EU Elections

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Across 31 European
countries surveyed by the
PopuList project, (populist)
far-right parties have
approximately doubled their
vote share since the 1990s.
In Italy, the far-right already leads the government,
in the form of Georgia Meloni and her
Brothers of Italy party.
Source:Wikimedia
prominence across Europe. Among
these, immigration and multiculturalism
are the most important. Other examples
include gender equality and diversity,
perceptions of climate change, attitudes
towards European integration, and even
views on vaccination and Russia. Despite
the seemingly disparate nature of these
issues, they are connected to underlying
values and identities, which are increasingly
influential in European societies.
The primary beneficiaries of this trend
are far-right parties, which try to keep
political debates centred on these questions.
The far-right is branching out
'Far-right' serves as a convenient shorthand
encompassing three distinct
groups of parties, united by nativism — a
paranoid form of nationalism rooted in
(perceived) ethnicity that views non-native
persons and ideas as a threat to the
nation. This ideology often merges with
a populist worldview, pitting the (ethnically)
'pure people' against allegedly corrupt
elites.
Extreme-right parties openly reject
democracy, while more modern radical-right
parties target its liberal and
deliberative aspects, such as minority
rights, the court system, and the media.
The latter approach often yields greater
success, inspiring (or infecting) a third
group of formerly centre-right parties to
adopt radical-right policies and rhetoric.
A prominent example is Viktor Orbán's
Hungarian Fidesz party, which started as
a liberal-conservative party in the 1990s.
Across 31 European countries surveyed
by the PopuList project, (populist) farright
parties have approximately doubled
their vote share since the 1990s.
The far-right is coming for the
big(ish) member states
Under the principle of degressive proportionality,
the four most populous EU
member states — Germany, France, Italy,
and Spain — collectively hold nearly
45 percent of the seats in the European
Parliament. Recent polls indicate the farright
as the leading party in France and
Italy (where Georgia Meloni's Fratelli
d'Italia [Brothers of Italy] governs alongside
Matteo Salvini's Lega [League]),
and securing second place in Germany.
Although far-right support in Spain has
waned since its peak in 2022, Vox still remains
tied for third place in most polls.
Additionally, the far-right is making
significant strides in states with slightly
smaller populations but substantial delegations,
ranking second in Poland and
Romania, and first in the Netherlands.
Social media (and malign actors) make
everything worse.
Many citizens still perceive EP elections
as second-order contests with seemingly
low stakes, making them vulnerable to
disinformation campaigns by far-right
parties, affiliated organisations, and their
supporters outside the EU. While major
players like Google and Meta have
stepped up their efforts to combat disinformation,
Twitter's new leadership disbanded
many moderation teams and reinstated
some formerly banned far-right
actors. Other platforms like Telegram, a
key channel for the far-right, lack effective
content moderation. Additionally,
the availability of affordable generative
AI allows the mass production of propaganda
and disinformation on a scale unimaginable
just three or four years ago.
The pro-integration core will
(somewhat) erode
For decades, the European project has
been shaped by an informal coalition of
centre-right and centre-left parties. In
2019, this coalition lost its majority in the
European Parliament for the first time.
However, robust performances by Green
and liberal parties, coupled with low party
cohesion, maintained support for further
integration. In this cycle, however,
centre-left, green, and liberal parties are