'Never fully unified': Populism 'pulling at the foundations' of EU

The EU has faced a turbulent 21st century so far – but political analyst Amelia Hadfield warns that bloc's future could be fundamentally affected by the rise of populism "pulling at those original foundations."

Hadfield, Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey, cites "a very complex picture" as she reflects on the last 25 years of the EU, which she describes as "a combination of selective unity but also persistent fragmentation." 

"The EU in many ways has never been fully unified – and yet on the other hand, it's consistently acted as a single economic and regulatory actor even during major crises," she tells CGTN. 

"It's been moderately cohesive – it's been quite resilient under stress but it's also been politically fragmented."

The key phases of the 21st-century EU 

Hadfield breaks the EU's past 25 years down into a handful of key phases.

"The early years of 2000 to about 2008 had probably the highest amount of cohesion," she says. "You get the Euro launch, Eastern enlargement, quite strong consensus around globalization and market integration. 

"But then, 2008, 2009, that's tremendous, severe strain. That's the beginning of the Eurozone debt crisis. That exposes deep North-South divides that rolls on into austerity and solidarity conflicts right till about 2015."

In 2016, the UK became the first country to leave the bloc – although perhaps not the last, with growing anti-EU feeling in many countries being increasingly harnessed by populist politicians.

"I would maybe categorize this as political fracture, and that rumbles on till about 2020 – it rolls on into migration crisis splitting East and West," Hadfield reflects. "We have the rise of nationalist governments that's giving birth to many more populist opportunities for various policies – and yet we see the EU institutions remaining intact."

Hadfield characterizes the bloc's last few years as "functional unity." 

"You have COVID recovery, a fund that sees the EU agree to joint debt for the first time – that's a big step forward," she says. "We see some coordination in energy and industrial responses. But political rhetoric is diverging and policy execution is converging."

Constituency of the disenfranchised 

Hadfield feels that populist policies have been on the rise in Europe "for probably the same reasons they have in the United States – it's a constituency of the unheard, or the disenfranchised." 

Right-wing parties have grown in popularity in various countries. Geert Wilders' Freedom Party won the 2023 Dutch election with 23.5 percent of the vote and ended up in a four-way coalition government. 

In Austria's 2024 election the Freedom Party got the largest share with 28.8 percent, while in Germany's 2025 federal election, the AfD got the second-largest share with 20.8 percent. 

Hadfield highlights an earlier right-wing triumph – Giorgia Meloni's victory in the 2022 Italian election, with 26 percent of the vote.

"Meloni's Brothers of Italy party has sort of mainstreamed and found the moderate aspects, if you like, of the far right," she says "It's got roots in a post-war neo-fascist movement, but she's now been prime minister for a number of years."

For Hadfield, the growing political presence of right-wing parties threatens some of the fundamentals of the EU project. 

"These far-right parties don't feel the need to detoxify their brand, or even moderate their positions," she says. "They're simply saying, 'We can win elections. And we're happy to borrow look at things like the deportation of people of immigrant origin, including, for example, Austrian citizens.'

"And that is really a tinkering at the very fabric of Europe's rule of law and government and democracy and human rights. That's really pulling at those original foundations."