Left parties in Europe: fight to thrive or survive? The example of the convergence of Green and Labour in the Netherlands
Europe is a right-wing continent, and it doesn’t look like it’s about to change soon. A whopping 21 out of 27 EU countries currently have a right-wing government. Eight of these even contain far-right parties within their government. The last big win for the right was in the Netherlands, where the radical right in the form of Geert Wilders’ PVV surged to victory. Meanwhile, the European left has shrunk consistently in most countries over the last few decades. The political landscape is now more fragmented on both sides of the spectrum. Thus, many left wing parties find themselves in need of finding allies, not just in order to govern, but merely to stay relevant. Particularly, we see a recurrence of collaborations between the growing green parties, allying themselves with the established social democrats.
By: Tesse & Jeanine of the International Committee of DWARS, GroenLinkse Jongeren (NL)
These alliances vary both in intensity and in broadness. In France’s 2022 elections, the NUPES alliance included 6 political parties ranging from the Communist Party to the Socialist Party, also including the Green and anti-capitalist parties. However, their presidential candidate did not get to the 2nd round of France’s ‘first-past-the-post’ system. They were bested by the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and sitting president Macron. The group only snatched a quarter of the parliamentary seats. In Italy, a ‘Green-left’ alliance was formed between ‘Sinistra Italia’ and the European Green party. They later made an agreement to stand together with the more mainstream Democratic Party to expand their reach, though electoral success did not follow. The Green-Left alliance (without the PD) are now working as a single group in parliament, but with only a modest 2.7% of the seats.
The Netherlands
The most significant green-left collaboration on a European level, with perhaps the more promising and durable results, can be found in the Netherlands. Already born of the merger of several historical left-wing parties, the ‘GreenLeft’ (GroenLinks) and Labour Party (PvdA) have been teaming up in elections since the provincial elections (which also decide the Senate) in March 2023. Each party had faced large defeats and loss of seats in the two previous parliamentary elections. First PvdA in 2017 (from 38 to 9 seats), then GroenLinks in 2021 (14 to 8). The aim of the provincial election alliance was to form a common group in the Senate that could counterweight the dominating Liberals. Despite becoming the second-largest group, they were far behind the right-wing BBB. Later in 2023, the parliamentary elections were also faced by the two parties as a single group. Once again, they became the second-largest party in the election, but were surrounded by a sea of even more extreme right-wing parties. This will most likely relegate them, again, to an opposition role once the government forms.
Merger of movements
Historically, the labour ideology on which PvdA bases its identity is older, and perhaps a smidge more conservative, than the Green movement. While Labour in the Western world has played a prominent role since the late 19th century, it was not until the 1970’s that green movements started gaining ground around the world. It was even later before they became politically significant. A merger of these two movements can be viewed as an opportunity to converge two leftist ideologies towards the same endpoint, thereby uniting different generations of thought.
Though the convergence between PvdA and GroenLinks started out as a tactical action to try and stay relevant among the growing right-wing parties, the overwhelming similarities between their political programmes can be seen as a core factor to their success. These political programmes are not just the fruit of the core ideologies of both parties, but also a reaction to the current state of affairs in the Netherlands. This is heavily marked by decades of liberal domination by the VVD (and before that, the centre-right CDA). Long before merging, GroenLinks and PvdA have aligned countless times on topics such as education, subsidies, minimum wages or public transport. Namely that they should be more funded, and that the weight of this funding should not fall further on the average taxpayer, but rather on large corporations and wealthy individuals.
Economy
Take the example of both parties’ approach to free-market capitalism. The social democratic ideology is rooted in a desired economic system in which the capitalistic free market is limited by government restrictions to allow income redistribution. This government-led restriction of the free market is also very much present in the Green thought movement; where it is needed to limit the emission of greenhouse gases by large (corporate) polluters. Or to steer both consumers and enterprises towards greener energy sources through subsidies and fines. This is a typical situation where the same political instrument (government-led restriction and regulations) serves different political goals (environment and income redistribution). This allows for parties with still separate identities to easily work together. Hence, the ideologies of GroenLinks and PvdA intertwine on different levels, which give them a strong substantive basis to form a durable cooperation. Both parties take a strong stance in favour of climate justice, critically examining the role their own country has played in climate change and needs to play in the worldwide challenges to come.
Climate
This is not to say there aren’t any points on which the two parties have (had) difficulties on shaking hands. For example, in earlier elections, PvdA would stand for building houses to solve the national housing crisis even at the cost of existing nature reserves. GroenLinks would be more hesitant to build on thus far untouched ground. The Green Party is also far more liberal with regards to recreational drugs, advocating for the legalisation of XTC, when PvdA still wants to focus efforts on tackling narcotics-related criminality. So far though, their similarities have far outweighed their differences. This can explain their relative success compared to other countries, both in elections and in their durability.
As durable and successful as the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance might seem, it has not yet made a significant difference on the Dutch political landscape, which is still right-dominated. This success can be harder to reproduce in less proportional political systems such as France, where the first-past-the-post presidential election gives the winner disproportionate power. In most other EU countries, Green/Labour collaboration tends to be either provincial (Germany) or temporary (Italy and France). Moreover, it still comes across as a survival strategy rather than a winning strategy. Though it is most likely not the final answer to swinging Europe to the left, it is, however, a step in the right direction. It is essential for survival and credibility in parliaments. Where the left cannot lead, they can at least, in this way, provide a serious democratic counterweight for Europe’s more and more right electoral tendencies. Additionally, these two left-wing ideologies can complement each other very well and thus strengthen each other.
