Anti-Europeanism, Anti-European sentiment, and Europhobia are political terms used in a variety of contexts, implying sentiment or policies in opposition to Europe.
In the context of racial or ethno-nationalist politics, this may refer to the dislike, hatred, prejudice, mistreatment and/or discrimination against/toward the culture or peoples of Europe. In the shorthand of "Europe" (a British usage, standing for the European Union or European integration), it may refer to Euroscepticism, criticism of policies of European governments or the European Union. In the context of United States foreign policy, it may refer to the geopolitical divide between "transatlantic", "transpacific" and "hemispheric" (Pan-American) relations.
Usage
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, an island country in Europe, "Europhobia" refers to negative attitudes towards mainland Europe, either in the context of anti-German sentiment or of anti-Catholicism, or, more recently, of Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom.
United States
American exceptionalism in the United States has long led to criticism of European domestic policy (such as the size of the welfare state in European countries) and foreign policy (such as European countries that did not support the 2003 US invasion of Iraq).
Under the presidency of Donald Trump, critiques of NATO, particularly its funding, became a prominent issue. Although NATO includes non-European members such as the United States, Canada, and Turkey, the alliance is often perceived, especially by Trump and many Americans, as primarily a European defense treaty aimed at safeguarding European nations.
Trump’s main criticism centered on the disproportionate financial burden shouldered by the United States, which effectively funds the majority of NATO’s military expenditures. He argued that many NATO member states fail to meet their commitment to allocate at least 2% of their GDP to defense spending, a benchmark agreed upon by all members.
This critique gained renewed attention during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which exposed the underfunding of military capabilities in several NATO countries. Their inability to immediately provide substantial military aid to Ukraine highlighted longstanding concerns about reliance on U.S. defense resources. Many American critics view NATO as a vestige of the Cold War, where the U.S. continues to bear the cost of protecting Europe, particularly against threats from Russia, without equitable contributions from other member states.
See also
- Anti-Americanism – Dislike of the United States and Americans
- Anti-Western sentiment – Hatred or opposition towards the Western world or its people
- European values – Norms and values that Europeans have in common
- Eurocentrism – Worldview centred on or biased towards Western civilization
- Eurotrash (term) – Derogatory term used in USA
- Pan-European identity – Personal identification with Europe
- Stereotypes of Americans – Generalized representations of US people
References
- "Europhobia definition and meaning". Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
- R. Miles in: Avril Horner (ed.), European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange 1760-1960 (2002), Thérèse Remus, Germanophobia, Europhobia, Xenophobia – About Stereotypes in Anglo-German Relations (2012)
- Wheatcroft, Geoffrey (June 21, 2016). "Europhobia: a very British problem". The Guardian. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
- Anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism in the United States, Patrick Chamorel No 25, EUI-RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS) 2004
- Elsner (2005), McPherson (2003)
- Lexington (2007), Ash (2003) Pipes (2006)
- Shaprio, Jeremy (March 18, 2019). "Why America? The U.S. Role in European Defense and the European Mind". Chaire Stratégique. Panthéon-Sorbonne University. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
- Kim, Soo Rin; Ibssa, Lalee (February 20, 2024). "A closer look at Trump's years of criticizing NATO defense spending". ABC News. ABC. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
- "Europe's security wake-up call: EU and NATO gear up for big bang in defence". European Newsroom. ENR with AFP and partner agencies. January 17, 2025. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
- Krauss, Melvyn (July 30, 1998). "NATO Expansion Is Just Welfare for Europe". Hoover Institution. Stanford University. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
Further reading
- Todd Gitlin (3 February 2003). "Europe? Frankly, America doesn't give a damn..." The Guardian.
Rumsfeld's disdain is as old as America, an extension of Europe, which in a certain sense founded itself as the anti-Europe.
- Denis Boyles (29 October 2004). "Like, Wow". National Review Online.
As Libération reports with some shock, after centuries during which the mere mention of la France was 'enough to evoke notions of elegance and refinement' (especially in American trailer parks) suddenly the word 'French' has 'become a dirty word.'
- Lexington (26 April 2007). "Anti-Europeanism is a bad response to anti-Americanism". The Economist.
- Alan Elsner. "Anti-Europeanism Flourishes on U.S. Right". Common Dreams NewsCenter (Published on Thursday, June 30, 2005 by Reuters). Archived from the original on October 17, 2006.
On the economic front, the United States has produced consistently higher growth rates and lower unemployment than many nations in Europe. Some U.S. commentators blame the excessive regulations imposed by the European Community. Others say Europeans are plain lazy. "French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour workweek in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day," wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman earlier this month.
- Daniel Pipes (14 November 2006). "Steyn's New Book Combines Humor, Accuracy, Depth". The New York Sun (Book review).
- Scott McPherson (21 February 2003). "Healthcare Socialism". Future of Freedom Foundation. Archived from the original on 7 December 2006.
- Eugen Weber (23 June 1991). "Everything's Up-to-Date in 1830". The New York Times (Book review).
The age of wars of national liberation, of massacres and countermassacres, of anti-European propaganda and anticolonial rhetoric dawned in Latin America around 1810. There, as in Greece — grave of many illusions — or later in Italy, nationalists depended on foreign aid, or on the incompetence of the power they challenged.
- Jussi Pakkasvirta. "Nationalism and Continentalism in Latin American History".
Continentalist definitions presented a fervent anti-European thinking." Antenor Orrego: "European traditions in Latin America have been even more destructive for the well-being of the continent than US imperialism. European decadence and vices have to be replaced by 'authentic americanism.'" Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre: "Marxism was a too Eurocentric theory to be applied in Latin American circumstances.
- John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson. "The Imperialism of Free Trade". The Economic History Review, Second series, Vol. VI, no. 1 (1953). Mount Holyoke College. Archived from the original on 2008-12-21.
Foreign loans and predatory bankers by the 1870s had wrecked Egyptian finances and were tearing holes in the Egyptian political fabric. The Anglo-French dual financial control, designed to safeguard the foreign bondholders and to restore Egypt as a good risk, provoked anti-European feeling.
- Robert Craig Johnson (1998). "COIN: French Counter-Insurgency Aircraft, 1946-1965". The World at War.
Algeria presented France with a set of tactical and political problems as different as the North African terrain differed from that of Indochina. Politically, Algeria was an integral part of the French Republic rather than a colony. Its native Berber and Arab people were technically French citizens. But discrimination was rife, and the European immigrants, the "pieds-noirs," had a stranglehold on local government, owned most of the arable land, and controlled the police. When Arabs and Berbers were belatedly allowed to vote for half of a constituent provincial assembly in 1948 and 1951, blatant fraud gave the pied-noir candidates a sweeping victory. The resulting anti-European riots were savagely repressed at a cost of thousands of lives.
- Ali A. Mazrui (1999). "Between Terrorism and Wars of Liberation". Swahili Online. Archived from the original on 2006-11-11.
If anti-European and anti-colonial terrorism in Africa had produced good results in the end for Africa, anti-American and anti-Zionist terrorism in the Middle East has not yet found its moment of triumph. Both the Middle East and Africa have been paying a price for the anti-American terrorism. The violent price which the Middle East is paying is obvious, especially in Palestine, Iraq and in neighboring Afghanistan. What is the price which Africa is paying for terrorism against the United States?
- Timothy Garton Ash (April 30, 2003). "Anti-Europeanism in America". Hoover Digest.
We have to distinguish between legitimate, informed criticism of the EU or current European attitudes and some deeper, more settled hostility to Europe and Europeans as such... Anti-Europeanism is not symmetrical with anti-Americanism... is a real obsession for entire countries, notably for France, as Jean-François Revel has recently argued.
- Earlier version: —— (February 13, 2003). "Anti-Europeanism in America". The New York Review of Books. Vol. L, no. 2.
