In Europe, scary days are back again. The old continent is facing a two-front war, the most inconvenient position one can imagine. Ask the Germans whose ancestors got stuck twice in that predicament during the previous century. On the Eastern front European countries are facing Russia having invaded Ukraine and currently strangleholding that country. On the Southern front, the prospect is not less challenging; a permanent flow of illegal immigration that is gradually redefining Europe’s politics and culture from within.

The striking difference between both fronts is that European leadership is fervently mobilising forces to ‘REARM’ Europe and deal with the Eastern front, whereas ordinary voters demand effective action to counter the flow of immigrants on the Southern front. They are voting according to their wishes, as election results underscore across Western Europe. But on this front, political elites are visibly hesitant, for fear of being labelled ‘racist’. Who is right: Europe’s political elites or its peoples?

There is even an equally worrying trend of economic stagnation. The Green Deal envisages a climate neutral European economy by 2050 but that lofty goal gets out of sight. As windmills are planted all over Europe as if they are lively trees on a fairy-tale landscape, economic reality is brutal. The price of energy is soaring, companies are leaving, European citizens see their jobs exported because of de-industrialisation. Keeping a social welfare state intact in such a dire situation is like growing potatoes in the Sahara. As a result, Germany is facing political instability, a phenomenon Germans thoroughly dislike, and fear with reason. In France a court just decided to exclude Marine Le Pen from participating in the presidential elections of 2027. Both Germany and France will be increasingly exposed to political volatility.