EAST EUROPE AND POPULISM

BRUSSELS : The popular surge that threatened this year to engulf Western Europe and created existential worries for Brussels seem to have slowed, if not crested.

Nigel Farage, the populist who helped engineer Britain's vote to exit the European Union, is now a mostly marginalised talk-show host.

Marine Le Pen, who terrified the French establishment as the presidential candidate of the National Front, was soundly vanquished-

Geert Wilders, who came in second in Dutch elections in March, was side-lined in the four-party coalition that finally emerged.

But there is a different story in the east, which has become a showcase  for populism in its many varieties, widening a fissure in the European Union.

The four countries in the block's east that make older members anxious -Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -are all led by populists of one stripe or another.

Populism is not easy to define., the roots of its success are varied, and its adherents do not represent a single ideology, even if they all criticize uncontrolled migration, especially of  Muslims.

But their success is fragmenting traditional politics and making coalition governments harder to build, writes Steven Erlanger.

That is certainly the case in Central Europe. The populist, far-right Alternative for Germany has complicated life for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is struggling to form a coalition after September elections in which the party finished third.

In Austria, Sebastian Kurz, just 31, is now expected to become chancellor after running a populist campaign that co-opted the anti-immigration messages of the  far-right freedom Party.

The situation on Germany and Austria is a reminder that populism remains a force to be reckoned with, even with its advance in much of Western Europe has been held off for now.