Europe's nationalist and sovereignist movements have abandoned the goal of leaving the European Union in favor of a more ambitious project: entering its institutions and emptying them of meaning from within. That is the central argument of a new report from the Brussels Institute of Geopolitics, authored by Thomas Laffitte, which examines how the nature of Euroscepticism has changed a decade after Brexit.
According to the analysis, far-right movements across Europe are now considerably stronger than they were ten years ago, yet almost none of them still advocate for withdrawal from the bloc. Instead, they have adopted a strategy that treats Brussels not as a fortress to be abandoned but as a structure to be occupied and reshaped according to a nationalist agenda.
The report's title captures the shift in a single phrase: Europe must not be left, but occupied and emptied of content from the inside. This approach marks a departure from the classic Eurosceptic playbook, which for years centered on referendums, exit campaigns, and the promise of restoring full national sovereignty outside the union's framework.
Brexit serves as the backdrop for this strategic reorientation. A decade after the United Kingdom voted to leave, the report notes that the political forces that once championed similar exits have largely concluded that withdrawal carries prohibitive costs. The alternative they have settled on is to work within the existing structures, using the EU's own mechanisms, elections, and institutions to advance their goals.
The implications for Brussels are significant. If nationalist parties continue to gain ground in European Parliament elections and in national capitals, they could influence legislation, block initiatives, and reshape the bloc's priorities without ever triggering an exit process. The report suggests that this strategy of internal erosion may prove more effective than outright opposition from the outside.
The analysis, cited by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, points to a paradox at the heart of contemporary European politics: the forces most critical of the European project are increasingly operating inside its machinery rather than against it. Their aim is not to dismantle the union overnight but to gradually redirect it toward a different set of priorities, centered on national sovereignty, border control, and resistance to further integration.
For observers of European affairs, the report raises questions about how mainstream parties and institutions should respond. If the challenge is no longer external rejection but internal occupation, the traditional defenses of the European project may need to be reconsidered. The battle over the continent's future, the analysis suggests, will be fought not at the exits but in the corridors and committee rooms of Brussels itself.
The report does not predict an imminent transformation of the European Union, but it does describe a long-term realignment in which the terms of the debate have shifted. The question is no longer whether member states might leave, but how far those who wish to change the union from within can go before its founding principles are fundamentally altered.