The perception that the EU is too white and boomer(dominated by the generations born after World War II and up to the mid-sixties)is alienating sections of the population such as young people and racialised people, as well as citizens of Eastern European countries, from the European project, according to a study by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Foundation. The study also warns of a “dangerous drift towards an ethnic conception of Europeanness”, fuelled by xenophobic discourses that the mainstream parties copy from the far right.
Pro-European sentiment prevails among the Member States, where the majority of the population is optimistic about the future of the Union, in which they trust. Beneath this positive surface, however, lie blind spots that pose a “serious danger” to the future of the EU, according to the report. Welcome to Barbieland: What the year of wars and elections has revealed about European sentimentthe third edition of the Compass of European Sentiment, which is published this Wednesday and distributed by the newspapers of the LENA group, including Morning Express.
To begin with, analyst Pawel Zerka, author of the study carried out with contributions from researchers from the 27 Member States, points out the “whiteness of the EU”, which leads a sector of society – especially the Muslim population – to feel excluded. In this lack of belonging there are quantifiable factors such as the lack of representation in the elections to the European Parliament last June: “No more than 20 racialised MEPs were elected”, the document underlines. This figure does not even reach 3% of the total, well below the 10% that racial and ethnic minorities represent in the European population. These MEPs also come from five Member States – Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium – while in others such as Italy, Austria or Denmark they were completely absent from the electoral lists.
The Muslim population, the research notes, has seen rights such as freedom of expression or assembly restricted in some member states in recent months, with protests against the war in Gaza banned. At the same time, they have seen how most governments showed more solidarity with Israel than with the Palestinian victims, while the conflict “provided new material for xenophobic and Islamophobic narratives and attitudes in the EU.” In this context, the European elections were held in which the far right did not make the great advance it had hoped for, but still won in France, Italy, Belgium, Austria and Hungary and came second in the Netherlands and Germany.
“Even worse” than the racist and xenophobic messages of the far right, the report notes, is that some of Europe’s mainstream parties, especially among the centre-right and liberal ones, give “the impression of having embraced elements of a xenophobic worldview”. This has been made clear in the new European pact on migration and asylum and in proposals such as sending refugees to third countries.
Cooling of Europeanism in the East
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Zerka looks particularly at the countries of Eastern Europe, where “xenophobic language and policies” are no longer the exclusive domain of Eurosceptic and extremist parties, such as those in power in Hungary and Slovakia. The report focuses on Poland, under the leadership of the liberal conservative Donald Tusk, who opposes the solidarity distribution of refugees and encourages an anti-immigration discourse in terms of the survival of civilizations and linking it to security. The public debate in these countries “suggests that the ethnic conception of Europeanness is widely accepted,” the report states. As it recalls, in Western Europe, extremist parties also encourage xenophobia, for example with the conspiracy theory of the great replacement, but they meet with more resistance, such as the anti-racist demonstrations in Germany.
In Central and Eastern Europe, there is a certain cooling of pro-European sentiment. This is reflected in the support for Eurosceptic parties, in the modest celebration of the 20th anniversary of EU enlargement and in the low turnout in European elections, where in seven of the 11 states in the region the turnout did not reach 40%. In these countries, the report warns, a new self-confidence is emerging, reflected in data such as the fact that more than 35% of Romanians, Slovaks and Bulgarians – and up to 47% of Poles – believe that their country could have a better future outside the Union, while only a fifth or less of Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes or Finns say the same.
The third blind spot that the report focuses on is young people, who are less involved in a politics in which they do not feel represented. Returning to the figures, only 24 of the 720 MEPs are under 30 years old in an institution where the average age is 50.
Although there is no consolidated data at European level, exit polls and surveys in some Member States show higher abstention among young people than in other age groups. And although the younger generations are generally more pro-European and tolerant than their elders, among those who voted last June there was an increase in support for populist and far-right options. The report points more to a problem of supply than demand: traditional parties, more focused on their older voter bases, pay no attention to them, while far-right politicians are fluent in social networks such as TikTok and have younger candidates, such as Jordan Bardella, who at 29 years old is the president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.
Faced with the danger that European sentiment is “increasingly rooted in a xenophobic, ethnic and closed conception of Europeanness”, the author urges politicians not to fall into electoral short-termism. “Often, this will also mean confronting their own voters on issues of migration and diversity”, he stresses. Zerka advocates encouraging participation among those who feel “excluded”, “disillusioned” or “disinterested” in the EU and resisting the “ethnic conception” while filling the “civic” one with content.
