{"id":404802,"date":"2025-09-07T08:38:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404802\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T08:38:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:38:32","slug":"voters-believe-in-a-sovereign-europe-more-than-elites-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404802\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters believe in a sovereign Europe more than elites \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

However, polling from the European Council on Foreign Relations also suggests many Europeans doubt the bloc\u2019s capacity to act sufficiently quickly<\/a>. Citizens support higher military spending, conscription, independent deterrents and defending Ukraine \u2014 even without U.S. backing. But they also question whether their leaders can deliver.<\/p>\n

Societal resolve requires trust that goes both ways: If political leaders have an overly pessimistic outlook of the future and don\u2019t trust that their citizens will meaningfully contribute, they\u2019ll have a harder time inspiring trust in their ability to lead.<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s population is ahead of its politicians here \u2014 and it\u2019s not only the polls that show it.<\/p>\n

For one, Sweden and Finland joining NATO is a clear demonstration of this. After Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s full-scale\u00a0 war on Ukraine began in 2022, the leaders of both countries still hesitated, bound by old narratives. But public opinion flipped in favor of joining NATO within a matter of days.<\/p>\n

\"\"Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump\u2019s imperialism have unmasked populist discourses on nationalist sovereignty and defense as a fantasy. | Pool Photo by Sergey Bobylev via EPA<\/p>\n

Then, after Trump\u2019s reelection, Swedes and Finns pivoted again. By 2025, majorities in Finland<\/a> and Sweden<\/a> no longer trusted Washington to defend the continent if it were attacked \u2014 long before their governments acknowledged the reality. Instead, the political leadership in Stockholm and Helsinki had a hard time finding the right words to admit that the U.S. wasn\u2019t a partner they could trust.<\/p>\n

The truth is, when it comes to EU integration, most centrist politicians are still driven by fear of the far right. They don\u2019t seem to have fully grasped that the game has changed \u2014 for everyone. Putin and Trump\u2019s imperialism have unmasked populist discourses on nationalist sovereignty and defense as a fantasy. The far left\u2019s claim that dialogue could secure peace with Moscow has similarly been discredited. And it has also become obvious to voters that the center\u2019s lukewarm Europeanism hasn\u2019t delivered on the promise of a strong union that can defend its economy or regulatory sovereignty, from climate to tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, polling from the European Council on Foreign Relations also suggests many Europeans doubt the bloc\u2019s capacity to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[473,32,2000,6562,299,5187,7058,12336,21604,1105,806,2597,2821,6717,333,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-404802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-eu27","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-defense","15":"tag-european-defense-policy","16":"tag-euroskeptics","17":"tag-far-right","18":"tag-industry","19":"tag-military","20":"tag-nato","21":"tag-transatlantic-relations","22":"tag-vladimir-putin","23":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115162113905281615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}