Populism, sovereignism and the future of Europe

Although populism has different features (as both political movement and political style), the paper will consider those features in relation to the process of European integration. In this case, populism largely overlaps with nationalism, as a modern contestation of supranationalism on behalf of national people. This combination (of populism and nationalism) is thus conceptualized as sovereignism. Indeed, because of the negative consequences of Brexit on British politics and economics, nationalism/populism has had to adapt to European integration and interdependence, trying to reinvent itself as sovereignism. The paper will thus discuss sovereignism in the post-Brexit period (2016-2021) to identify commonalities and differences (in the west and the east of EU). In general, all sovereignists criticized the supranational character (institutional sovereignism) and the centralized policy system (policy sovereignism) which has developed within the EU. However, sovereignists differed on the rationale of their criticism, based more on an economic discourse (economic sovereignism) in western Europe and more on a cultural discourse (cultural sovereignism) in eastern Europe. If sovereignism aims to become the alternative to Europeanism from within the process of integration, the road to follow to define itself is still long. The paper will conclude with a normative assessment of the implications of sovereignism for the future of Europe.