A critical term used to designate a supposed ultranationalist and imperialist ideology of the European Union (especially its core powers:
Germany,
France, the Netherlands), analogous to so-called “Ruscism.” In this polemical sense, Europism would be characterized by: belief in the superiority of European civilization, a civilizing mission disguised as “European values,”
EU expansion as economic and cultural annexation, treatment of peripheries (Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Africa) as spaces of exploitation, and dehumanization of migrants and refugees. Critics argue that Europism would be a “
fascism of market and bureaucracy,” imposing austerity, externalizing borders, and practicing green neocolonialism (energy transition at the expense of the Global South). The term is used mainly by
anti-colonial analysts and
anti-system movements.
Example: “In a debate on migration, an activist argued: ‘Europism is Brussels’s Ruscism: the same belief in cultural purity, the same
walls – they only swap tanks for carbon
taxes and the Red
Army for the European Central Bank.’”