The Guardian view on Europe: change, not decay | Editorial

The big parties grew smaller and the small parties bigger. But the voters still believe in the European project

When the eurozone was locked in crisis and, later, when a million migrants fled to Europe from the Syrian war and elsewhere, many predicted that the European Union would not be able to stand the strain. When these crises were followed by the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, it was common to say - especially in the English-speaking world - that this was only the start, and that other European countries would also succumb to a domino effect of their own nativist revolts and populist demagogues, and that this would hasten the probable disintegration of the post-1945 European project.

It would be extremely foolish, even now, to pretend such a thing could never happen. After all, the political mood across Europe is still volatile. Confidence in rulers remains mostly at a low ebb. Nevertheless, it is also clear that those earlier prophecies of EU doom were wrong.

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