Positioning based on public statements and voting behaviour, May–June 2026.

Having established in the previous parts that we chose this ourselves, we must now honestly map out exactly who we chose. Which party wanted what. Which union demanded what. What the employers said. And what Brussels — intended as the engine of the continent — is currently making of it all.

This is not a pamphlet. This is an honest cartography. Because only when you know who sits on which side of the table can you understand why the train is not getting back on the rails. Everyone is pushing a different carriage, and nobody is looking at the locomotive.

Netherlands — the polder pushes left

GroenLinks-PvdA (Green Left and Labour)

The clearest plunder coalition. Jesse Klaver literally hammered on 4 June 2026 in parliament for a "fair tax on high profits and large wealth". The position is consistent: keep the welfare state standing by taxing the upper layer more heavily — not by asking the lower layer to work more or to make the system more modest. The party regards wealth as democratically suspect, entrepreneurship as useful as long as it is regulable, and successful Dutch citizens as candidates for an additional contribution.

Their electorate: highly educated civil servants, teachers, healthcare workers, people in the public sector. People who have no wealth themselves and whom the additional tax does not affect. It is both electorally logical and morally self-congratulatory. What it lacks is any substantive analysis of what happens when the cash cow refuses to keep grazing.

FNV — the union

The FNV actively supports this course. The union movement's ultimatum on 4 June 2026 regarding budget cuts — submitted to the cabinet — is not about working for what you receive. It is about: keep benefits at their level, pay for it with the money of the "very wealthiest". Tuur Elzinga has consistently carried that message. The union in 2026 is no longer an organisation for workers. It is an organisation to protect the social contract as it once was, financed by others. That is a fundamental difference from the FNV of around 1985, which still negotiated wages in exchange for productivity.

D66 (Democrats 66, social-liberal)

Voted for the new Box 3 law on 12 February 2026. Not from conviction, but because the electorate expects it. D66 above all does not want to be labelled antisocial. The party that once embraced entrepreneurship has transformed in two decades into a progressively bureaucratic tendency that flows with the zeitgeist. International competitiveness is mentioned occasionally but never consistently translated into policy.

VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, centre-right liberal)

The party that is supposed to defend entrepreneurs also voted for Box 3. There is a tragedy in that. The VVD has spent the past fifteen years losing the moral foundation for opposing wealth taxes. By itself supporting, decade after decade, public expenditure that is now unaffordable, the party has become complicit in the problem it rhetorically combats. The result: soft opposition, with the occasional brave statement from an individual MP that nobody quotes.

CDA and NSC (Christian Democrats and New Social Contract)

Also voted for Box 3. Centre politics that primarily sees itself as a bridge, and therefore bends in every direction. The CDA tradition of protecting the family business is barely recognisable in the current generation of politicians. Pieter Omtzigt and NSC took up budget discipline in the 2023 campaign but without fundamentally challenging the redistribution model.

PVV and BBB (Party for Freedom and Farmer-Citizen Movement)

Here it becomes interesting. Wilders says: "ordinary Dutch citizens are paying for the consequences of immigration", and wants to solve the problem by closing borders and denying migrants benefits for fifteen years. That is a different reading of the same problem, without including the productive class in the analysis. The BBB has an agrarian undertone — the farmer as victim of Hague policy — but does not broaden that to the wider entrepreneurial class.

Both parties absorb the anger that will soon become much larger. But neither has a coherent story about how productive wealth is built. They point — correctly — at the problems. A solution they do not offer.

VNO-NCW and the employers

Here lies the most conspicuous silence. VNO-NCW publicly criticised the new Box 3 levy on 22 May 2026 and argues for a capital gains tax rather than a capital accretion tax. That is technically the correct argument. The Dutch Startup Association literally called on the Senate not to proceed with the bill, because it "undermines confidence in the business climate".

But the discussion is conducted on the terrain of technique, not principle. The question of whether the Dutch state has the right at all to tax wealth annually — a new form of taxation oriented not to what a person earns but to what he has built — is not raised by VNO-NCW. Too politically incorrect. The result: the employers' organisation loses the debate even in its most defensive form, because its argument is technical and the opposing argument is moral. Moral arguments always beat technical ones — even when they are wrong.

Germany — the coalition tears under its own words

SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany)

Wants to raise the top income tax rate from 42 to 49 percent, and supports the idea of a wealth tax for those with net assets above twenty million euros. Marcel Fratzscher of the DIW has presented the calculation: two percent wealth tax yields about 42 billion euros. "The state could use that money to lower taxes on labour and businesses," he says. With that he sells the German wealth tax as net positive for entrepreneurs. That is academically clever and politically deceptive: once the levy is in place, the compensation idea always disappears into the general revenue.

CDU and CSU (Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union)

Officially oppose raising the top rate and oppose a wealth tax. But there are already cracks. At the end of May 2026, the first Union politicians showed themselves "open to compromise" on raising the Reichensteuersatz from 45 to 47.5 percent. The course begins to bend, not because the CDU leadership is convinced, but because the SPD will no longer cooperate on other tax reductions without the "wealthy contributing more". That is how principles evaporate in coalition politics.

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens)

Karl Haeusgen — interesting, since he himself heads the Greens' business network, former president of the German mechanical engineering federation VDMA — advocates higher income tax and higher inheritance tax. That is remarkable: a named entrepreneur who still argues for heavier taxation, because he believes "wealthy entrepreneurial families should bear a greater tax burden". A rational self-destruction, fed by the guilt of the successful German.

AfD (Alternative for Germany)

Catches the anger on the other side. Not about the plunder, but about what is done with the plundered money — primarily migration, asylum costs, climate spending. The same pattern as PVV: a party that points, not one that builds.

DGB — the German Trade Union Confederation

Here it gets serious. On 3 June 2026, deputy chairman Stefan Körzell repeated the DGB proposal: tax every euro of net wealth above one million euros, for married couples above two million. Plus an additional Vermögensabgabe of ten percent on all wealth above ten million — spread over twenty years. Yield: 350 billion. "Instead of taking the red pencil to ordinary working people, the government must finally go after the profiteers of unequal distribution," said Körzell.

The language is telling. "Profiteers." That is what the DGB calls the entrepreneurs who run the factories where DGB members work. Who pay the pension contributions that DGB members expect to enjoy in twenty years. Who supply the tax money from which DGB secretaries are financed. Profiteers of a society that without them would be no society.

BDI and Die Familienunternehmer (Federation of German Industry and Family Business confederation)

The German employer side. The BDI protests against every new levy, but cautiously. Die Familienunternehmer goes further: they warn literally of the "substanzvernichtende Wirkung" — the substance-destroying effect — of wealth tax. Substance-destroying. That is technically correct — a wealth tax on illiquid business assets forces the sale or fragmentation of the business to pay the levy. It is the cruellest form of industrial damage, because it comes slowly and cannot be reversed.

Is anyone listening? Not really. Familienunternehmer is, in the German media, the voice of what is called "the rich". The employees of those same family businesses are presented in DGB reports as victims of capital. The same company is divided along two axes: the owner as profiteer, the employee as victim. No attention to the fact that without the first, the second would not exist either.

France — the battlefield under pure tension

La France Insoumise (LFI) (France Unbowed)

Mélenchon and his allies advocate the full reintroduction of the ISF — the wealth tax that Macron abolished in 2017 — plus a tax on "super-profits", plus a sweeping reform of inheritance tax. The programme is consistent: SMIC to €1,700, retirement back to 60, ISF restored, dividends taxed as wages. It is the purest plunder variant in Europe, presented under the banner of justice.

Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party)

Lighter, but in the same direction. The Socialists propose reintroducing a wealth tax on assets above one hundred million euros — the Zucman standard, the same two percent on the ballot in California. Olivier Faure frames this as the "socially acceptable" alternative to the 44 billion euros in cuts the government wants. A deliberately moral framing: choose between slashing the poor or taxing the super-rich. The middle path — namely promising less and living more modestly — is not mentioned.

Rassemblement National (RN) (National Rally)

Marine Le Pen has focused above all on resisting restrictions on the CPF — the personal training account — not on taxes on holdings or the rollback of the Pacte Dutreil for family businesses. The RN takes up the underdog of the working class, but cheaply leaves the attack on the productive top unchallenged. A tactically smart position: do not defend the rich, because that is electorally unsellable; do present the ordinary French citizen as victim.

Renaissance and Les Républicains (Gaullists)

Macron's movement and the Gaullists are fighting behind the scenes. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu filed an appeal with the Conseil constitutionnel at the end of May 2026 to have three fiscal measures against "the rich" reviewed before they come into force. That reflects the centre-right position: not opposed in principle to additional taxation of wealth, but concerned about legal sustainability. The same pragmatism that D66 and VVD display in the Netherlands. Carefully bending along in the hope that it will be less bad than the left wants.

Medef (Movement of French Enterprises)

Protests, but cautiously. Medef has systematically lost ground in public debate in recent years. Patrick Martin, the current president, speaks in technical terms about "investment climate" and "competitiveness". Nobody listens. The French intellectual climate views the entrepreneur as a suspect, and that does not change through business logic.

The three patterns that emerge

Whoever places the Dutch, German and French party landscapes side by side sees three patterns that are the same everywhere.

One — the left wants to plunder more, and does so with moral clarity. GroenLinks-PvdA, SPD, LFI, Parti Socialiste, partly Bündnis 90: they have a coherent story and a reliable base. Their moral framing — "the strong must contribute more" — is electorally robust and culturally dominant. Those who go against them carry the burden of proof.

Two — centre-right bends along, because it cannot do otherwise. VVD, CDU, Renaissance, Les Républicains: they vote for what they rhetorically oppose. Their problem is that they have spent decades supporting the welfare state and now have no moral foundation to oppose its financing. They lose every discussion because they cannot clearly articulate why taxing wealth is wrong, while they regard taxing income as normal. The difference between the two — taxing profit when realised, or taxing wealth when it has not even been realised yet — is technically crystal clear, but morally impossible to explain to an electorate that thinks in soundbites.

Three — populist right points, but does not build. PVV, AfD, RN, BBB, FvD (Forum for Democracy): they absorb the anger that the plunder produces, but direct it elsewhere. At migrants. At Brussels. At the "elite". Not at the plunder itself. That is electorally logical — their voters have no wealth and do not feel addressed by a defence of it — but it means that even a rightward shift across all of Europe would not stop the plunder. It would only change the scapegoat.

My opinion: What is in reality missing across all of Europe is a political movement that says what is simply true: the welfare state as we have built it can structurally no longer be financed from the production we still deliver. We must choose between producing more or distributing less. A third option — "making the rich pay more" — exists only as an arithmetic fiction, not as a lasting solution. No European party dares to say this. Not the left, because it undermines their moral starting point. Not centre-right, because it costs them votes. Not the populist right, because it would explain to their electorate that they do in fact bear responsibility. The silence is unanimous, and therefore total.

Brussels — the engine runs, but does not know which way

Above this national stage sits the European Commission, which is officially supposed to be the engine of Europe's revival. What is it doing in June 2026?

On 3 June the Commission presented the 2026 European Semester Spring Package. Roxana Mînzatu and Valdis Dombrovskis spoke in Brussels about an "important shift" — competitiveness measured by human capital, skills and social resilience. The recommendations fall into four categories: fiscal stability, innovation, business environment, energy and social justice.

Sounds reasonable. It is empty.

Read the specific recommendations to member states and you find almost nothing concrete about what must be done to protect the productive class in Europe. There is plenty of language about "investment in skills", "improvement of working conditions", "protection of living standards". It is administrative rhetoric that can be filled in any direction. A union leader hears solidarity measures. An entrepreneur hears deregulation. Both are right: nothing clear is written.

The Draghi project

In 2024, Mario Draghi wrote three hundred pages of research for the Commission on how Europe should restore its competitiveness. Investments of 800 billion euros per year. A European AI strategy. A common capital market. Energy independence. It is the most serious piece of work a former Italian prime minister and ECB president has ever delivered.

Of those 800 billion, fifteen percent has been realised in two years. The European Banking Federation reported on 10 June 2026 that the "competitiveness bill" is now not 800 billion but 1.4 trillion euros — nearly double, because the problem has grown through inaction. The engine is running, but in neutral. Nobody dares to engage the gear.

Why Brussels does not know which way to go

This is not incompetence. It is a structural problem built into the European institutions.

One — Brussels cannot levy taxes. The European Commission has no fiscal sovereignty. It can propose directives — such as the planned European minimum exit tax — but implementation lies with the member states. When Germany says: we are raising our wealth tax, Brussels can do nothing. When Italy raises its 24-bis regime to €300,000, Brussels can do nothing. The Commission can "recommend" competitiveness, but cannot enforce it.

Two — Brussels calculates on the wrong timeline. The Commission works on seven-year budgets (2028–2034), on strategic plans for 2030, on AI roadmaps for 2035. Fine on paper. But the productive exodus is happening now, in 2026. The 16,500 British millionaires who left last year are not coming back because the Commission might coordinate a tax measure in 2030. By 2034, when the budget period begins, the European capital fabric will be even thinner than now.

Three — Brussels is trapped between the member states. The large countries — Germany, France, Italy, Spain — want more fiscal coordination and higher taxes on capital. The small countries — Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta, Estonia — want to preserve fiscal sovereignty and their own room for competitive tax policy. The Commission cannot serve both sides simultaneously and so does nothing that truly makes a difference.

Four — Brussels does not understand production. The current Commission is filled with lawyers, economists, political scientists. No engineers. No industrial entrepreneurs. No people who have ever run a factory or commercialised a patent. The result is a fundamental deafness to what productivity actually requires: room for risk, affordable energy, long-term certainty about fiscal policy, craftsmanship passed from generation to generation. Brussels produces documents. Documents produce no prosperity.

Five — the Eurobureaucracy has made self-preservation its goal. The Commission is not set up to fix Europe, because its raison d'être lies in coordination between member states. The weaker the member states, the stronger Brussels. A strong Europe with sovereign member states — as under Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand — did not need Brussels. A weak Europe that can no longer manage anything by itself does. It is institutional self-denial to say this aloud, but it is true.

What this means

The political map of Europe in June 2026 is this. A European left that plunders with moral certainty. A centre-right that goes along without knowing how to do otherwise. A populist right that points without building. A Brussels institution that produces documents but no products. Employers' organisations that protest technically but lose morally. Unions that indirectly undermine their own workers by declaring employers the enemy.

None of these parties can solve the problem alone. That is the core. The productive class — the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the patent holders, the family business — no longer has political representation in Europe. Not the left, because they have declared it the enemy. Not centre-right, because they no longer dare to defend it. Not the populist right, because they have their attention elsewhere. Not Brussels, because it can do nothing.

It stands alone. Statistically alone — less than five percent of the European electorate. Politically alone — no party dares openly to serve its interests. Culturally alone — the media present it as a profiteer. Morally alone — no broadly held narrative says why it is valuable to the society that has plundered it.

And without that productive class — without the people who run factories, exploit patents, push through innovations — there is no European future. Not in fifty years, not in twenty, not in ten.

Closing of the five-part series

The train is not stopped because there are no drivers. The train is stopped because every driver is pushing a different carriage in the opposite direction, and nobody is looking at the locomotive.

The Dutch coalition bends along. The German coalition tears under its own words. The French Republic fights against itself in its own Constitutional Court. Brussels produces documents of which fifteen percent are implemented and which are in the meantime older than the problem itself.

And the people who create the prosperity — those we have called in this series the "productive class", the entrepreneurs, inventors, manufacturers, family businesses — watch from the other side of the station. Their bags are already packed. They are waiting for the right train. Not the train that cannot get on the rails in Brussels, but the train to Singapore, to Dubai, to Texas, to Lugano, to Ticino.

When that train departs and they are aboard, Brussels will appoint a new commissioner to "counter the exodus". That will produce the 350th report on European competitiveness. That report will be discussed in 47 European meetings. Fifteen percent of it will be implemented. By the time it could have changed something, the train will have arrived in Singapore.

We have set it up this way ourselves. Nobody else. We vote. We support. We look away. We have built the architecture in which nothing can change.

This is the political landscape. Those who see it also see why there is no way out within the system. The way out lies outside Europe. For the productive, that is. For the rest of us, who voted for all of this, there is no way out.