Europe may be the cradle of democracy, but the past 18 months have rocked the cradle violently.

Most recently the continent has witnessed Spanish police beating back pro-independence supporters during Catalonia’s unofficial referendum.

It was also a referendum that began Europe’s year and a half of populist upheaval — the U.K.’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union in June 2016.

And just as Brexit campaigners promised to make Britain “Great” again, on the other side of the Atlantic Donald Trump’s push to become U.S. president was filled with populist rhetoric and promises to restore his nation’s greatness.

As President Trump began his term in office at the start of 2017, many investors looked ahead worryingly to this year’s elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany.

“It looked like we were entering a period of populist politics across the globe, and particularly in Europe,” says CenterSquare listed infrastructure por