The topic „Potential of New Parties in Europe“ was discussed at the debate on 11^th May 2021 within the program of the PolitiKAS debate: New Normal. The participants were the program director of the New Third Path Dimitrije Milić and Member of Parliament in the province Friesland in the Netherlands Sietske Poepjes from the Eduardo Frei Foundation. The debate was moderated by the project coordinator in the Belgrade Open School Tamara Arsić.

As the main actor in the political life and in democratic processes in a country the political parties are an unavoidable part of modern democracies. From the moment the first political parties were founded, they have the power to gather people around the same or similar ideas and to define concrete activities. The political parties are under a constant pressure to change and to adapt. “In the last ten years there are fast and frequent changes of ideologies, new or hybrid ideologies are coming to life and existing ideologies are becoming integrated into programs of new political parties. Movements from the second half of the 20^th century were considered not serious enough and today they have gained support all over Europe”, the moderator said at the beginning of the debate.

What are the Ideas and Ideologies of New Political Parties in Europe in the Last Few Decades?

Dimitrije Milić said that “the parliaments in Europe are becoming increasingly diverse when it comes to the number of political parties which are relevant in the European countries. Until recently the political parties in Europe had a clear value-based profiling. Because of the division into the left and right option during the Cold War period, we were able to distinguish the center-right parties, the Christian democratic and conservative parties in almost every country and, on the other side, the social democratic and socialist political parties which had a relatively certain electorate. That was the reflection on the national level of the situation which was present at the global level. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the failure of socialism the political scene in Europe changed. There is a consensus between the center-right and center-left parties and the ideology gets lost, both among the voters and among the parties. When these parties became ideologically similar, an opportunity presented itself to the actors who thought they were not represented in the existing political organizations. That was the opportunity which was used by the extreme right-wing parties in the previous 30 years. The extreme right-wing and populist parties have been becoming increasingly popular in almost all European states, especially in the last few years. On the other side, there are green parties which are gathering one part of the civic voters from university centers, big cities, from urban areas. These parties have managed to attract votes of social democratic parties which have been losing voters. This trend continues”, Dimitrije Milić said.

Speaking from the perspective of the Netherlands the representative of the Parliament from Friesland Sietske Poepjes said that “if we take a look at the political history of the Netherlands in the last two centuries, we can see that there were mainstream parties with a Christian orientation, classic liberal parties, and social democratic parties. The situation is similar in Norway, Sweden and somewhat in Germany. It was important for the Netherlands that the development was accelerated after the II World War and after the fall of the Iron Curtain. There were two types of new political parties in the Netherlands. There are the parties on the left part of the political spectrum and those dealing more with the issues of the environment, with the protection of animal rights etc. On the other side, there are parties based on identity issues which is their main area of interest. That can lead to collisions between these parties in the political arena. The role of Christian democrats should be to connect the two opposing sides and not to polarize them even more”.

What is the Profile of the Voters of These New Political Parties? What is the Relationship of Traditional Political Parties Towards Them?

Speaking about the profile of voters of these new political parties Dimitrije Milić said that it is important to follow the movement of the electorate. “If somebody wants to win an election, it is necessary to have voters with different interests who will have a reason to vote for the same party. Their reasons can be economic reasons or a cultural or identity issue that they can identify with. During the Cold War it was the economic interest which was creating polarization and it was easy to gather voters from one or two sides if they were coming from different identities or cultures. When the debate was transferred to the cultural and identity issues, the traditional voter coalitions fell apart because there was no economic element which would connect them”, Dimitrije Milić said.

The right wing populists managed to attract a significant part of industrial workers who had an economic interest for the state intervention from the social-democratic spectrum, but they had a problem with cultural issues, which was offered by leftist parties. They are against feminism, immigration, cosmopolitism, they are skeptical toward globalization. They are more prone to a traditional than to a cosmopolitan, global identity. That is why it has become easier for the right wing parties to attract the voters of the leftist parties when the political topics were changed.

“When there is political safety on the global level, the division is becoming increasingly deepened”, Sietske Poepjes pointed out.

What is the Political Scene Going to Look like in Europe in the Next Few Decades and is Anything Significant Going to Change?

When speaking about the future of the political parties in Europe, Dimitrije Milić pointed out that “the first thing which describes the current political scene is its heterogeneity, because there is an increasing number of political parties represented in parliaments, which leads to more unstable governments. Particular interests of certain social groups get more attention. All elections deal with the definition of a problem, a topic, a political opponent or they define the political parties or politicians to the voters. In such circumstances there is the risk that one political option could start generating a larger part of the support due to the potential crises”.

Sietske Poepjes said that the political parties are today at a crossroads, just like they were a century ago. “In order for traditional parties to continue existing, they need to change. The center parties have to turn to the people who are no longer living in difficult conditions because today the citizens have access to the technology, but they have problems in other areas, such as the culture or education. Those who are living on the edge of society have the tendency to vote for extreme political parties”.

It was obvious that the political debate was transferred from the economic discussion where it was talked about the intervention of the state in the economy, about the taxes or company ownership and about the state’s shares in the economy to the cultural and identity issues. When the voters are deciding who to give their support to at the next election, the way how they see themselves in the sense of their identity is of the highest significance.