European liberals adopt security agenda after election losses
Europe’s centrist liberals are replacing their traditional focus on open markets with a security-first agenda, a shift that will fundamentally alter how the continent regulates trade and defends its economy.
At the ALDE congress in Vienna on July 3-4, Europe's liberal parties formally abandoned their traditional emphasis on open markets and integration, replacing it with a strict new priority: security.
The repositioning responds to a continent-wide collapse in liberal political support. Spain’s Ciudadanos effectively disappeared from national politics in 2023. Germany’s FDP failed to reach the five-percent threshold in the 2025 federal election after leaving chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition. In the 2024 European elections, the Renew Europe group lost 21 seats to conservative and hard-right factions like the Patriots for Europe.
For businesses and investors, this represents a critical turning point that has profound implications for the single market. European liberals are explicitly rejecting the decades-old assumption that economic interdependence naturally breeds democratic stability and peace.
Instead, they now classify economic coercion alongside cyberattacks and foreign interference as primary threats to the liberal order. “Security and democracy are not separate – nor is democracy sequential to security,” said Carolin Johnson, head of policy at the European Partnership for Democracy.
This ideological pivot suggests liberal lawmakers will no longer act as automatic defenders of frictionless trade. As security becomes the stated precondition for open markets, companies should anticipate stricter screening of foreign investments, tougher export controls, and a more aggressive defense of European supply chains against state-backed sabotage.
"Europe is under attack," said Austrian foreign minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, whose NEOS party achieved its strongest national result in 2024. "Security is not optional," she added.
The shift is already translating into concrete state action that disrupts international operations. In May, Austria expelled three Russian diplomats over an alleged "forest of antennas" installed on diplomatic rooftops in Vienna, which authorities said were used to intercept communications from international organisations and Austrian state institutions.
While Russia's invasion of Ukraine initiated this political
