![Can Populists Take Over the European Project? with Teresa Coratella [PODCAST]](http://4liberty.eu/phidroav/2025/07/2-1024x1024.png "Can Populists Take Over the European Project? with Teresa Coratella [PODCAST]")
Who are the challengers to the European mainstream? What are the issues that unite and divide the challengers of the European project? And what can we learn from the Italian case and Giorgia Meloni?Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Teresa Coratella, the Deputy Head of the Rome office at the European Council on Foreign Relations’ (ECFR) Rome office.
Leszek Jazdzewski (LJ): In the report you recently co-authored, Rise to the challengers: Europe’s populist parties and its foreign policy future, you analyze the imaginary picture of the G8 in the year 2029. According to this scenario, Vladimir Putin is invited back to the table by President J.D. Vance, Jordan Bardella is the president of France, whereas, quite unexpectedly, Giorgia Meloni is the President of the EU Council. From the current EU establishment only Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen remain. How likely is such a scenario? And what would it mean for the European Union as a whole?
Teresa Coratella (TC): Our scenario is somewhat dystopic, but it is based on the current European politics. However, at the same time, we thought about this scenario, trying to anticipate the effects of Donald Trump’s presidency on the European politics and how this might influence member states in the future, as well as the overall institutional framework.
Therefore, for example, in this scenario, we may see the return of Vladimir Putin. In recent months, we have seen how President Trump has been advocating for this return – at least, in the beginning. Now, however, his mind appears to be changed. Nevertheless, if we look at some of the parties we have analyzed in our project, we see how some of them (or, actually, many of them) claim and ask for Russia to be re-engaged in a diplomatic dialogue and in relations with Europe once again. This would mean that Russia would be back as a key player – not only a political, but also an economic one.
For instance, in the Italian parliament, we have been recently discussing this topic after the Five Star Movement made an official proposal on how to start buying Russian gas again, like we used to do before the Russian illegal invasion of Ukraine. As such, although the G8 scenario might look a little dystopic at the moment, there are some elements that might anticipate something very similar.
LJ: In your report, you use the term ‘challenger’. Can you describe what those challengers are actually opposing within the EU?
TC: We chose the term ‘challenger’ to define the 16 parties that are not a part of the current institutional European framework as we used to know it; at the same time, this allows them to challenge and fight against the current European framework. However, we see that in the recent years this kind of strong criticism towards Europe has consistently changed.
Why? Because, in the meantime, some of them managed to win elections (like, for example, in the case of Italy), so if in Europe they are not part of the mainstream party framework, they have become ‘mainstream’ at the national level, because they are governing. For instance, Giorgia Meloni has been in the government for two and a half years, and her public support is very high.
Therefore, on the one hand, at the national level, these parties all have their own specificity, but on the other hand, at the European level, they belong to different groups, they have different roles in national politics, and because of their own national political and economic interests, their views also differ on some specific topics.
Nevertheless, they have managed to create a joint bloc – and Donald Trump’s second term has really strengthened it, because he really supports these parties. At the same time, in return, he gets a very high public support thanks to them, although with some differences. On the other hand, these parties have different views on such topics as Russia. For many of them, like the National Rally party in France, Putin used to be viewed as a good friend and a point of reference; this view, however, has been gradually changing after the invasion of Ukraine.
The same is true in regard to President Trump himself, in which case the tariffs issue is a big issue for member states and their economies. This is why even though some of these parties (like, for example, Vox in Spain) that, of course, support Trump and MAGA, and which would like to build their own MAGA (Make Europe Great Again!), they still have their citizens they have to talk to and explain why the tariffs which can be imposed by their greatest ally (who is also a strongman and a point of reference) could really damage their economies.
In this light, it is a very complicated picture where each of these parties tries to push forward a narrative which works better to them, while, at the same time, trying to keep a balance vis-a-vis their national electorate.
LJ: If President Donald Trump really pushes his agenda of EU tariffs and, at the same time, decides to withdraw some troops from the European continent, could this be a divisive line for the pro-Trump parties in Europe? If this happens, will these challenger parties have to reorient themselves somehow? Or would they rather still go with Trump, no matter what it takes?
TC: They will need to very carefully evaluate what to do, because while President Trump is a big advantage to them on the one hand, a big megaphone to their own claims and ideas, then on the other hand, it can become a really risky factor for their national politics, and for how their citizens might look at them.
We need to consider the fact that many of the countries we analyzed in our report will soon (in a matter of two or three years) face elections. Many of these challengers might win those elections, and Trump can really determine the way European citizens will be looking at those leaders.
As such, it is really a very strange phenomenon. For these parties, President Trump serves as a great justification for many of the things they say publicly. However, at the same time, he can become the biggest risk to them. We have seen that in terms of security and defense, as well as in how to deal with Russia under the second Trump presidency. I am pretty sure that the way President Trump dialogued with Putin shocked many of the challengers.
All of this makes the political equilibrium very fragile at the moment. We see a kind of frozen mainstream scenario. Mainstream parties, namely those that are currently sitting in the EU institutions and deal with policymaking at the EU level, they look frozen. This gives an advantageous position to a lot of the challengers. It gives them time to try to build their own strategy vis-a-vis how President Trump sees the current global order.
If we look at the polls in different member states, the challengers are faring relatively well, because the mainstream parties still do not know how to react to this wave, which is increasing. At the moment, most of the challengers sit in the third and fourth group in the European Parliament. But what will happen in the next European election? They might be able to become the second group in the European Parliament. This means that the European politics will really change, because then, the mainstream party will need the challenger party’s support, if we want to push the European integration forward.
LJ: To what extent will the political system and the mainstream parties need to adapt in order to take over some of the support that the challengers have at the moment? Will they have to adjust their messaging and policy and, maybe, become more neutral on the issue of Russia and more pro-Trump in terms of their rhetorics? Is it even possible?
TC: The transformation process of the mainstream parties has already started along with the big migration crisis in Europe. We saw how these parties had to quickly adapt to the populist narrative regarding migration.
For example, about ten years ago in Italy, when the mainstream government, a progressive government led by the Democratic Party, signed one of the most worrying agreements on migration with Libya. We saw that a mainstream party who was afraid of losing the consensus decided to make a deal with a known democratic country to keep migrants outside Europe. We saw this also during the recent Polish presidential electoral – migration became something on which even the progressive candidate really pushed a lot with a different language and narrative. We see that also in the case of the mainstream parties in Germany. During the electoral campaign, Chancellor Merz used very strong words on migration and advanced new strong policies that no one would have ever expected from Germany.
Therefore, on migration, this process is already something very consolidated. It is already happening also in the area of security and defense, as the debate regarding these topics in member states is going in the same direction as the one on migration. Mainstream parties are strongly criticizing the increase of investment spending on defense, and they use the challengers’ framing (We are stealing this money from health and education!). We see a common language which has become a very mainstream and belongs to both spheres of the European politics – the mainstream and the challengers.
We could also say that the mainstream parties have been inspired by the challenger narrative, adopted not only during electoral campaigns, but also, usually, on a daily basis. It is a highly successful narrative, because if we look at the rise of those challengers – as compared to the 2019 elections – we see a phenomenon that was really unexpected. As a consequence, the mainstream parties are really facing a big choice now – whether to preserve their ethics in politics, their ideas and values, or to give them up in order to keep the political power – which, however, keeps decreasing.
We may observe this trend in many member states. In Spain, for example, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is going through a very deep crisis as he is losing the consensus among the citizens. We see it in Italy with the Democratic Party, which used to lead the country with many governments in the past years. Therefore, something is clearly missing in the communication strategy of mainstream parties.
There are some evident mistakes. We saw that during the COVID-19 pandemic, how long it took for the mainstream institutions to communicate better. The same was true in the case of Ukraine. Something is really missing.
This is why one of the outcomes of our research is a policy recommendation to the mainstream parties, to help them better understand what they want to do and how they want to evolve. Because right now is the moment for them to really step up and decide if they want to grow up, preserve their ideas and values, or if they want to stay in this kind of political limbo where they are always waiting for the challengers, new claims, new attacks, where they wait for international order events in order to react. The key question is: Do they want to keep their agenda or will it just be a stream of consciousness where each of the mainstream parties will try to survive?
LJ: How being in power transforms right-wing parties? And, when it comes to Italy, how would you describe the political evolution of the country before the Brothers of Italy party took over the power?
TC: Here, in Rome, we always say that Italy is the perfect political laboratory to look at if you want to anticipate European trends. We had a former comedian founding a party which then became a ruling party, namely the Five Star Movement.
The Brothers of Italy is the perfect representation of how citizens, by feeling betrayed by the so-called ‘mainstream parties’, decided to give the vote to someone who started with no support ten years ago and managed to get the number of votes which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had not expected – actually, she has now managed to even rise in the polls.
Apart from having won the election, PM Meloni now has a very high support, which is not decreasing – and this phenomenon perfectly reflects what is happening in Europe. You have a challenger which is very successful in their narrative – although here we need to split Meloni’s narrative between the domestic one and the European/international one.
On the domestic policy, Meloni is very defensive, and she builds her public narrative mostly on the mistakes of her predecessors. She has been very vocal on many topics – for instance, on Russia or migration, which works domestically. She tries to keep a dialogue with Berlin and Paris, which are not her best friends.
We should consider that she lost, for example, Viktor Orban as her main ally because of his position against Putin, which completely differs from Meloni’s. Moreover, the Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland are not her biggest ally anymore, although they remain friends, because this is what challengers also are. They might differ, but when they need it, they manage to build coalitions.
We saw Meloni defending Orban and Hungary’s veto on the renewal of sanctions and on the support for Ukraine, always trying to find the diplomatic language which allows her to show that she is the reliable actor in Europe, but that she does not betray her values and her friends. This is an equilibrium game.
What also helps Meloni’s position is the fact that her junior partners are quite weak at the moment. The Lega party is losing public support. The Brothers of Italy is a kind of lost party at the moment, looking for a new leadership and financing. All this means that she is quite lucky at the moment.
Furthermore, the Democratic Party, which is the main opposition party, is also helping her a lot because of the unclear position on Ukraine and on Russia. The party is also quite split on defense and security. Then, there is the Five Star Movement, which is the best representation of how populism works, but it is still divided within.
All these conditions allow Giorgia Meloni to do whatever she wants, politically. Moreover, she knows very well that despite the fact that we have political instability, we are still one of the biggest economies in Europe. And this relation with President Trump is certainly helping her. It did not bring any visible success yet, but in Europe (in Brussels and in other European capitals), they still know that Meloni can talk to Trump, that she can have a dialogue with him – which they cannot have at all. As such, this is still a part of her political power at the moment.
Read the report: https://ecfr.eu/publication/rise-to-the-challengers-europes-populist-parties-and-its-foreign-policy-future/
This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with Movimento Liberal Social and Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of.