After four months of negotiations, France finally has a budget for 2026. And after three months of haggling, the Netherlands finally has a government.

• Both months-long deadlocks reminded the world that the Europeans still suffer from political chaos. And both countries have merely papered over their problems, not solved them.

France: Article 49.3 of the French Constitution is very controversial. It allows a government to pass a budget without a majority in Parliament. Legislators can stop it only if they take the drastic step of passing a vote of no confidence, which forces the government to resign.

• Successive legislatures have fought bitterly over the budget, and governments have repeatedly resorted to Article 49.3 to steamroll budgets through. In autumn, the Parliament had had enough. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu took office promising not to use it. He said he would do everything possible to pass a budget through Parliament, not in spite of it.
• Last night, he used Article 49.3. And he survived the inevitable no-confidence vote: 260 voted to remove him, short of the 289 needed.

“Only four months ago, this would have been a declaration of war between Parliament and the government,” wrote EuroIntelligence. “But today, everyone is exhausted from a budget debate where no one can win. They are ready to move on, even if the future is not looking any brighter.”

• Lecornu has shown that the French Parliament is so divided that no budget could gain a majority.

The Netherlands has similar struggles. After an inconclusive election in 2017, it took a record 225 days to form a government. Since then it has been governed by increasingly unstable four-party coalitions. The last one fell apart after less than a year, prompting fresh elections in October.

• After 93 days of talks, the Dutch are trying something different: a three-party coalition that has only 66 out of 150 seats in the lower chamber, and just 22 of the 75 seats in the upper chamber. It’s hard to see them getting anything significant done.

A troubled continent: Many European Union countries suffered leadership crises after 2008 and have never fully emerged from them. With no real leadership or firm action, their economies have slid into dysfunction, major issues like the migrant crisis are not addressed, and voters are angry.

• Nearly two decades on, most remain stuck. Budget deals, coalition negotiations and fresh elections haven’t solved the mess. And the world around them becomes more dangerous.

Europeans are becoming more open to increasingly radical political solutions. Watch for them to give up on coalitions and even on democracy itself.

This is what the Trumpet and Plain Truth have forecast for years, based on Bible prophecy. Europe will shift from an association of democracies to an empire of “10 kings” led by a strong German leader. Europe’s government crises will continue until a “king of fierce countenance” takes power.