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Introduction: European politics nowadays Zoltán Simon! The European Union has been struggling with a multilevel poly-crisis for more than a decade, leading to a legitimacy crisis that weakens popular support for European integration. Political leaders try to compensate output legitimacy losses on the input legitimacy side, including through the politicisation of the Union. However, this runs counter to the trend of increasing political mistrust, discontent, indifference, and disconnect among citizens in national political systems across Europe. This trend is rooted in a set of intertwined transformations in contemporary European societies and politics. Domestic turbulences also have a negative impact on Europe influence in the global arena of intensifying power competition. All these factors generate growing fears in citizens: fears of disintegration at the European level, fears of disorder and instability at the national level, fears of disorientation at the individual level, fears of becoming irrelevant at the global level, and fears of the future, which seems to be full of uncertainties and risks. These fears, if ignored or left unanswered, have a dangerous potential to evolve into a new political era of anxiety in Europe, with a presumably devastating effect in the continent. Keywords: European politics, poly-crisis, legitimacy crisis, political malaise, politics of anxiety and things are made worse by waves provoked - often intentionally - by the manoeuvres of other large vessels. As a matter of fact, the EU boat is a strange one itself. It was initially built as a merchant ship, but has since been partially transformed into a liner. However, this transformation has never been fully completed, and no one really knows whether it ever will be. Many challenge this idea, while some are even wondering whether the boat’s initial profile The views and comments presented in this book chapter are part of the author's individual research and publication activities, and do not represent in any way or to any extent the positions of the institution he is an official of.
