AUSTRIA
LEONHARD FOEGER
Vienna—Just when it seemed as if Europe’s populist revolt couldn’t be stopped, it was. On December 4, Austria’s Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green Party leader who ran as an independent, defeated Norbert Hofer, his far-right counterpart, in the country’s presidential election. He won on a pro-European Union platform at a time when many voters seem to be angry at the EU’s bureaucracy in Brussels. His victory, however, doesn’t mean moderates in France, Germany or the Netherlands are safe in a post-Brexit world. As Daphne Halikiopoulou, an analyst at Britain’s University of Reading, told Newsweek, “I wouldn’t put anything past anyone.”