VIENNA - Pity Europe’s Socialists. It’s getting lonely on the left.
Just when you might think capitalism’s global crisis would breathe new life into the left, it’s looking increasingly divided and tired.
The reelection of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany a week ago is highlighting a conservative surge in her country and Europe’s other powerhouse economies - Britain, France, and Italy - where the center-right is either firmly in power or about to get there.
What happened?
Much of the answer lies in the nature of modern European politics, where even the most ardent conservatives can still embrace social welfare policies that would seem leftist to Americans. And in recent years, European center-right parties have mastered a certain political alchemy in co-opting some of the left’s best ideas.
The result is that what would be hot-button issues in the United States - abortion, gun control, gay rights, or state-guaranteed health care - have long ceased to rile voters in Europe.
Conservatives “have taken a page right out of Bill Clinton’s playbook, and that’s triangulation,’’ said Heather Conley, a Europe scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Clinton brought the US Democrats toward more laissez-faire economic policies, as did Britain’s Tony Blair when his Labor Party ousted the Tories in 1997. Now European conservatives have done it in reverse - “taken the socialist agenda and claimed it as their own,’’ Conley said.
The left’s slide began well before the global recession discredited the right’s faith in free markets and light regulation. The surprise, to some, is that Europeans seem to have more faith in conservatives to solve the crisis.
“In times of insecurity, the right has credibility,’’ said Enrico de Bernart, a 43-year-old man window-shopping near the Pantheon in Rome. “People trust the right or center-right even if you don’t like their objectives.’’
The Financial Times of London had another explanation: The left was in power for a decade in Britain and Germany, and it was then, voters believe, that the seeds of the financial meltdown were planted.
The right has also profited by pounding hard on immigration and crime - popular in times of economic uncertainty - while sending out reassuring messages about preserving Europe’s generous welfare systems.
Analysts insist the social safety net isn’t in jeopardy. “The lesson that Europe has taken a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers is that the safety net cushioned the most extreme effects of the recession,’’ Conley said.