to European integration and immigration problem equally.
Populism, of course, is based on the division of societies between “ordinary people” and “corrupt elites”, so when they hear the definition of populism then, they are confused.
In essence, they consider corruption in their countries to be non-existent to negligible, but they also fail to perceive themselves as anything other than ordinary people and citizens. However, they are particularly concerned about immigration from the Muslim world and are concerned with three main concerns: the deterioration of traditional social ties, the devaluation of liberal democratic values and the disintegration of welfare states created by their grandparents and parents.
Citizens of the Union from the Eastern and Southern Member States-whose Member States are characterized by deep historical societal divisions, weak economies and weak democratic institutions, corrupt leaderships and widespread corruption, and these are member states that are constantly exporting to Western and Northern Europe manpower seeking higher wages and better living conditions- consider “populism” that it is the political parties that have either already occupied or are claiming power and these political parties without believing in the liberal institutions they circumvent or in the European Union, from which the EU expects financial resources.
Although all these parties promise to eliminate the corruption of the old elites, it goes without saying that when they come to power they create new even more corrupt elites than the previous ones.
So, based on how citizens, throughout the European Union, perceive populism, a division emerges between Europe which is based not on North and South nor between Western and Eastern Europe. Instead, there is an imaginary diagonal line on the map that starts in the Iberian Peninsula and extends to the Baltic countries. If we accept that citizens are divided on the basis of what they believe and how they perceive populism, if you stand anywhere on this imaginary diagonal line and take a wide-angle view to the north and west you will see about a dozen EU countries with resilient liberals. institutions, high social capital and economic prosperity, without free populism.
Look south and east on this straight line of diagonal and you will see another group of countries with completely different characteristics, although they belong to the EU, the liberal institutions in these countries are suffering, corruption and polarization are high, while despite the progress of the last decades, these countries remain at the bottom of all growth indicators.
So, take a closer look at these countries and you will surely find the root cause of their misfortune. These are countries where “populism” flourishes, whether it has already been tested in power or is growing as an opposition in the hope of coming to power.
