From Budapest and Rome to Brussels, the extreme right is opening its way to Europe and wants to consolidate its presence in the elections of June 9. More and more countries are governed by ultraconservative and Eurosceptic forces or have coalition governments in which they participate. The extreme right rules in Hungary or Finland, but also in founding countries of the Union, such as Italy or the Netherlands.
The presence of the extreme right in the European Parliament is structured around two large groups, Identity and Democracy (ID) and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). According to the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Identity and Democracy, at the head of which is the French Marine Le Pen, may be the third political force in the Eurochamber, only behind the groups with more tradition – Partit European People (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S
The ECFR grants ID, which includes the Dutch Geert Wilders, the German Alice Weidel or the Italian Matteo Salvini, in addition to the French Marine Le Pen, 48 more seats than it had, so that they would go from 58 to almost a hundred
ECR, the other large group, is led by the Italian Prime Minister and president of Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and includes Andrzej Duda’s Law and Justice, Jimmie Åkesson’s Sweden Democrats, the Party of Riikka Purra’s Finns and Czech Petr Fiala’s Civic Democratic Party. As it also includes the Spanish Vox, the New Flemish Alliance of Belgium or the French Reconquesta, by Éric Zemmour.
There are parties not affiliated to either of these two large groups, the most significant of which is Fidesz, the party led by the Hungarian Viktor Orbán.
The two large groups show differences from each other. The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has not hesitated to describe the ECR leaders as “Putin’s friends”. The reality is that the parties that make up this group are more comfortable in the orbit of the Kremlin and Beijing than in the European project.
ID also does not advocate a joint project and its parties seek to recover the national sovereignty ceded to the EU. They openly criticize the inclusion of Turkey, a candidate to become part of the Union for years, for considering that Europe is a Christian continent.
Borders are a point of convergence between the two groups, as is criticism of the Green Deal signed by the EU in 2020. Both ECR and ID have projects to support states to defend borders and speed up the return of asylum seekers. ‘asylum that have been rejected by the countries.
If the predictions hold, these teams are likely to finish top in nine countries – Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia – and to be second or third in nine more: Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden.
The elections will be relevant for countries like France (where Le Pen’s party can take a lot of distance from Emmanuel Macron’s party), Germany (where the AfD can step on the heels of the CDU) or Italy, where Giorgia Meloni can accentuate the hegemony against Matteo Salvini’s League or Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia.
