Europe now looks like a pot of boiling food—Germany fails to form a government, French strikes block the streets into parking spaces, and Britain is drawn by debt.
The US media just opened the door to the mountains and said: Europe is heading towards complete out of control. It sounds a bit shocking, but when you look carefully, it is not really nothing to throw the arrows.
The three core countries are caught in the institutional dilemma at the same time, behind which is a series of old lesions that have been backlogged for many years. Now they have broken out together. Like the European version of the "dominoes", no one knows where it will go.
Every country is upset, but the bottom of the trouble is amazingly consistent.
Germany’s “political puzzle” has become unmoving, and the general election in February 2025 has blurred parliamentary seats into a clutter – no political party can do it alone, and the cabinet negotiations can’t come up with a winning table.
Especially in the east, the support rate of the far-right party AfD has surged, not only sucking a lot of traditional industrial districts votes, but also leaving mainstream political parties to focus on money.
The result was: policy stopped, reforms hanged, and even the energy transition plan that should be pushed forward was stalled.
The streets in France became more bustling, monthly strikes became a necessity, traffic paralyzed, schools stopped, and even hospitals began to turn off.
The wave of protests sparked by the pension reform, the popular support of Macron's re-election has declined, and the new prime minister is also like a "temporary worker", standing aside in parliament, no bill can be pushed.
Political vacuums, social scatterings, government speech no one listened to, the rage of the masses no one persuaded, many French began to doubt that this is still the fifth republic, or "the day-to-day strike republic."
The fiscal deficit in the first half of 2025 is much higher than expected, and the interest rate of the government bond has been pressured by the Treasury Ministry to even breathe.
Public service has almost become a “lottery to work”: metro drivers strike today, nurses strike tomorrow, border inspectors don’t come the next day.
The sequelae of Brexit have not been dealt with yet, and new economic problems have come up again. Even the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have begun to throw each other's pots, simply fighting a "budget spat" in Parliament.
Although these three countries seem to be different, the problems behind them are strikingly synchronous: the collapse of political trust, the inefficiency of the system, the people don’t buy accounts, and the opportunity for extreme political parties to harvest emotional dividends.
Although the German consultative * mechanism has not collapsed, the French * system can still cover the bottom, and the British parliamentary supervision mechanism barely holds up, all three systems have obviously struggled.
On the surface, there is social unrest, but behind it is the loss of institutional confidence and the collapse of policy enforcement.
The problem isn't just today, but it's almost overwhelming today
Germany’s manufacturing industry, which has been the pride of Europe for decades, is now experiencing a double pain of “de-carbon + de-Russia.”
Energy costs are rising, so many small and medium-sized enterprises are called hard-earned, and investment enthusiasm is as cold as Berlin’s winter. The transformation takes money, but where does the money come from?
France, on the other hand, is typically “left-foot high welfare, right-foot fiscal austerity”, the footsteps have long been uncoordinated.
In addition, the French parliament is now broken like a puzzle, the left two wings are not allowed to fire, the middle party force is thin, only "how to noise" can open a whole day meeting, as for "how to do", no one dares to kick the head.
The UK’s problem is the full outbreak of the “post-Brexit syndrome”.After Brexit, labor shortages, trade barriers, industrial outflows have caused the economy to collapse.In the first quarter of 2025, GDP almost stepped in, and fiscal spending was flying.
Treasury yields soared, sending wild swings in market confidence and the pound's exchange rate dancing along. I wanted to cut spending in exchange for market recognition, but I was caught in a dilemma by strikes and public opinion.
What's even trickier is that political polarization is spreading like a virus.
The traditional German major parties CDU and SPD have lost their stockpile seriously, the AfD is getting bigger and bigger in the east; the French parliament has become the stage for blasphemy between the two left-wing parties; the British Conservative Party and the Labour Party are also caught up in a string of "who can spend more, who can save more".
The aphasia of mainstream political forces has given extreme forces the right to speak, especially immigration issues and public security incidents, which have been constantly hyped and become "emotional cash machines".
These deep-seated contradictions already existed, but they were concealed by growth, globalization and low interest rates in the past. Now, the weak economy, high debt, and social tearing have erupted together, as if the lid finally can't be covered.
This is not just a crisis of state governance, but also a breakdown of social consensus.You say it’s “disorder”?
Can Europe still hold steady? Probably, but quickly
At present, Europe, not only the three countries each "fire", but more troubled, these "fires" have burned under the roof of the entire European Union. Germany as the midstream pillar of the European Union, once the internal affairs are paralyzed, the European Union will move forward in policy.
Whether it’s green transition, immigration rules, or debt reforms, Germany’s speech is weak and the negotiating table is uneven.
France's problems have also directly slowed down the EU's progress. France should have been an active promoter of issues such as national defense integration, foreign policy, and aid to Ukraine, but now it is struggling to cope with internal instability.
Although the UK is already out of the EU, its economic volatility still has a surge effect on the EU’s financial markets – especially as there is still a large cross-dependence between London’s Financial City and the euro area capital markets.
As a result, investors have begun to rethink Europe’s “security”.The risk premium of French sovereign bonds is rising, the cost of borrowing in the UK has reached a new high, and Germany’s credit rating has not been lowered, but the market sentiment has clearly cooled.
Multinational investment projects in the fields of technology and energy have been forced to shut down, and some companies have even started to consider moving their European headquarters to North America or Southeast Asia.
The greater hidden danger is that geostrategic capabilities have been severely weakened by internal friction. The war in Ukraine has not yet settled. Europe should have strengthened its own defense integration, but now that countries are busy "putting out fires", who has the energy to manage the battlefields of "other people's homes"?
Britain’s financial pressure has been great, and the budget for aid to Ukraine has been reduced. French military spending growth plans have also stagnated due to parliamentary delays. Germany had intended to lead the EU’s defence cooperation framework, and it is now difficult to secure itself.
From the current trend, Europe’s future may have three paths.The most realistic is that countries will work together through technical bureaucracies and co-governments to stabilize, but reforms are essentially stalled.
The worst thing is that social sentiment is out of control, strikes are escalating, and the far-right wing is in the next city in local elections, and even the superficial order cannot be preserved.
The ideal is to reduce energy prices, reduce inflationary pressures, gradually reach social compromise in the three domestic sectors, and the EU can regain consensus on industrial policy and fiscal mechanisms.
However, ideals often only exist in reports. The reality is that Europe is at a crossroads where "the old order is unsustainable and the new path has not yet taken shape". If it goes on, it is not just "a certain country is out of control", but it may be a systemic failure of the entire European political mechanism.
Whether Europe will slip into a "out of control state" depends not on whether there is a crisis, but on whether it has the ability to repair the system and rebuild consensus. I'm not afraid of many problems, but I'm afraid of not facing them. There is really not much time left for Europe.
Source of information:
From Britain to Poland, governing powerlessness has become normal, Europe is heading to “uncontrollable” 2025-09-18 22:53:42 Source: Observer Network