The European Left often looks divided into two camps: One loses elections, the other doesn’t seem interested in winning them.
After eight years of economic crisis, austerity policies and, more recently, European angst about refugees and immigrants, traditional leftist parties, which dominated Europe 15 years ago, can’t seem to capitalize on conservative governments’ woes or electoral setbacks.
You only had to look at the gloomy faces and meager pronouncements of Europe’s center-left leaders who gathered in Paris earlier this month for a summit hosted by French President François Hollande to get an idea of their current funk.
Gone were references to “socialism” in a meeting that was billed rather as one of “social-democratic leaders” — whether government or party heads. From Hollande’s curt statement after the meeting — in which he offered no “social democratic” solutions to the refugee crisis or even on human rights in Turkey — it was easy to see that on Europe’s most pressing problems, leaders of the traditional Left don’t have much to offer that would distinguish them from conservatives.