In Europe politics is back and policy is out. And the policy-makers are worried, even scared, about the kind of politics that is emerging in the European Union (EU).

Policy is a course of action handed down by leaders through bureaucracies. And no policy has so affected Europeans as the formation of the European Union.

As of Jan. 1 of this year, 12 European countries no longer deal in national currencies, but only in the euro. The ultra-complex process of launching the euro came only through the EU bureaucracies located in Brussels, with no input from the people and only from a few European leaders, mainly German and French.

The only other bureaucracy that has equally affected Europeans’ daily lives is NATO, whose Northern Command is also headquartered in Brussels.

Both the EU and NATO sincerely believed their policies were in the interests of the common people of Europe. But more and more of Europe’s commoners do not think so, and they’re sending out that message at the ballot box. Five million votes from commoners recently went to France’s Le Pen. Then there were the votes for the anti-immigrant Pim Fortuyn’s List in usually tolerant Holland, and earlier for Austria’s Jšrg Haider from working class "Red Vienna." Anti-EU voices and sentiments are also increasing in Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Britain and Germany.

The EU media have labeled the new politics with the word "populism." The quandary Europeans now feel is whether this populism is progressive or regressive. Russian and American historians generally regard their populists as progressives.

The word was coined in Russia in the 1870s, when young radicals went to live among and struggle for the rural poor. In 1890, an American Populist Party was formed, mainly supported by impoverished farmers and workers.

However, the European media now see populists as regressive in the extreme. They come from both extremes, from anti-Semites to staunch supporters of Israel, from anarchists to ultra-right terrorists.

Though these "European neo-populists" seem to be all over the political spectrum in left-right terms, the Paris-based, liberal Le Monde attempted to find some common characteristics among them. On May 18 it wrote, "the Populists voice xenophobia, hatred of the ‘big fellows’ by the ‘little people’ and, sometimes, racial superiority to justify exclusionist policies."

Le Monde came up with "three forms of ‘the people’ as distinguished by political scientists: the people as nation, the people as ‘the commons’ and the people as ethnics." In the French tradition the "nation" consists of all those who speak French and practice French culture. The idea of "the commons" is not French but British. It means whoever is lower than the monarch and the elite. But the notion of ethnic is nowhere to be found in European, Russian or American law.

Le Monde’s three categories do explain the common ground the "neo-populists" stand on. They believe that all commoners should be morally and materially considered as full members of the nation, but that ethnics should be excluded.

Neo-populists are nationalists. As nationalists, they believe their state should only have policies that benefit the nation and no others. As commoners, they feel threatened by aliens who work at low wage jobs, thus depriving them of economic security. And they feel that the ethnics who continue to pour into their nations are so alien to the national culture that they are like some invading pagan army.

Now, like a century ago, populists in Europe, Russia and America believe in the nation-state and hate any other political formation that threatens it, whether it is a multinational corporation or a mega-bureaucracy. They believe that the nation is a larger version of the family and community. When they look above and see multinational corporations promoting globalization in a world economy, they see their enemy. And when they look down below to those who are too different to be assimilated they see enemies as well.

When populists look upwards they are on the left. When they look downwards, they are on the right. It’s clear the concepts of left or right have become useless. But the terms progressive and regressive are not. The latter means moving ahead, while the former means moving backwards. Moving ahead now means going with the tide of globalization. Going backward means heading back to the beach. Neither is bad or good, but only a political option.