I agree that presidential systems in particular are problematic, and the EU is lucky that Germany and France use parliamentary systems. But the nasty thing about populism is that it happens in waves and it does overtake parliaments. We need only look at what happened to the UK with Brexit for a recent example. It's not hard to imagine that a wave of far-right populism could one day overtake Germany, or send France's RN, Austria's FPO or Poland's PIS to a majority position.

We can cross our fingers and hope that nobody would work with them (I know that Germany's parties all have a pinky promise not to work with AfD), but it was only 10 years ago that everyone in the US was laughing at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency – and now here we are, much sobered. These things happen, and AfD, or RN, or whoever, could wreak havoc to the EU from within the EU if they took power and started working with Hungary to block EU legislation, veto sanctions, defund programs and more.