There has been much talk of late about a renewed far right surge in Europe, especially as the continent looks ahead to the European parliament elections next June. Is this tilt to the right likely to happen – and what could it mean for us?
This fear has ebbed and flowed. It took off when Georgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy surged in elections last year, as did the hard-right Sweden Democrats, which became part of the rightwing governing bloc and shapes its policies for the first time. The following months saw rightwing wins in Finland and Greece too. The firm conviction that there was an inexorable rise of the right then crumbled in July this year, when in Spain the hard-right Vox and the conservative Popular party failed to win a joint majority in elections, leading to the eventual return of a progressive coalition led by Pedro Sánchez. Three months later, Poles voted to oust the populist right Law and Justice party, opening the way to a liberal government led by a former president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.
The anxiety about a hard-right wave is back with a vengeance, however, after Geert Wilders’ Freedom party (PVV) unexpectedly triumphed in Dutch elections to become the Netherlands’ biggest party in parliament, with over 23% of the vote.
These results point to two political and three policy implications for Europe in the months ahead. We should be wary of sweeping political conclusions, which is in some ways reassuring. All elections, including the European parliament ones next year, reflect national stories. While people across different European countries are subject to comparable forces and dynamics, rarely do these trigger the same political outcomes.
The elections over the past year tell us this. While it’s impossible to anticipate the outcome of next year’s European elections, it is likely that the next European Commission will reflect the same pro-European centre-right, social-democrat, liberal and green majority that supports the current set of EU leaders. The largest grouping in the European parliament puts forward its lead candidate for the presidency of the EU’s executive arm, the commission.
Furthermore, the 27 heads of government sitting around the European Council table who will next summer have the last word on those appointments come from different political backgrounds. Of the five largest countries – Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland – two (Germany and Spain) are led by socialists, two (France and Poland) by liberals and only one (Italy) by the hard right. Even if Meloni is joined by Wilders next summer, this still points to a rather mixed political constellation in Europe.
Less reassuringly, political winds are clearly blowing to the hard right, and in countries such as Germany and France, especially, this is a major source of concern. This seems to be the consequence of several factors, among them the politically suicidal tendency of moderate parties to cooperate with the extremes, believing this will take the wind out of the latter’s political sails.
Every time they do so, they either fail to increase their support (as in the case of the People’s party in Spain) or they end up losing votes to the hard right (as in Italy and the Netherlands). This is not surprising. When moderate parties rule out cooperation with the radical right, citizens know that a vote for the latter is wasted, as these parties will not enter government. When instead moderates wink at the hard right, that disincentive evaporates.
If in addition, centre-right parties buy into a rightwing populist agenda, for instance by overblowing immigration as a policy priority, voters are more inclined to opt for the hard-right original, rather than the blander moderate copy. The famous definition of madness (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results) seems to be playing out in Europe, however. The centre-right European parliament grouping, the European People’s party, led by the German MEP Manfred Weber, has, I understand, warmed to the idea of cooperation with the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists, a grouping that includes the Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law and Justice.
If we imagine a more rightwing political landscape in Europe, what are the policy implications? First is the risk of dwindling European support for Ukraine. We are already witnessing how right populist leaders such as Viktor Orbán are raising their voices, threatening to block the opening of accession talks with Kyiv and a €50bn package of economic assistance to Ukraine, as well as €20bn in military aid.
Orbán’s pro-Russian sympathies are nothing new, but the fact that he feels emboldened to vent them so openly now is no coincidence. He is probably calculating that political winds are changing in his favour. So far, rightwing leaders such as Meloni are toeing the pro-Ukraine line. Yet worrying signals have emerged. A few weeks ago, when she was pranked by two Russian comedians pretending to be the president of the African Union, Meloni spilled the beans. The concerning bit of that call was not the prank itself (other European leaders have fallen into the same trap), but what Meloni said while thinking that she was talking to an African leader with pro-Russian sympathies. The Italian prime minister spoke of western fatigue and the hope that a compromise with Russia could stem from this: hardly evidence of steadfast support for Ukraine.
Second is the climate crisis. Here too, rightwing pushback is getting stronger and has already watered down the European green deal, especially on such broader sustainability agenda concerns as deforestation and agriculture. Those headwinds are likely to pick up in the months ahead. They probably won’t block the move to decarbonisation altogether, but support for any measures is likely to be articulated more in terms of technological innovation and industrial policy than climate as such.
Having said that, it is hard to see a stronger right wing supporting a European industrial policy that requires fresh funds. For the same reason, while a more rightwing Europe might in principle back greater emphasis on defence, it would be less likely to approve a significant uptick of European funds dedicated to this purpose.
Third is migration. The paradox here is that the more Europeans, spurred on by the populist right, get hyped up about immigration, the less likely they are to find policy solutions to address the phenomenon. Rightwing parties across Europe all agree they don’t want irregular migrants or asylum seekers, but they profoundly disagree on sharing out the responsibility between them. They therefore concur to offload the problem on to countries of transit and origin. Yet with the exception of the EU-Turkey deal struck in 2016, in no case has this approach really worked, with the European memorandum of understanding with Tunisia being the latest case of failure.
None of this bodes well. That said, a tilt to the right in Europe is unlikely to spark the end of liberal democracy on the continent, or a new wave of radical Euroscepticism with countries queuing up to leave the EU, as feared back in 2016 after the Brexit referendum. That political season is over for now. Until and unless there is a Donald Trump comeback to the White House. In that catastrophic scenario, all bets are off, as many masks would come off and the hard right would probably show an uglier face in Europe than we have hitherto seen.
• This article was amended on 14 December 2023 to clarify the role in Sweden’s government of the Sweden Democrats.
Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist
