A decade ago, at the height of the European debt crisis, the critique of the EU – the discovery of possibilities for its transformation or overcoming – seemed to be the central task of the Left. This was forcefully expressed by the emergence of the populist electoral formations SYRIZA and Podemos, but after their failure and collapse critique increasingly came from the strengthening populist Right, pushing the Left into a defence of the status quo, often in the name of “anti-fascism”.

This rearguard manoeuvre has been expedited by the second election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Trump’s ambition to renegotiate the terms of global capitalism, seemingly ushering in the end of the neoliberal configuration, has provoked a desire in the European establishment for the military and economic independence of “the last liberal stronghold” – a desire which is not without sympathy on the Left.

This raises not only the question of the EU, but of Europe in general as an “American invention” since the end of the Second World War – an ambiguous fate conditioned by the prior failure of the international working class to make socialism, and in so doing honour the radical tradition of the eighteenth century, when the dream of a cosmopolitan Europe in a state of “lasting peace” that would lead the world to freedom was articulated by such thinkers as l’abbé de Saint Pierre, Rousseau, and Kant.

Today, in 2025, the political horizon for the Left in Europe is unclear. So we ask our panellists:

What is Europe to the Left today – and what was it in the past? Is there a Leftist vision for Europe? Is there even a European Left?

How should the Left in Europe relate to the “post-neoliberal” transformation of capitalism? Does what is new provide a potential for a Leftist politics?

What is the meaning of the European Left’s activities in the 2000s and 2010s for the next generation? If a verdict of failure is self-evident, what potentialities were missed? If “gains” were made – if the Left has been strengthened by its experience – how is this the case?

Does the world revolution still rest on the fate of Europe? This was once impossible to deny. If it is no longer the case, what is the purpose of Left politics in Europe today?

Speaker

• Dominique Pagani (author of Féminité et communauté chez Hegel)

• Ingar Solty (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, author of Marxismen)

• Ruth Kinna (co-founder of Anarchism Research Group)

• Johannes Fehr (MERA25)