All the evidence points that with only the exception of the UK, the traditional centre-left has a much greater existential crisis with young voters in Europe. The centre-left receives, in general, the lowest proportional vote share with young voters compared to other age groups.
In Germany, the substance of the Left's performance among young voters comes from a strong Green Party; Linke and SPD are weakest among this demographic.
That's not really relevant to the point though. The point is that, while SocDem parties are doing badly across Europe, they aren't everywhere (not in the UK or Switzerland, and barely even relevant in France or the Netherlands where the largestleft wing party at the last election did better with younger voters). That is even more so of the broader left, which often does well wherever you look at.
In contrast, so far we only have one country, Portugal, where the traditional centre-right is doing above average with younger voters (the pont of this isn't "oh look at how the left are doign", seeing as in a lot of instances, it is far right parties gaining the most from young voter disillusionment).
@Hifly: Your claims are not completely supported by the representative electoral statistics which for 2017 give:
Party: share of total vote; share of age 18-24 vote; share of 25-34 vote;
CDU: 26.8; 19.9; 21,4;
SPD: 20.5; 18.4; 17.1;
Linke: 9.2; 10.5; 10.9;
Greens: 8.9; 14.6; 11.1;
CSU: 6.2; 5.1; 5.4;
FDP: 10.7; 13.2; 11.4;
AfD: 12.6; 8.0; 12.8;
Others: 5.0; 10.4; 9.8.
So yes, the SPD has problems with the youth vote, but less than CDU/CSU. The Linke on the other hand, is now stronger among the youngest voters than on average, differently from past elections.
Purely speculative, but I imagine the age profile of Linke voters is quite different depending on which side of the iron curtain you are.
Palandio is that an exit poll? That is a rather high estimate for the SPD, and a lower estimate for the Greens compared to the average shares published in general opinion polls. It should be taken in a matter of proportion, the centre-right (Union/FDP) is much stronger than the centre-left in any case so a larger percentage point difference should not be taken at face value.
@OP "The point is that, while SocDem parties are doing badly across Europe, they aren't everywhere".
The fact is, they really are doing badly almost everywhere. You have repeatedly mentioned the UK (where the Labour Party can no longer be described as purely Social Democratic) and Switzerland as exceptions because it's so tricky to find other examples. Ironically, one of these nations is not in the EU, and the other will no longer be an EU member state in a very short period of time.
Consecutive election loss after election loss over the past two years from Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy etc has put the centre-left in Europe in the weakest position its been in for a very long time. And those parties haven't recovered in any of those nations, but from a collective perspective have declined to an overall ever weaker position since.
When was the last time so few nations were were governed by the Centre-Left? The Centre-Right and Centre have consolidated their power at the seat of Government in Europe.
The Far-Left isn't doing any better; Syriza has collapsed in Greece and Podemos is flailing. There is no other potential for them in Western Europe.
The existential crisis of the centre-left is very real.
