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Politico (20 October 2025)

Jacopo Barigazzi, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Gabriel Gavin

Europe’s leaders are in the fight of their lives. For the first time, the summit they hold this week will zero in on topics aimed at reclaiming turf from the far right.

Mainstream politicians ― center-right, center-left and liberal alike ― have been in power in Europe since World War II but are watching their control ebb away. They hope Thursday’s European Council will show that the EU cares about issues that have left voters feeling disaffected. In the bloc’s biggest capitals, from Paris to Rome, Amsterdam and Berlin, nationalist and even pro-Russia forces are either already in government or at the gates, having shown themselves adept at harnessing populist anger.

“Defending the European project today means more than investing in our militaries — it also means delivering on the social promise that holds Europe together,” said Hannah Neumann, a Greens MEP who sits on the Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee. “One of Putin’s main tactics is to divide our societies.”

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