So there you have it:

• In Spain the right was booted out of office by a last minute electoral swing as a result of the terrorist attacks on Madrid’s commuter trains;

• In Germany Chancellor Merkel could not get a majority to govern and was forced to cobble together a somewhat weak coalition with her direct opponents, the Social-Democrats,

• In The Netherlands the left swept local elections, despite a solid economic recovery and firm anti-immigration policies which its citizens had voted for during the 2002 and 2003 election cycles;

• In France even relatively minor surgical attempts to bring its labor code in line with freer markets produced a degree of political unrest and instability not seen since 1968;

• And in Italy, equally economically challenged, the vote yesterday split almost in such a way as to make it almost impossible for either the left or the right to govern with a meaningful mandate.

It is of course nothing unusual to see political zigzagging in the face of economic adversity, I can’t think of a different picture looking back to the 70s or 80s when I grew up in Europe. However, it is beginning to look like that Europe’s electorate is far more outspoken than it used to be, that positions are more polarized than ever and that consequently it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a workable consensus. The quest to build decisive policies that attack deep problems with broad public support is not yielding any results, instead it is a left-to-right zigzag or an unproductive stalemate in the middle.

On the economic front just take a look at what has transpired in France. Last year the inhabitants of Europe’s greatest champion – and its imagined leader – rejected the draft EU constitution, largely out of fear. It was a vote driven by its left-of-center base that was desperate to keep the competitive and free trading world at bay, and as such it was a precursor to the chaos that the labor reform (CPE) legislation brought about this spring. In between the vote and the ill-fated labor law France by the way had to work its way through a veritable intifada. In all three cases it were radical positions that were driving the issue, and in all three cases a resolution or a possible consensus proved to be elusive. Nothing has been addressed or resolved.

Of course all of this pales when it comes to the much harder to tackle immigration mess, especially the worsening relations between mainstream Europe and its Muslim population. While the problems and politically correct motivated inaction built themselves up to an untenable situation round the turn of the century, a rightward shift (notably in The Netherlands and Denmark) seemed to enable the bare minimum: a framework for open an unhindered discussion. Now some five years later, the old concepts are staging a forceful comeback as we saw last week when the reinvigorated Dutch left presented some ‘new ideas’. And the EU has weighed in on the issue too, with a surprising focus on the inadequacy of fresh integration proposals and a focus on the alienation that Muslims in Europe are currently experiencing. Forgive me, but isn’t that just an attempt to sweep all the misery back under the carpet and propose to have another go at it with yesterday’s approaches?

It seems that the various positions are becoming increasingly polarized and Europe’s electorate is swinging indecisively from left to right like a pendulum, taking cues from a clueless political leadership. So at a time when stability and focus are more than ever required to progressively move Europe forward, all we see on the old continent’s political landscape is a terrible paralysis.