Spain and Portugal
When that time comes, the center-left strategy in Italy is to lure voters away from Five Star. In Spain, it’s a gamble that Pedro Sanchez was banking on when he called two elections in the space of a year to try and shake off his dependence to far-left populists Podemos. It hasn’t worked out.

He too is trapped in a marriage of mutual, and temporary convenience. That leaves Portugal as a left-wing oasis in Europe, but one that increasingly feels like an exception.

Greece
Tribal politics was the norm in Greece until the country became the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis. Two parties traded power since the junta fell in 1974. But then as the socialist Pasok party became the biggest political casualty of the upheaval, a group further to the left filled the vacuum.

Alexis Tsipras’s Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, shot to power in 2015 and effectively challenged Europe to a duel over austerity and Greece’s euro membership. He blinked, turned into the Marxist fireband tamed into submission by Brussels and was ejected from office this year. He left with his international reputation enhanced, but at home the conservative New Democracy is back in power.

Malta
On the Mediterranean island of half a million people, the Labour Party was enjoying a long stint in government until the country’s legacy of failing to tackle corruption caught up with it. Joseph Muscat, prime minister since 2013, was lauded for Malta’s economic growth. Now he’s the lightning rod for anger over a murder scandal.

Two years after the brutal murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the police investigation has reached Muscat’s inner circle. He denies any involvement and resigned, saying he will step down next month. Protesters want him gone now.

Scandinavia
In Sweden, a far-right surge rocked a beacon of liberal democracy. The Social Democrats managed to cobble together a government, but for first time in decades they are no longer the most popular party in most opinion polls as the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats overtook.

The Social Democrats in Denmark at least were able to return to power this year, though in part by adopting some policies of its anti-immigrant rival by tightening controls.

Eastern Europe
In eastern Europe, socialist parties have been on the slide for years as right-wing populist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland cemented their power by portraying some opponents as apologists for communism. Kaczynski’s Law & Justice Party won a second term in October with an outright parliamentary majority, albeit against a main opponent that’s from the center-right.

But in Romania, the left-leaning Social Democratic Party was part of the government for more than a decade until its minority administration collapsed last month. For former party leader and national strongman Liviu Dragnea, it arguably couldn’t get any worse. He was jailed in May for corruption.