To figure out the future trajectory of Europe, Bulgaria is as good a place as any to start.
On the edge of the European Union bordering Turkey and the Black Sea, the Balkan nation is, as of 2014, one of the newest members of the union. It is also the poorest EU member, and one of the most rapidly shrinking countries in the world, population-wise. Around 9 million people used to live in Bulgaria in the 1980s, but today it’s only around 6.5 million. Aside from countries at war and those sinking into the ocean, Bulgaria witnessed the world’s greatest population decline between 2000 and 2025.
When I was there a decade ago, people joked to me that there were only two ways out of the perpetual crisis in Bulgaria. “Terminal One and Terminal Two,” they said.
Of the airport, that is.
That sense of despair might be changing, however. As of this January, Bulgaria is the latest country to join the Eurozone, which will provide a measure of economic stability as political administrations come and go, which they tend to do quite rapidly in Bulgaria. Not everyone is happy about giving up their colorful currency or national control over certain economic levers. And Bulgarians are not shy about voicing their opinions. At the end of last year, they mobilized en masse in the streets to protest a proposed government budget, though the real anger was directed at the country’s widespread political and economic corruption.
In elections last week, in a bid to sweep out the old political order, Bulgarians turned out in large numbers to support a new political coalition of social democratic parties called Progressive Bulgaria. They gave it the most commanding majority of any incoming party since the 1990s. Like Europeans more generally, Bulgarians are increasingly unhappy with the conventional choices.
Also like the European Union itself, it’s not exactly clear how progressive Bulgaria’s new political leaders are going to be. The big winner in last week’s election was the founder of Progressive Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, who’d served in the non-partisan role of president for much of the last decade. Entering the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics, he’s turned out to be something of a nationalist populist in the tradition of Slovakia’s Robert Fico. He’s also been dubbed “pro-Russian” by the Western media, which is one of the only yardsticks by which journalists measure leaders in Eastern Europe. Also, it’s an irresistible story for the lazy observer that as one pro-Russian figure steps out of the limelight (Viktor Orban in Hungary), another one has taken his place.
But Bulgaria is quite different from Hungary. It has long had friendly relations with Russia, stretching back before the Communist era. A number of political forces—the putatively left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party and the aggressively right-wing Revival party—lean pro-Russian. Moreover, Radev has taken some of the same positions toward Ukraine as Peter Magyar, the Orban-slayer of Hungary, but somehow only Radev has earned the title of pro-Russian. In fact, Radev won’t do the Kremlin’s bidding, as Orban did, nor will he push a militantly Euroskeptical line. Like Magyar, he supports aid to Ukraine, though not military assistance, and his country is too dependent on EU largesse to challenge Brussels too strenuously.
What was startling about Radev’s victory, in addition to how decisively he trounced Bulgaria’s mainstream parties—GERB, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and the Socialist Party— was the level of support he received from Gen-Z, the key participants in last year’s demos. More than one-third of those aged 18-30 voted for his party. The pro-European party, PP-DB, received only 22 percent by comparison.
Young people voted for Radev largely because he railed against the corrupt leaders of the mainstream parties. As a former member of the elite, he was playing the same part as Peter Magyar in Hungary: someone inside the system who promised to fight against the system. Young Bulgarians warmed to that message.
But what does this say about the future of Europe?
Bulgaria as Europe writ small
Like Bulgaria, the continent is being pulled in several directions simultaneously.
Some Europeans want to stand up more strongly against Russia and support Ukraine to stop the eastward push of fascism. Other Europeans embrace the illiberalism of Putin—even if they no longer embrace Putin himself after the invasion of Ukraine. Radev is attempting to thread the needle.
Then there’s the question of Europe’s economic future. Radev won the elections by speaking up for those left behind by the globalizing economic policies of the EU. But he also recognizes that Bulgaria depends on the social-democracy-inspired funding that the EU distributes to poorer countries so that they can close the gap with their richer neighbors. Over the last several decades, Bulgaria has received over 30 billion euros from Brussels. So, the EU remains a double-edged sword economically for Bulgaria as it is for so many of its members.
The project of deepening European integration continues, as Bulgaria’s entrance into the Eurozone demonstrates, and this integration now has a Greenish tinge as well. But there is also a push to expand the EU’s borders to include not only Ukraine but also North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo (for starters). Newer members like Bulgaria that are dependent on European largesse are not thrilled about sharing overmuch with newcomers. Still, support for EU expansion in Bulgaria, according to last year’s Eurobarometer, hovers around the EU average of 56 percent. That’s higher than how Bulgarians feel about their membership in the EU, which is near the bottom at 46 percent positive compared to the EU average of 62 percent.
These are the perennial questions facing Europe—wide versus deep, liberal versus illiberal. The policies of Trump add another set of dilemmas related to Europe’s position on the global stage. With Trump guiding the United States away from international institutions, will Europe take on the mantle of the primary booster of the liberal order, or will it succumb to the rising tide of the far right within its borders? On the security side, will it replace the transatlanticism of the last 75 years with the Fortress Europe that the far right favors, an independent European military capacity that functions like NATO but without the United States, or a more principled multilateralism of the sort that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been supporting?
The discontent felt by Bulgarian voters—which mirrors a general pessimism among Europeans east and west (52 percent pessimistic about the world versus 44 percent optimistic in the latest polls)—can go either way. It can swell the vote totals of the far right, which rules over Italy, dominates parliament in Austria and the Netherlands, and is pushing the Czech Republic toward illiberalism. It can support new forms of nationalist populism, as is the case for both Rumen Radev and Peter Magyar. Or it can swing more decisively to a populist left, like La France Insoumise and Spain’s SUMAR coalition.
Much depends on Ukraine
Ukraine would like to join the European Union as soon as possible—as early as next year, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wish list. Given that NATO membership is not in the cards any time soon, Zelensky sees Europe as the second-best option to safeguard Ukraine’s future security.
EU membership in a year is some serious blue sky—or maybe pie in the sky—thinking. Negotiations with Kyiv over membership only began in 2024. It’s been more than a dozen years since the accession of Croatia, and the waiting list just gets longer. North Macedonia has been negotiating accession since 2004, Montenegro since 2008, Serbia since 2009, Bosnia since 2016. It takes a long time to meet the EU’s stringent requirements, some of which have been tightened since the exposure of shortcomings when Bulgaria joined (especially around the rule-of-law provisions). A number of countries—France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy—have also opposed fast-tracking membership for Ukraine, arguing that membership should be based on merit not urgency. They also likely fear domestic backlash.
But France and Germany are now pushing for a kind of junior membership for Ukraine. That would mean that the country could receive some benefits and participate in meetings, but it wouldn’t have voting rights. Ukraine is worried that membership-lite would replace any realistic prospects for full membership. Since no one has any idea how long the war with Russia will last—and countries at war are very unlikely candidates for full membership—Kyiv may ultimately jump at the Franco-German proposal.
The incorporation of Ukraine, even on a provisional basis, would tip the center of European gravity eastward, transforming Eastern Europe into what it has always preferred to be called, namely Central Europe. Ukraine would become the largest EU member by land mass. Bringing Ukraine up to the level of Bulgaria, whose per capita GDP in 2024 was around $17,500 compared to Ukraine’s $5,300, would require enormous infusions of capital, and that doesn’t even take into consideration the costs of post-war reconstruction. The citizens of France and Germany, however much they applaud Ukrainian resistance, might ultimately balk at these expenses.
But these are technocratic details. The larger question is really: what should Europe stand for?
Sticking up for the poor?
For decades, with their militaries subsidized by Pentagon spending, the EU focused either on its liberal economic goals (reducing barriers to capital) or its social democratic aspirations (redistributing wealth). Most recently, it has tried to combine the two by pushing a largely market-based transition away from fossil fuels that also subsidizes poorer countries (and poorer sectors) to make the leap.
Instead of pleasing everyone, these policies run the risk of pleasing no one. Corporations love the ease of working across Europe but complain about the regulations coming out of Brussels. Those left behind by the neoliberal policies grumble about a declining standard of living and gravitate toward right-wing populism. Although inequality has actually declined between EU states and within many of them as well, economic growth has been anemic, fueling perceptions of stagnation. Euroskeptics and leftists too complain about the democratic deficit in Brussels, while the far right has been targeting the European Green Deal as an expensive boondoggle (and now they have enough parliamentary muscle to make a difference in the policies).
It’s not likely that the United States will go ever go back to subsidizing European militaries as it once did. After all, Democrats have been supporting burden-sharing through NATO for decades, which Trump has now made a fait accomplit. So European social democracy, already compromised by privatization and deregulation, can’t rest on its laurels. Low growth rates won’t permit a robust guns-and-butter approach, and strict financial rules won’t allow for substantial deficit spending.
For the left to survive in Europe, it will have to come up with new ways of being progressive. Rumen Radev rose to power attacking corruption. But there are other options.
To the people
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, is a throwback to the narodniks, the Russian leftists who “went to the people” in the nineteenth century in an effort to ground their ideals in the lived experienced of workers and the poor. Mamdani’s deft methods of outreach during his campaign—alongside his calls for such things as free public transportation—garnered press coverage, social media likes, and considerable public enthusiasm. It has also inspired thousands of similar candidates to enter politics around the United States.
Mamdani has also influenced politicians abroad, such as Die Linke, Germany’s left party. Having dispatched envoys to New York to get tips from the Mamdani campaign, Die Linke then set about reproducing his grassroots campaigning in Germany. The results were spectacular. In the months leading up to the last German election in February 2025, the party was polling below 5 percent, the threshold to make it into the German parliament. But after a lot of door-knocking—and the feisty speeches of party co-leader Heidi Reichinnek, Die Linke attracted 8.8 percent of the vote, adding 25 more seats to the parliamentary faction.
Judged solely by its declining vote totals, the left in Europe has grown too managerial in style and complacent in attitude. It may have smart people and smart policies but the public wants something else, something genuine or passionate or funny or playful. They want strongly stated views on billionaires, affordability, and AI set to a catchy dance beat. Voters these days pay attention to TikTok and memes, not hardcover books and bullet points. The populist right has responded to this moment. No matter that their campaigns are full of lies and clearly hurtful policies, they have the knack of appearing to be genuine and playing to the fears of the electorate.
The European left has answers to the big questions facing Europe—on energy and environment, on economic equity and social inclusion, on human rights and America’s wars of aggression. It just hasn’t developed a style that can get it into power to make those changes.
Yes, I know, who am I to lecture the European left?
The U.S. left, with the exception of Mamdani, Sanders, AOC, and a few courageous others, has little practical political impact at the moment. The difference, for Europe, is that the political system is structured such that the left can translate majority support into governance. Mamdani may have inspired some corners of the European left. It’s now time for the European left to regroup, restrategize, and reenergize so that, yes, it can regain power but also so that it can inspire change here in the United States beyond the progressive precincts of New York City.
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