Leftist parties in troubled EU states may find their fates tied to Syriza

Across the European Union’s cash-strapped south, leftist political parties cheered the results of Sunday’s Greek referendum in which voters decisively rejected bailout terms that would have required further austerity. But those parties may find that their political fortunes are tied to the long-term consequences of that ballot, and a positive outcome for Europe’s left is far from certain.

“Today in Greece, democracy won,” Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Spain’s leftist party Podemos and an ally of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, said via his Twitter account after it emerged that a solid majority had voted “no” on the continuation of bailout terms imposed by Greece’s creditor nations.

Antonio Costa, the head of Portugal’s Socialist Party, told reporters Monday that the result of the vote and Greece’s economic struggles show that European austerity policies are “wrong.” In Italy, Beppe Grillo, a comedian who leads the country’s populist Five Star Movement party, sent a message of support for the “no” camp  last week before the referendum.

Although Italy, Spain and Portugal have all undergone harsh austerity measures, imposed by the European Union in exchange for bailouts, none of those countries face a plight comparable to Greece’s widespread poverty and potentially insuperable debt burden. Yet all those states have seen recent populist surges that echo the one that swept Syriza, Greece’s left-wing coalition, into government in January.

Syriza’s rise to power has been the most dramatic victory thus far for Southern Europe’s resurgent left. Now — with Greece possibly approaching default and exit from the eurozone if it fails to reach an accord on bailout terms with Germany and other European creditor nations — those parties may find that their political future depends on whether Syriza can survive the next few months in power.

“There is going to be a very strong political contagion effect,” said Nikitas Konstantinidis, a lecturer in political economy at Cambridge University. He predicted that a win for Syriza and a rollback of Greek austerity could energize some of its sibling leftist parties in other troubled EU nations.

“I think the effect is going to be a resurgence of radicalization for some of these parties, especially if they manage to do well in the elections,” he said. “Because that’s the strategy of a populist party — you pretend to be a moderate until you gain power, and then you start fleshing out your real agenda.”

For all the parties involved, fleshing out that agenda would likely mean reversing EU austerity policies as well as restructuring the relationship between Southern Europe and the more affluent northern states. But if Syriza leads Greece into a messy default and exit from the euro, that could seriously compromise the whole southern region’s populist left. 

“I think parties of the left, along with everyone else, are probably going to be holding their breath,” said Barnard College political scientist Sheri Berman. “If Greece really goes down a rabbit hole, that’s going to make everyone in Southern Europe think twice.”

That’s because all parties, including Podemos and Portugal’s socialists, have their own electorates to answer to — and Syriza-style politics will be a harder sell abroad if they lead to disaster in Greece.

“These parties have very much seen what’s going on in Greece as a test case for some of the things they’ve long been decrying and would like to see changed in European policy,” Berman said.

The rise of leftist parties in the south is not the only major undercurrent driving European politics, said Konstantinidas. Europe is becoming more polarized as right-wing nationalist movements like France’s National Front, the U.K. Independence Party and the Dutch Freedom Party all gain ground in the north, he said.

“The northern countries are moving in one direction, and the southern countries are moving in the other direction,” he said. “So any movement in one direction is going to see a lot of resistance from the other side."