Over the weekend of 18-19 April, the CWI’s European Bureau met in London, with comrades from Austria, England & Wales, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands Romania and Scotland in attendance. The Bureau discussed and debated the crises confronting European capitalism within an increasingly multipolar and conflict-ridden world capitalism, perspectives for the development of the class struggle in Europe and the role of the CWI. The statement below was drafted by the CWI International Secretariat as a basis for the discussions and amended in light of them.
European capitalism faces a historic crisis. Its long-term second class status has been exacerbated both by the decline of its strongest economic and military partner, the US, and the rise of China. The increasing clashes between the major European powers and the Trump administration recently have aided that crisis. Alongside these developments are the increased divisions inside the EU itself – posing the possibility of a new euro crisis and the fragmentation and even the break-up of the union.
These existential events are leading to rapid realignments on a military, economic and geopolitical basis. In March 2026 French president Macron has unveiled his plan for ‘dissuasion avancée’ – advanced deterrent – through which French imperialism will offer a form of nuclear umbrella to the other European nations, including the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark. This is a direct response to the threats by Trump to withdraw support to NATO.
US Imperialism in Crisis
Trump’s disastrous war on Iran has delivered a huge setback for US imperialism so significant that it can even threaten Trump’s own position. The recent ceasefire will weaken still further the position of the US internationally. The conflict has also qualitatively deepened the already widening fault lines between the US and Europe. It is also playing a role in ratcheting up the tensions within Europe between various nation state governments that have been evident following the war between Russia and Ukraine.
European governments have largely refused to go along openly with Trump and Netanyahu’s catastrophic military actions. Italy and Spain have recently refused permission for the US to use its bases to land and refuel before going on some of its bombing missions in Iran. France denied the US the use of its airspace for flights delivering weapons to Israel. The “opposition”, however, from UK prime minister Starmer and French president Macron, also involves support for “defensive” operations. Both governments have also sent military resources to protect their own imperialist and military interests in the Gulf and further afield. The Spanish prime minster Sanchez’s refusal to allow the US use of Spanish air bases has been more assertive. While initially being more supportive of the US and Israel, German Chancellor Merz said recently “it is not our war”. Even some far right and right populist leaders have distanced themselves from Trump and his actions in the Middle East.
None of them are principled opponents of imperialist intervention. What their reluctance to fully support the US reflects is the huge concern over the economic and political consequences of the war for their own national interests. As well as, crucially, domestic pressure from populations who in most cases by a majority oppose the war. The mobilisations against the war on Iran in most European countries have generally been small. This reflects the lack of support for the repressive Iranian regime on the one hand, and a feeling of tiredness following years of far greater protests and actions against the slaughter in Gaza on the other. Nevertheless, opposition to Trump’s actions are still high. Moreover, mass struggle can be triggered by the economic impact of the conflict, and the disastrous impact on workers’ living standards and the economy generally.
With Iran holding the Straits of Hormuz by the throat, meaning effectively that around 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas and oil is not getting through the waterway, the pressure is growing for a resolution to the conflict. Rising petrol and diesel prices have impacted all European states as well as the US, threatening the political stability of already unpopular governments. Trump even demanded that European and the non-US Nato powers “sort it out”. It could not have been excluded that if a deal to reopen the Strait was not achieved, and the threats to close off the Red Sea increased, then pressure on European powers to send further naval and military resources to the area would have been posed. Any military attempt to take control of the Strait would have major consequences militarily and politically for them.
A consequence of the energy crisis arising from the conflict is a turn back to fossil fuel production by some capitalist states. Not only the Labour government at Westminster but even the Scottish National Party are moving towards dropping their opposition to new investments in North sea oil and gas extraction. Alongside Trump’s oil grab in Venezuela, these measures expose further the paper-thin nature of the so-called commitments made at various COP gatherings. Net-zero is being torn up in the drive for energy resources by capitalism regardless of the consequences for the environment.
What is certain is that the current conflict is widening the inter-imperialist divisions that were already under unprecedented strain following Trump’s threats to Greenland, his assault on NATO and the tearing up of the “rules-based order” that has predominated since the aftermath of the second world war. As we have consistently pointed out, Trump 2.0 would deepen the crisis in global geopolitical relations, and in particular antagonise relations between European governments – particularly its dominant powers – and the US.
Adopting a policy of “calculated abasement” towards Trump and the US by Europe was the prediction of a columnist in the FT recently. This initially reflected the thinking of some of the bourgeois in Europe, and was certainly the primary policy of Starmer in the UK and Meloni in Italy. However, even they have been pushed by events, and their own weakening political support domestically, to go further than they previously planned in opposing Trump. However, the two main powers in the EU – France and Germany – have a different approach, driven by economic and political factors. The ruling class in France have a longstanding policy of seeking more independence from the US – rooted in their role as a major imperialist power in the past, which they still seek to some extent to maintain today. For Germany, there is a desire to play more of a significant factor as a military and economic power in their own right. The UK is also seeking to recalibrate its relationship with the EU following Brexit and in the wake of Trump’s increasing US isolationist policies.
The unprecedented divisions among the western powers over the US-Israeli war reflects the qualitative deepening of the geopolitical conflicts which will have long term consequences. It will further exacerbate the fracturing of the alliances and agreements that dominated western Europe for more than 70 years, which were already under unprecedented strain.
Trump’s lashing out and threats to remove the US entirely from NATO is symptomatic of the divisions that now exist. Such a move would not be straight forward but Trump could slash financing of NATO without Congressional approval. His accusations of NATO members being “paper tigers”, and attacks on Starmer for not being Churchill are unprecedented attacks on traditional allies of US imperialism.
The main relative “winners” as a result of these developments are certainly China and to a lesser extent Russia. The Chinese regime prepared in advance for the conflict by stockpiling imported oil, anticipating that they could be affected by the possible loss of oil and liquified gas imports from the Middle East. China imported around 80% of all Iran’s oil for export in 2025. The CCP investments in electricity as a major source of energy, now accounting for 30% of its total energy consumption, and renewables (35% of its total energy), means it is less reliant on fossil fuels than in the past. As importantly, it has leveraged its geopolitical advantages to portray itself “as the last adult in the room” (FT) compared to US imperialism under Trump. As it is, some of Iran’s crude oil is still being delivered to China. Nevertheless a prolonged conflict, with all the consequences for a global recession or slump, would impact China’s exports and its economy significantly, given its role in and reliance on the world economy.
Russia has had sanctions lifted on some of its oil exports. As a result, it’s estimated that the additional revenues from oil sales could be anything from $45 billion to $151 billion in 2026. Moreover, it’s war on Ukraine has effectively been justified in Putin’s eyes by Trump’s intervention into Venezuela for its oil grab and now the war on Iran. After three years of bloody conflict, Russia is “winning” the war in Ukraine, in as much as the territory it has occupied in eastern Ukraine is likely to be held. Trump’s peace plan in late 2025 was an effective recognition that Ukraine was not going to win, and that US military resources that have backed Ukraine were better employed elsewhere. The horrific numbers killed on both sides, and the millions in Ukraine having to flee their war-torn homes, is a brutal condemnation of both Putin’s and Zelensky’s capitalist regimes. As well as the role played by the US and the main European powers who have bankrolled the slaughter over the last three years. Putin has also lost influence in the Middle East following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
40% of the entirety of EU defence spending is contributed to by Germany and France, with all governments rapidly seeking to increase military budgets. That Trumpism makes graphically clear that the European powers can no longer militarily rely on the US has resulted in a rash of governments turning to rearmament and increased militarisation. In 2025 defence spending was 60% higher by European powers than it was in 2020, at €381bn. Now, calls to turn from car production to arms production are being heard loudly in European capitals. The FT reported that: “France’s Renault is teaming up with Turgis Gaillard to produce drones at a couple of sites while in Germany Volkswagen is looking to convert a plant to missile defence for Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.” After making a deal with the union leaders to cut 35,000 jobs by 2030, Volkswagen are now threatening to increase the total of these layoffs to 50,000
There will also be political consequences for capitalist governments in increasing military spending at the cost of reducing further investment in welfare and public services. With every European country witnessing fragmentation and political polarisation on an unprecedented scale, the potential for struggle to break out on the issue of “guns or butter” is posed. There have been protests by farmers and truck drivers and owners over rising fuel costs in Ireland, with motorways being blocked and Dublin city centre disrupted, as well as the blocking of the main oil refinery and fuel depots by protesters. The importance of the workers’ movement putting itself at the head of struggles over the impact the crisis is underlined by the attempts of the far right and populist right to make gains out of the mass anger that exists.
European Union
The European Union has largely been impotent in the wake of these world shaking events, reflecting the increased weakness of European capitalism in relation to other blocs. The tendency towards economic nationalism is more pronounced in this era, a direct result of the crisis facing world capitalism on all fronts. It is this tendency that is producing deepening tensions among EU members states – leading to an increased inability to collectively respond. A symptom of which was the recent EU-Mercusor trade deal, which saw opposition to it from France, Poland, Ireland, Austria and Hungary. The only way to get it through was to abandon its policy of unanimity at EU council level and allow for a majority vote. Since then it has been stuck in the European Court of Justice and unable to be implemented.
The period following the collapse of Stalinism and its political and economic consequences allowed for a conjuncture to emerge that saw the Euro currency introduced and relatively far-reaching, although never remotely completed, economic integration achieved among EU states. However, as we consistently explained, the onset of a new economic crisis would undermine that process. The inevitable deepening of tensions and conflict between European states will aid the fragmentation of both the EU and the Eurozone, posing the possibility of their fracturing as the crisis deepens. Following the 2007-09 great recession, the sovereign debt crisis that particularly impacted the southern European EU nations, Brexit, the hollowing out of the main bourgeois parties and the rise of left-populist and other left forces, alongside right populist forces, today the European landscape looks entirely different. The remorseless centrifugal tendencies are pulling apart those settlements and institutions that were formed in an earlier period, including over the national question, leading to a more fractured union where the nation state and different forms of economic nationalism are increasingly to the fore. At the same time, the need to compete with the US and China in a multipolar world is also increasing the centripetal pressures.
Alongside the political crises is the increasing economic fallout of the latest Middle East conflict. A March 2026 OECD forecast on the impact of the war predicted a sharp contraction of economic growth in a number of key European states, including the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Rising oil and gas prices are also adding to inflationary pressures across the G20 nations. The OECD survey predicted price inflation will rise to 4% this year – it’s previous prediction from December 2025 was 2.8%. And this does not take account of likely increases in food prices as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, leading to shortages of fertiliser crucial for food production. Lower growth and higher inflation will be dominant trends as a result. Speculation and profiteering are already resulting in billions being made in some sectors.
Trump’s tariff campaign has been checked for a period following the intervention by the US Supreme Court in February 2026 to strike some of them down. Nevertheless, average tariffs for selling goods to the US are still now three times higher than they were when Trump started his second term of office. With the EU exporting $620 billion in goods to the US in 2025 – a greater amount than China – it is particularly vulnerable to the higher costs, as well as to the inevitable economic crisis that will visit the US economy over time. There can be no question that the fallout from the Middle East conflict will only increase the tendencies towards a new world crisis, possibly in the form of a slump.
Political Fragmentation
The political consequences of the crisis in Europe has underlined the period of highly volatile and unstable capitalist rule that we are living through. In the countries of Eastern Europe, the top down imposition of capitalism in the aftermath of the collapse of Stalinism, coinciding with the retreat of working class organisation and consciousness globally that flowed from this, has resulted in weak bourgeois democratic regimes with shallow social roots. In this new era these regimes are entering crisis. Bulgaria, for example, has held eight general elections in five years, the most recent in April. The undermining of the traditional bourgeois parties and the former workers’ parties in western, southern and central Europe has been profound, resulting in unprecedented levels of disintegration of support for them and political polarisation to the left and to the right. The scandals around the ‘Epstein files’ have further fuelled this process.
As the recent elections in some key countries has graphically illustrated, there is an enormous crisis of political representation for the ruling class. As a columnist in the FT commented in early April 2026, “In March, nationwide votes in Denmark, Italy and Slovenia, and at the subnational level in Germany, saw rising voter concern about cost of living increases in the context of the Iran war translate into anti-incumbent voting and political fragmentation.” For example in Denmark the social democracy lost to two existing parties on its left.
Current opinion polling in the UK shows the two traditional parties that have ruled the British political system for the past century on barely 35% of the vote combined. With the right populists of Reform UK and the left populist Greens on 40% plus combined. The elections due in May in England, Wales and Scotland will almost certainly see a catastrophic defeat for Keir Starmer and Labour in all three nations. The main beneficiaries for the hatred towards both Labour and the Tories will be Reform UK, the Greens and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, underlining the importance of the national question today. While it is very possible that a majority will not vote at all.
In Germany, the Social Democrats had their worst election result in its history at the 2025 federal election. While the other traditional force, the CDU/CSU, received their second worst result ever. The success of Die Linke at that election, in which it won 64 seats and added tens of thousands of new members was an example of the polarisation. As was the fact that the far-right AfD also doubled their parliamentary representation to over 150 seats.
In France, we have witnessed the farcical attempts of Macron to assemble a stable government, following his fateful decision to call an early general election in 2024. After five prime ministers in two years, he is in a weaker position than ever. The main traditional bourgeois parties are disintegrating, including the Socialist Party which had to merge its candidates on lists with others, such as the CP and the Greens/Ecologists at the recent elections. Those saw gains for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-populist LFI and the far-right RN – who currently lead in the polling for the presidential election in 2027.
The right populists do not offer a stable base for the rule of the capitalist class. By their nature, in power, they are prone to provoke eruptions of class struggle and can be very unreliable as an instrument for the rule of the bourgeois. In particular because of its tendency to splits and divisions, as the different class pressures on it increases. And the fear of their polices creating a working class backlash that can led to the growth of left and socialist forces.
However, the bourgeois are nothing if not flexible, sometimes they are left with no choice other than to try to ‘tame the beast’ their rule has created in the form of right wing populism. In Italy, Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party has largely been co-opted to do the bidding of the Italian bourgeois. As the Economist magazine wrote in October 2025: “Ms Meloni’s government has pursued an agenda scarcely more radical than that of other democratic conservatives”, “far from delivering the full throttle fascism many feared, it offers a kind of caretaker conservatism, long on stability but short on reform”. While being elected on a policy of cracking down on illegal migration, her government have allowed visas for hundreds of thousands of immigrants demanded by big business in Italy. Meloni’s position was further weakened domestically by her defeat in the recent constitutional referendum. Her integration into the “mainstream” won’t necessarily last, depending on the different pressures on her, including from some of her allies in the coalition openly attacking her. The far and populist right still represent a significant danger to the working class.
However, elsewhere, right-populist parties and politicians, consciously prevent the bourgeois of the nation states of Europe from coming to a common policy, for example on the crucial questions of the war on Ukraine and EU policy towards Russia. The Orban government in Hungary and the Fico government in Slovakia acted to block the EU majority on these issues.
Illustrating the inability of right-populist parties to solve the crisis of bourgeois political representation, the FIDESZ government in Hungary under Viktor Orbán was defeated in the elections on 12 April after sixteen years in office. His replacement, Peter Magyar, is a creature of FIDESZ itself, and represents a variation of right-wing populist Hungarian nationalism, and will also be incapable of solving the fundamental problems confronting Hungarian capitalism. In Poland, the right-populist Law & Justice Party (PiS) lost its parliamentary majority in 2023, however in June 2025, the PiS-aligned candidate Karol Nawrocki won the presidency. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic right-wing populists are also in power.
In Britain, Reform UK is currently leading in the polls. So while on the one hand launching attacks on its leader, Nigel Farage, in order to weaken it, there has also been a procession of former Tory MPs joining Reform to try and make it safer for capitalist interests – and to advance their own political careers. In power in local government, Reform councillors have carried out the cuts to the letter.
Amid falling support for their traditional parties, resorting to multi-party coalitions and forms of national governments are increasingly necessary to try and exclude far-right and right-populist forces coming to power. However, in some cases the ruling class want to try to incorporate or discredit these forces by taking them into government. In Austria in 2025 the FPÖ refused to fall into this trap again and declared that they would not join a government dominated by the “established” parties. Even the creation of new or regurgitated bourgeois political formations – as effectively Macron’s party was in France when it was set-up in 2016 – can be resorted to. In Romania, presidential elections in 2025 that saw the right-populist candidate win were annulled by the courts before being re-run. An unstable ‘grand coalition’ of most major capitalist parties is now in power to block the right-populist AUR but is unstable and constantly on the brink of collapse. There is a deepening crisis of both capitalist and working class political representation today.
Right populism existing to the scale it currently does is due primarily to the lack of authoritative workers’ parties with fighting socialist policies. Even reactionary ideologies like anti-immigration propaganda, racism, LGBT phobia, opposition to net zero policies and anti-women’s rights rhetoric that the far-right and populist right often base themselves on can be hugely undermined through mass struggle and the building of its political expression in the form of mass parties of the working class. At root, the current electoral support for the right is for most voters a reaction to the hatred and failures of the parties of the capitalist establishment. An important aspect of the situation is the introductions of more bonapartist, repressive, anti-democratic measures, not just by the far right, but by the ruling class in general, often under the guise of “anti-semitism.” The repressive measures introduced in Germany, Britain and other countries are a reflection of the new situation the working class now faces. This is combined in many countries by a vicious attacks against migrants including the increased threat of deportations.
Left Formations
The wave of support for new left-populist formations and leaders was a marked feature of the post-2007-09 period. As we analysed at the time and since they were not workers’ parties. Nor did they offer a political programme that was sufficient to tackle the scale of the crisis. When in power – for example Syriza in Greece in 2015 – they capitulated to the capitalist forces ranged against them. That paved the way for the return of the New Democracy in 2019, and even a certain recovery for Pasok. Underlining that when the left comes to power and fails, it can lead to a resurgent right wing and also the growth of far right and populist forces.
The tendency for these left formations to embark on coalitionism with or support for capitalist governments at local or national level was also a major feature, as witnessed in the Italy with the (PrC), Spanish state (Podemos), Germany (Die Linke) and the Netherlands (Socialist Party) and other countries. This was a reflection both of their primarily petty bourgeois leadership and their belief that they could work within the confines of capitalism to deliver improvements to the lives of “the people”. It also played a key role in decisively undermining support for them electorally and boosting support for the right.
Today, some of the left formations that exist suffer from the same maladies in general despite election advances In Germany, where Die Linke has taken part in cuts coalitions at local and state level, there has been recent stagnation of Linke support and slippage in election results where the government is in crisis. In Belgium the now left reformist ex-Maoist PTB/Pvda is, in polls, the strongest party in Brussels (18,5%), fourth biggest in Wallonia (17%) and fifth in Flanders (9.8%) and they will be tested on the same issue.
Your Party in Britain has utterly failed to live up to the potential that it had to develop in the direction of a genuine mass party. This was entirely down to the mistaken approach of the leading elements involved in the process. Neither wing of the two factions that grappled for power had any intention of basing themselves on the ranks of the trade unions and the organised working class. The Corbyn wing has won control of YP at a UK level, but will not stand candidates at all in Scotland and Wales and very few in England in May. It’s future is highly uncertain. Our comrades have been excluded from membership. YP is heading towards being a small left party, with a handful of MPs and councillors, and a limited base amongst some migrant communities.
The Greens in England and Wales have recently emerged as a force under its new “left” leader Polanski. Their membership has gone up by around 150,000 in the last six months, attracting some layers of youth who initially went to YP and trade unionists. Polanski recently making an appeal to trade unions to join the Green Party. Yet at the same time their recent conference voted against the nationalisation of the big five energy companies, while Green councillors routinely vote through cuts in councils where they are part of the ruling administrations. At a certain stage, the possibility of split in the Greens on a left/right basis is also posed.
Mélenchon and LFI are an important pole of attraction for layers of the French middle class, some workers and youth. They won 593 councillors in the recent local elections. Yet still Mélenchon, who only talks about “the people” as opposed to basing himself clearly on the working class, refuses to create the basis for a genuine party, preferring a movement only. This has the effect of allowing his domination of LFI to go unchecked by the rank and file, and restricting the potential of LFI to develop as a genuine working class mass party. The successful re-election of our comrade as a councillor in France while participating as part of the ‘popular and unbowed’ list, was an important achievement for the CWI.
A transitional demand we raise in many of our sections is for the building of mass workers’ parties on a socialist programme. This demand has a key importance in the period that lies ahead. As our experience in Germany, France and Britain underlines, participation in and orientation to left formations can be an important avenue for our work. Recent developments in Britain illustrate the complications involved in the formation of new workers’ parties and that we have seen an era of populism of both a left and right variation. Regardless of these complications in forming broad parties of the working class it is possible to and essential to build revolutionary parties. At all times the building of our own independent revolutionary parties and groups and the strengthening of our base in the working class remains our central immediate and strategic task.
Workers’ Struggles, Trade Unions and Youth Movements
2025 continued to see important class battles, and in some countries eruptions of general strike action was evident. Greece saw the return of two one day general strikes in October over the introduction of labour laws by the right wing government, including the introduction of a 13-hour working day for some workers in the private sector. Belgium witnessed workers take part in three days of nationwide strike action in November 2025, and again in March 2026 against government plans to implement attacks on pensions, wages and public services. And in Italy two million workers took part in a general strike in October called by two of the major unions, triggered by the genocide in Gaza and the seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla by the Israeli state. The strike also became a lightning rod for opposition to all the economic and social problems working-class and young people are facing in the country. December also saw another major day of strike action by the CGIL union against the Meloni government’s planned cuts. Although that is not yet reflected in a mass political expression for Italian workers and youth.
In addition to these examples was the general strike in Portugal in December 2025, when three million workers took part in a national strike. And on September 18 in France where over one million took part in a strike and mass protests against Macron’s proposed budget.
This points to a rising tide of class struggle generally across the continent, rooted in the continued cost of living crisis, cuts to public services and attacks on workers’ terms and conditions. The increased likelihood of a new world downturn can, depending on its severity, provoke immediate further struggles including generalised strike action. It is through such struggles that a new layer of militant trade union activists are emerging that can form the basis to transform the existing trade union structures into left and militant fighting unions.
It is precisely in the coming period that the hallmark of the CWI – our orientation to the mass organisations of the working class – can come into its own along with winning sections of the youth that can be won to a revolutionary socialist programme and party. We have very important leading positions already in the trade unions and workplaces through the work of our sections in Ireland, Scotland and England and Wales, with a developing base in the workers’ movement in Germany and France. Every section and group of the CWI in Europe has the potential to strengthen the work amongst the organised working class in the period we are moving into. Both building our own forces and in encouraging the development of fighting left and opposition groupings in the unions to counter the class collaboration policies of a majority of the current union leaderships. As well as using the opportunities to make the case for the building of mass working class political representation.
The mood and consciousness among young people needs close attention. Europe has witnessed major mobilisations of young people over the Gaza genocide, including walkouts of schools and colleges in southern Europe in particular. Hatred of Trump, the right-populists and the far right, racism, sexism, women’s oppression, the environment and LGBTQ phobia etc. can continue to be a trigger for major youth mobilisations. While the war on Iran is not seeing the scale of protests that we saw at the height of the Gaza movement, the fear of war and even a third world war and militarisation in general are issues that can ignite a mood. A layer of youth are looking for a struggle for a revolutionary change of system. In Germany there has been a series of school student strikes, a harbinger of what can develop. At all times we will link the struggles of youth to the workers’ movement and its collective potential to take the leading role in the struggle against war and capitalism.
Conclusion
As we commented in the World Perspectives document agreed at the 2024 World Congress of the CWI: “How can we characterise this new period? We are in an era of dramatic social, political and economic polarisation, shocks, instability and uncertainty, the degree of which have not been experienced for generations. A new world, of a protracted death agony of capitalism is unfolding. There is revolutionary potential and optimism involving a glimpse of a new world. This has been reflected in important class and social movements that have erupted. Even greater class battles and social upheavals are pending in the new era we are now in.”
Those greater class battles pending we spoke off now include those mass strikes in Belgium, Italy, Greece and Portugal, as well as the mass action by the Argentinian working class, as well as that of Bolivian workers. They are the tremors of the coming future earthquake that will shake capitalism to its foundations and lay the basis for the qualitative transformation of working class political consciousness.