Panorama 26.09.2025

Euranet Plus Panorama is a weekly news review that showcases our network’s wide-ranging coverage of EU-related stories.

Radio România Internațional, 29.09.2025, 09:36

The dawn of a new age?

With a high-profile assassination, radical rhetoric on both sides of the political divide and Trump’s tendency to throw his weight about, both at home and abroad, we ask: are we witnessing the dawn of a new age of ideologies?
Our network takes a look at the current state of affairs.

Debate dying

The recent assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk in the US has led to a deluge of divergent opinions about not only his views – which were lauded by many, but to many others were extreme and hateful – but also about the very concept of free speech.
For instance, this Belgian student shares his thoughts with our colleagues at RTBF.

Student at ULB University in Brussels (in French):
“His ideas were abject, I agree with that. But he was doing politics the right way in the sense that he was inviting debate, and that’s a great thing. It is really sad that he’s dead, because it shows that we are no longer capable of debate.”

Our Belgian partner station also sought the views of the country’s foreign minister and deputy PM Maxime Prévot.

Maxime Prévot, Foreign Minister of Belgium (in French):
“We clearly cannot condone any act of violence perpetrated against anyone simply because they do not share the same ideas. But this is a reflection of the increasing bipolarisation of our societies, with a radicalism in the rhetoric used, a radicalism that often excludes and stigmatises. I think that, more than ever, we need to rediscover reason and nuance, to prevent this race towards caricature from once again ending up as dramatically as it did this time. And this could happen again with other types of profile, so we need to be extremely vigilant.”

After the Cold War, says BNR, we thought the days of major ideological conflicts were behind us. But according to philosopher and diplomat Zdravko Popov, president of Bulgaria’s Public Policy Institute, Kirk’s death has reawakened once-dormant divisions.

Zdravko Popov, President of Bulgaria’s Public Policy Institute (in Bulgarian):
“The end of ideologies – the slogan that emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the collapse of the Soviet communist system… the sense that the world was now free of ideologies, with no Cold War, no ideological clashes. Well, I think maybe this is over now! […] These ideologies were lying dormant, hidden and veiled, and now suddenly they have resurfaced. Liberalism and conservatism have clashed again. The far left versus the far right. And all of this casts doubt on the very foundations, the basic principles and values, shared by Europe and America for the last 300 years: the values and principles of democracy.”

Indeed, as Popov notes, these resurgent ideological conflicts are now calling into question the democratic values on which Western societies have long been based. They also go beyond differences of opinion within individual societies as they extend their destructive arms across the globe, with a particularly striking impact on transatlantic relations.

MAGA meddling

Paweł Zerka, the European Council on Foreign Relations’ lead analyst on public opinion, is invited into the studio of our network partner The Europeans to discuss the latest edition of his European Sentiment Compass, an annual report produced together with the European Cultural Foundation. A report that, this year, describes EU-US relations as a “culture war”.

Donald Trump and his people are trying to change European politics, says Zerka. That’s why Elon Musk and JD Vance, the US vice-president, were so active in supporting the far-right AFD party in Germany in the German elections earlier this year – and why Donald Trump backed Karol Nawrocki’s election as president of Poland.

Paweł Zerka, Senior Policy Fellow at the ECFR (in English):
“Donald Trump is trying to shift the ideological centre of European politics, and that’s where those allies across Europe, ideologically allied parties and movements, are very useful. But geopolitical events like discussing security guarantees by the US at the NATO summit, or establishing a new economic relationship between the US and Europe in which we are paying high tariffs, [are] also part of that culture war.”

As Zerka watched Europe, in his own words, “getting humiliated” over the summer at the NATO summit, and during the tariff dispute, he came up with a Hollywood-inspired analogy: Europe is essentially Truman in the 1998 film The Truman Show. He explains his thinking.

Paweł Zerka, Senior Policy Fellow at the ECFR (in English):
“In the movie, Truman could spend his fake life thinking that everything is real and going through those daily challenges of going to work, talking to his wife… But then once he realises that there is something beyond that, that there is an artificiality in everything he is doing and that there is a greater battle, then that changes everything. I felt that Europeans should also realise – European leaders, but also citizens – that there is a bigger battle in which Europe’s identity is at stake.”

Zerka feels that European leaders and citizens alike are somewhat complacent about the bloc’s longer-term transatlantic relationship, with an opinion poll conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in May revealing that most people in most EU countries believe that once this Trump presidency is over, things will get back to normal. Does he agree?

Paweł Zerka, Senior Policy Fellow at the ECFR (in English):
“I don’t think it’s true because I talk a lot to people from various parts of the political scene in America. And what I see is that, first of all, there is a lot of energy on this Trumpian side of politics. And therefore, I think that the baseline scenario for us should be that after Trump 2.0, there will be perhaps Vance 1.0 and Vance 2.0, perhaps somebody else, but simply a prolongation of Donald Trump – maybe even radicalisation in some respects. But also, when you talk to people from the Democratic side, you also feel that there is no coming back. That even on that side of the political spectrum, it’s, for example, clear that America needs to diminish its military presence in Europe.”

Polls do also show that there is an appetite among large swathes of the European public to be more assertive with the US, and Zerka thinks European leaders’ actions need to reflect this. He points out, for example, that as part of our new trade arrangement with the US, we have not only accepted higher tariffs, but also committed to buying American energy. To some extent, of course, this suits us as we attempt to reduce our reliance on Russian gas. But, Zerka questions, when Washington is treating us with such disdain, is it really such a great idea to deepen our dependence on it?

Furthermore, he goes on, while there is an understanding in many European capitals that Europe needs to increase its defence spending, few of them have true defence autonomy in their sights.

Paweł Zerka, Senior Policy Fellow at the ECFR (in English):
“It looks rather as if Europeans were saying that, OK, we will spend more on defence just to placate Donald Trump so that things can stay the same rather than so that they can change. I want to stress that what I’m suggesting is not decoupling from America. Let me put this as a conclusion. I feel that once Europe gets ready to be more assertive, then we will be finally able to reestablish the relationship with America as peers and not as subordinates.”