Europe’s social democratic parties are collapsing and their leaders don’t seem to know how to reverse that trend.
For most of the 20th century, left-wing parties, rooted in trade unions and workers, were among the main political forces in Europe.
But today, most of them are not recognized politically, or in serious problems.
The latest example is that of the social democrats of the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who last week did spectacular fall during parliamentary elections. Although the party won more votes, its result was the worst since 1903.
Working-class voters, unhappy with the party’s inaction on cost-of-living issues, turned to the right-wing Danish People’s Party, while left-wing voters, opposed to Mette Frederiksen’s desire to join the centre-right and take a hardline stance on immigration, moved to the Socialist People’s Party.
Giacomo Filibeck, secretary general of the Party of European Socialists — a pan-European body that includes all of the continent’s national social democratic parties — told POLITICO that the negative results were due to “anger” over managing the costs of life’s crisis and the left-wing ruling party. The issue has become more serious “because of the war in Iran, which has increased the price of energy and more,” he added.
Vagn Juhl-Larsen, local chairman of the Social Democratic Party in Denmark, was more blunt. “Voters have no respect for a party that does not follow its policies,” he said, accusing the leaders of Social Democracy of rejecting “red” political values.
The Danish case is not unique.
After thirty-five years of uninterrupted rule, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) it lost its holdings in the industrial state of Rhineland-Palatinate in last week’s regional elections, where the debate about the recession dominated the campaign. This victory follows that of March 8 in Baden-Württembergwhere the SPD got only 5.5% of the vote.
In France, at the same time, the center left to remain important cities, such as Paris and Marseille in this month’s municipal elections, but it is conspicuous by its absence at the national level. Over the past decade, the once great Socialist Party has faced such a deficit that it has had to sell its historic headquarters pay his debts. Today, it holds only 65 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly.
“The abandoned center does not seem to know what its place is in Europe at the moment,” observed political analyst Rodrigo Vaz, former deputy assistant at the permanent representation of Portugal in the EU. “This identity crisis has led him to advocate policy initiatives that are indistinguishable from those of the right – a strategy that is neither transparent nor attractive to voters.”
The centrist dilemma
The rest of Europe’s center was built on industrial workers, trade unionists and workers’ societies – the foundation that once brought leaders like Willy Brandt and François Mitterrand to power.
But this world no longer exists. Since the mid-1980s, deindustrialization has reduced the traditional workforce, while union membership has declined across the continent. Europe’s social democratic parties have yet to find a solid response to the changes in their traditional electoral bloc.
“The abandoned center must still propose a new social contract that responds to the concerns of modern society,” Rodrigo Vaz is convinced. “There is no clear dialogue on where the Social Democrats stand on automation, artificial intelligence or the future of work.”
With their electorate dwindling, many left-wing parties have moved closer to the center “in a perverse, and ultimately doomed, attempt to please everyone,” Rodrigo Vaz continued.
For this political analyst, the former German chancellor and leader of the SPD, Olaf Scholz, “fell in the trap of the middle”, when he governed in coalition with the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party from 2021 to 2025, failing to reach a compromise on major issues, such as the climate crisis or Germany’s competitive industry.
According to Rodrigo Vaz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is making a similar mistake by adopting an “inappropriate position” that is fueling voter dissatisfaction over the cost of living crisis and the erosion of the welfare state.
“Voters want a clear answer to concrete problems, such as the cost of housing,” he added, highlighting the decline of Portugal’s Socialist Party, which went from controlling an absolute majority in Parliament in 2024 to being replaced by the far-right Chega group. the main opposition party of the country last year.
Rodrigo Vaz said that the current President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, who was Prime Minister of Portugal for eight years, was he missed the opportunity carry out structural reforms and deal with rising property prices. “The party’s historic voters – the working class – have not disappeared, they have simply stopped supporting them and, in some cases, have moved to the right which has gained momentum due to the anger of life,” he said.
The social democratic parties seem to be starting to listen to the voters.
In Germany, the vice chancellor and co-leader of the SPD, Lars Klingbeil, gave a speech on reforms last Wednesday where he announced a tax cut for 95% of German taxpayers and an increase for the wealthy.
Tobias Cremer, an MEP from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, said the announcement was prompted by poor results in regional elections and showed the party was serious about taking action “on everyday issues”.
“It’s about economic growth, it’s about social justice, but also about fixing our economy so that it’s up to us to decide how we operate, not the White House, the Kremlin or China,” he added.
Trump shock
US President Donald Trump, whose provocations helped galvanize some voters, has given an unlikely boost to the rest of Europe.
MEP Tobias Cremer believes: Denmark’s Social Democrats, who have been in power since 2019, would probably have lost worse in the election without Mette Frederiksen refusing to accept Trump’s threats to annex Greenland; behavior that defeated him sympathy of voters.
“Our Danish colleagues have done a wonderful job, they have made progress in many votes, although they were starting from a more difficult position,” he emphasized. “If you have been in government (…) for years, it is very natural that you are in a difficult situation, and they have already shown that by standing against Trump, but also in the area of domestic politics, they can make up for a lot of what they lost.”
But the abandoned European center knows that it cannot base its entire plan on the anti-MAGA message (Make America Great AgainDonald Trump’s slogan). The way forward, some say, is the example of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He is the leader of one of the only social democratic parties that remains popular with voters, in part because he has been hardline on progressive issues and governing with allies on the far left of the political spectrum.
A senior Spanish government official, who did not want to be named so he could speak freely, explained that while many left-wing European governments have “turned themselves into machines aimed at managing the emergency of the moment” in an era of constant crisis, Pedro Sánchez’s governments have taken advantage of challenges, such as the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, such as increasing low-income development. investment in renewable energy.
“Almost everyone was focused on restoring the situation,” a senior official said. “We set out to change it.”
For Pablo Simón, a political scientist at the Carlos III University of Madrid, Pedro Sánchez succeeded in convincing progressive voters with “the right themes defended by his political opponents on the left of his Socialist Party: from green energy to feminismfrom liberal immigration policies to advocacy of State of Palestine“.
By embracing “clear social values and progressive economic measures,” Pablo Simón recounted, the Spanish Socialists became one of the few social democratic parties that managed to maintain the support of its voters over the past decade. Ironically, this strategy jeopardizes Pedro Sánchez’s ability to stay in power for a long time.
Pablo Simón said: “The areas on his left are getting worse. This could cost him a lot in the next election, because without them he will struggle to get a majority to govern.”
Rasmus Buchsteiner and James Angelos contributed to this article from Berlin.
This article was first published by POLITICO in English, then edited in French by Jean-Christophe Catalon.
