Over the past decade, the European Union has been shaken to the core by the rise of populist parties and movements. The watershed moment was the global financial crisis of 2008, which, for Europe, quickly escalated into a sovereign debt crisis. In southern debtor countries, populist left-wing parties have risen to prominence on anti-austerity platforms. They have either been in government, as in the case of Greece’s Syriza party and Italy’s Five Star Movement, or have come close to entering government, as with Spain’s Podemos party, which won 21 percent of the vote in the 2015 parliamentary elections.