Across Europe, positions once regarded as marginal have moved steadily into the mainstream. The usual explanation is radicalisation. A different interpretation deserves consideration. What many European societies are experiencing may be less a radicalisation of voters than a collapse of trust in the institutions and narratives that have shaped the continent’s politics for the past three decades.
In December 2022, 18.3 per cent of Poles believed that Poland should stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. By July 2026, that figure had risen to 45.2 per cent. Poland had been one of Ukraine’s most committed supporters. It took in more than a million refugees, transferred substantial quantities of military equipment from its own stocks and became the principal logistical hub for Western assistance. Over time, though, the relationship became increasingly strained. Disputes over trade, historical memory and political expectations revealed differences that the early phase of the war had largely concealed. What in 2022 appeared as a clear moral and strategic imperative gradually came to be seen by many as an open-ended commitment without a visible resolution.
Poland is not an isolated case. It is one of the clearest expressions of a broader shift. In Germany, Alternative for Germany (AfD) has advanced by questioning both the scale and duration of support for Ukraine and calling for a reassessment of Germany’s future relationship with Russia. In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico returned to power in October 2023 on a platform that included explicit scepticism towards further large-scale aid. In France, Marine Le Pen has long challenged the prevailing consensus and steadily increased her support. In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has argued that assistance to Ukraine should be provided only insofar as it serves Czech national interests. His government has allowed the Czech ammunition initiative to continue but has refused to fund it from the national budget. Even in Hungary, where Prime Minister Péter Magyar initially positioned himself as a more pro-European alternative to Viktor Orbán, whom he unseated in April 2026, the emphasis has gradually shifted towards Hungarian interests and the limits of long-term commitments.
These developments are routinely described as a surge in extremism or populism. Yet in each case, the parties in question are not merely rejecting existing policies. They are advancing a different conception of national interest. Whether this constitutes radicalisation depends largely on how one defines the political centre.
By the political centre, this article refers not to moderate opinions in the abstract, but to the post-Cold War governing consensus shared by mainstream parties, European institutions and much of Europe’s political and media establishment. This consensus has rested on several core elements: Relatively open immigration policies, ambitious climate targets and a long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine without a clearly defined endpoint in terms of duration or cost. For years, these positions were presented less as political choices than as self-evident necessities. To question them placed one outside the bounds of respectable debate.
It is precisely these positions that growing numbers of Europeans have begun to question. Political realignment is rarely driven primarily by the persuasive power of extremists. More often, it occurs when established institutions lose the ability to explain reality in terms that correspond to people’s lived experience. The process tends to follow a recurring pattern. At first, most people accept the dominant narrative. Over time, contradictions appear between official messaging and observable outcomes. When citizens raise questions about costs or trade-offs, the response from mainstream institutions is frequently perceived not as political argument, but as moral judgement. This perception accelerates the erosion of trust. Once trust declines sufficiently, people begin to seek alternative explanations that better account for their circumstances. Political alternatives then become attractive not necessarily because voters embrace every aspect of them, but because they appear to address concerns that established actors have failed to recognise.
This pattern is supported by data. Research drawing on the European Social Survey has repeatedly found a correlation between low institutional trust and support for anti-establishment parties. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found in its 2024 trust survey that political parties were the least trusted institution it measured, with 24 per cent of respondents reporting high or moderately high trust in them, and that a sense of having no say in political decisions was a central driver of distrust.
European leaders have increasingly responded to these developments by framing the rise of anti-establishment parties in the language of extremism, populism and threats to democracy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told supporters on the night of the June 2024 European elections that her party would “build a bastion against the extremes from the left and the right”. French President Emmanuel Macron warned, in his final address to the armed forces on July 13, 2026, that flattering nationalism anywhere amounted to a misreading of French history: “Patriotism, yes; nationalism, never.” He added that history should not be allowed to stutter. This framing carries a clear risk. By treating widespread scepticism primarily as a symptom of radicalisation, institutions risk misdiagnosing its causes. The danger does not lie in the existence of disagreement within democratic societies. The danger lies in the tendency to interpret disagreement itself as evidence of democratic decline.
The growth of anti-establishment politics cannot be reduced to a simple story of radicalisation. A substantial part of it reflects the erosion of institutional credibility and the perception that mainstream politics has failed to address real costs and trade-offs. The evolution of attitudes towards Ukraine illustrates this dynamic with particular clarity. Support for Ukraine has not disappeared. It has become increasingly conditional. Many Europeans continue to support assistance to Ukraine while questioning whether their own countries should accept open-ended costs without a clearly defined political objective.
The same pattern appears in other areas, including migration and climate policy, where voters increasingly question whether promised long-term benefits justify immediate costs. In each of these domains, the underlying mechanism is similar: Initial acceptance of the prevailing narrative, the emergence of contradictions between that narrative and lived experience, declining trust and the gradual adoption of harder positions.
The political consequences are already visible. In Poland, Konfederacja (Confederation) has grown from roughly 6 to 8 per cent in 2022 to between 13 and 16 per cent in polls published in July 2026. In Germany, the AfD has risen from 10.3 per cent at the 2021 federal election and 20.8 per cent at the 2025 election to between 26 and 28 per cent in July 2026 polling. In France, support for the National Rally has exceeded 30 per cent in multiple polls. These are not marginal developments. They reflect a structural shift in the relationship between significant parts of European societies and their political institutions.
The widening gap between political elites and substantial segments of their electorates carries risks. The more institutions continue to repeat narratives that large numbers of citizens no longer find credible, the more alienated those citizens become. The question is not whether European societies are becoming more radical. The question is whether political elites are willing to recognise that growing scepticism is not a condition to be suppressed, but a signal that requires interpretation.
The real engine of political change is not radical ideology. It is accumulated disappointment. People rarely abandon the political centre because extremists persuade them. More often, they leave because the centre stops persuading them that its account of reality still reflects their experience.
European politics may soon discover that the greatest threat to stability is not the existence of parties that challenge the mainstream. It is the growing inability of mainstream institutions to understand why millions of citizens no longer find those explanations credible.
