THE RISE OF THE FAR-RIGHT POPULISM IN EUROPE AND ITS THREATS TO THE EU

Europe, like the United States, has been a paradigm of liberal values and democracy. But this pattern might be shifting. Trumpism has reached the other side of the Atlantic. Far-right populists are strongly increasing in the continent, risking the very existence of the European Union. Both economic and cultural factors help explain this phenomenon. The EU needs to keep advancing through economic but also social integration, putting democratic values in the center. Its capacity for resilience and survival lies in them.

INTRODUCTION

Liberal democracy as a global role model seems to be outmoded worldwide. Countries that range from Brazil or India to the United States of America have fallen prey to populist governments in recent years. Europe is no exception (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). The EU has not met the expectations as a geopolitical actor (Grygiel, 2017), that aspired to guarantee economic progress and the expansion of social liberties. Instead, authoritarian regimes and far-right governments have risen in the EU over the last decade. The War in Ukraine may have momentarily re-oiled the European machinery -especially to host refugees and to apply sanctions to Russia-, but this teamwork might have only been a mirage.

Since its existence, the European Union has been a complex and unique case of cooperation between state nations and a supranational entity. A slow-paced tailored organization built under the liberal democracy paradigm, with strong core values of peace and respect for human rights. Today, after half a century of continuous integration, the European Union is at a junction. The spread of populism around the continent challenges the foundational principles of the EU. Europe has ended up having one-third of its citizens voting for anti-establishment populist forces (The Guardian, 2023). The rise of far-right forces is especially concerning (Rooduijn, 2015), which are strongly Eurosceptic (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), or even Europhobic (Rodriguez Aguilera, 2014). Hence, they pose a threat to the European Union. One of the big questions that scholars and International Relations experts are asking is why and how this happened. This paper will explore the advance of far-right populist forces in Europe and its effects on the European Union as an organization, paying special attention to its causes and consequences.

There are left and right-wing populists; however, in the European context, left populists generally do not reject the idea of political integration and economic cooperation. Rather, they tend to demand deep reforms of the EU, to turn it socially stronger and fairer (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2019; ECPS, 2019; Vormann & Lammert, 2019). In contrast, populists in the far-right are ultranationalist, anti-immigrant, and reject the European project (Rodriguez-Aguilera, 2014; ECPS, 2019, Vormann & Lammert, 2019). For the purposes of this paper, I am going to focus on the latter, the rise of far-right in Europe, since its growth poses a direct threat to the future of the European Union.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Populism and its contested definition

Trying to define populism is an arduous task. It is a fuzzy concept, lacking a clear definition (Hira, 2019). The debate goes beyond what it is and revolves around if it even exists (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Wodak et al argue that it refers to protest movements that are disenchanted and disappointed with the established system (2012); Hira expresses that it refers to the idea of a political leader commanding dislocated and disaffected individuals to shake up the political system (2019). Norris and Inglehart, on the other hand, don’t think of it as a distinct type of leadership, but rather as a discourse that can be adopted by different ideological actors (2019).

I take the definition of Mudde and Kaltwasser, who express that populism is “a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, the pure people versus the corrupt elite, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (2017, p.6). The concept of “thin-centered ideology” is especially pertinent since it refers to the permeability of populism with ideologies from all political spectrums.

It is also worth mentioning the common elements of populism that the political scientist Larry Diamond describes. Populists are anti-elitist, and the interests of the elite are not those of the “common people”. They diminish the institutions, arguing that these are perpetuating a biased system. Additionally, populists ask for mass mobilization, convincing citizens that they need to rise against the establishment and elect a strong government to change the status quo (2017).

Populism per se does not necessarily pose a threat to democracy (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Diamond, 2017). It may sometimes reinforce it (Hira, 2019), by acting as an emancipatory force to make democracy more representative (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). Diamond distinguishes between “good” and “bad” populism. In other words, there are populist movements that may be potentially beneficial to democracy and others that may endanger it. When does it become a threat? According to Diamond, that happens when populist forces are anti-pluralistic and demonize opposition; when they carry an illiberal agenda, restricting civil and political rights; and when they are proudly nativist, targeting specific groups like immigrants (2017). In the European context, these qualities are mostly embraced by the far-right (Rodriguez-Aguilera, 2014).

Right-wing populism mixes stereotypes, prefixed beliefs, and strongly biased attitudes to mobilize different -and sometimes contradictory- segments of the electorate (Wodak et al., 2012). Besides economic and national reasons, far-right populism welcomes the protest vote, appealing to those citizens with distrust toward global and supranational governments (Brils et al., 2020).

Far-right populism in Europe: the causes

Far-right populist forces have been growing in Europe since the 1990s (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Pinthsch et al., 2022). By that time, the EU started to experience some of the effects of the freedom of labor movement that the integration process entailed. The openness of capital and labor markets resulted in a strong economic expansion that required a wider labor force, and increased immigration levels across the continent, which, in turn, gave place to the creation of populist radical right parties (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).

Halikiopoulou & Vlandas (2022) explain that far-right populism has consolidated in European countries through 3 main processes: First, their number of votes has increased consistently in national and supranational elections (the European Parliament); second, their rising presence in governments. For instance, forces with between 10 and 15% have a disproportionate power since they destabilize whole governments; and third, their growing influence in policy agenda. Small parties use their power to fight cultural battles, such as anti-feminist agendas or anti-climate actions, imposing the ideological battleground and ideological concessions on the bigger parties that need to tolerate them to stay in power.

This advancement has come to the detriment of mainstream and traditional parties (Wodak, 2012) (Figure 1). Maybe surprisingly, Europe is today one of the regions with higher levels of populism (Pintsch et al., 2022), as it is shown in Figure 2. The initial strategy of isolating the extreme right parties, by setting the so-called “cordon sanitaire”, has broken down in many European countries (Halikiopoulou &Vlandasm, 2022), to the point that these forces are now part of several government coalitions.

The media have also actively contributed to the advance and normalization of the far-right. Thanks to that, its agenda has spread rapidly, and its reactionary messages have been normalized (Wodak & Krzyzanowski, 2017). This normalization has also facilitated that mainstream parties, traditionally more moderate, are now adopting some of the extreme right positions, especially regarding immigration.

There are multiple economic, social, cultural, and political factors to explain the increase in far-right representation in Europe (Rodriguez Aguilera, 2014). However, most scholars are divided between the prevalence of economic and cultural reasons, a division that has created an interesting debate. Have economic turbulences caused a surge of illiberal social values? Or has a cultural backlash resulted in illiberal economic policies? In other words: are Europeans becoming more xenophobic or are they struggling with their finances, and liberal values are paying the price?

Those authors arguing cultural reasons are led by Norris and Inglehart, who point to a “cultural backlash” (2019). The authors attribute the main problem to a crisis of values, but without diminishing the role of economics. They state that younger cohorts have more liberal values than older ones, and that has opened up a generational gap. While it has been empirically demonstrated that there are strong generational effects on voter turnout (Blais et al., 2004), I don’t completely agree with Norris and Inglehart’s hypothesis, since Le Pen in France or Vox in Spain have captivated the hearts and minds of many young voters (Hira, 2019; CIS, 2023).

There is an additional problem. Many voters -especially young ones- don’t vote, and this trend is growing (Bhatti & Hansen, 2011). In my opinion, the decline in voter turnout is yet another indication that citizens, especially the younger ones, are increasingly disaffected and alienated from the current democratic system. And extremists are benefiting from it (Malkopoulou, 2020). These forces take advantage of social disenchantment by appealing to their emotions, especially anger and frustration. Far-right sell stereotypes and clichés, anger, resentment, and insecurity (Salmela & Von Scheve, 2017), pointing to those they say are guilty rather than seeking solutions (Ruiz, 2022).

On the other hand, Vormann and Lammert believe that the core of the crisis lies in the capitalist system and what they call the “politics of no alternatives” (2019). It refers to the fact that markets have been put in the center, above social or even political affairs. Similarly, Wolf points to the crisis of democratic capitalism, which has overlooked the poor and working class, creating rampant levels of inequality (2023). Indeed, there is a clear relationship between political polarization and inequality levels (see Figure 3); and when the inequality gap increases, populist right-wing parties tend to increase their representation (Ruiz, 2022). Therefore, economic inequality has clear political consequences. For instance, in 1994, the far-right in the EU represented 5,5%. In 2014, it more than doubled this number with 13,6% (Ruiz, 2022). During the same period, inequality around the EU grew significantly (Morgan & Neef, 2020). However, socioeconomic factors alone hardly explain the rise of the far-right (Salmela & Von Scheve, 2017). If economics were the only reason, the rise of xenophobic far-right parties in countries economically stable like Sweden would not make sense (Erlanger & Anderson, 2022). In any case, the growing gap between the richest and the poorest social strata is one of the major challenges that Europe is facing.

Finally, some scholars argue that both economic and cultural factors have contributed to the current democratic crisis and the rise of far-right forces in Europe (Halikiopoulou & Vlandas, 2022; Hira, 2019; Rodrik, 2019). I agree. Both factors are not mutually exclusive, they interact (Algan et al., 2017). For Czech and Kassner, economic causes are more linked to the global crisis of democratic capitalism, while cultural factors are more related to particular contexts of countries and regions (2023).

Globalization under democratic capitalism has benefited many but also harmed some, especially during economic recessions. The economic remedies applied within the EU during the 2008 economic recession eroded European democracies. The perception among people enduring austerity policies and cuts in their Welfare states — through higher taxation and smaller pensions and benefits — was that corporations, investors, and wealthy groups were in control of the decision-making process (Vormann & Lammert, 2019), while governments elected by its citizens had to abide. The widespread narrative was that democratic power was overruled by the markets. The welfare system was dramatically cut, and this led to increasing inequalities and disparities among countries, with a higher percentage of the population disillusioned with traditional politics.

At the same time, stigmatization of other cultures and religions while reinforcing and excluding nationalism has led to the situation we have today. As Hira states, the rise of populism is a natural reaction to insecurity (2019), and insecurity relates to economic and cultural reasons.

Key moments: 2010–2011 and 2015–2016

Populism tends to appear in the context of financial crises (Hira, 2019), and Europe has gone through three major ones over the last two decades: the Great Recession (2008), the Pandemic (2020), and the War in Ukraine (2022). Halikiopoulou and Vlandas have marked the 2008 financial crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis as crucial events to explain the current trend (2022). Vormann and Lammert point in the same direction (2019). Indeed, both events are highly interconnected and contributed to the current deterioration of the EU, including Brexit.

It is been demonstrated that “large economic downturns fuel political polarization” (Algan et al., 2017). The 2008 financial crisis, also called the Great Recession, made the world struggle, and Europe was particularly vulnerable to that crisis, causing the European debt crisis and the Euro crisis. Between 2008 and 2013 the European Union lived a period of high financial instability, mistrust between its members, and numerous austerity measures.

Social expenditure was cut dramatically, a measure imposed by the frugal countries on their southern counterparts. The North of Europe (including Germany and The Netherlands) demanded those with higher sovereign debt premia — the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain)– to apply austerity. This, in turn, generated disaffection among countries, and mistrust toward Brussels and the EU, something that still has its effects today (Zettelmeyer, 2019) (Figure 4). These Southern countries had a skyrocketing public debt, and some of them required financial assistance to restore their interest payments. The policies worked in macroeconomic terms. However, the social price to pay for these states was extremely high, and social unrest began to rise. For instance, Spain and Greece had a rough path recovering from that fall, and even today their numbers don’t match those before 2008 (Ruiz, 2022). Additionally, Vormann and Lammert make an interesting reflection: When trying to stop the bleeding of the financial crisis, Europe, the welfare model defender, applied austerity; whereas the U.S., with a tradition of liberal economy, decided in favor of state intervention (2019).

On the other hand, there was no social backlash against immigration while the European economic boom lasted, and migrants were employed in construction or manual labor (Ruiz, 2022). But when the financial crisis hit the unemployment levels, and social spending was cut, increasing migration from Africa became a new factor in the rise of far-right populism. While Europe was at its lowest financially, in 2011, a man in Tunisia set himself on fire to protest against his government. This escalated into a social protest that trespassed Tunis’s borders. In a matter of days, several countries in North Africa and the Middle East were protesting against their authoritarian countries and asking for a regime change. This social movement was known as the Arab Spring.

When the Arab revolution reached Syria, the dictator Bashar al Assad was ruthless in its repression against protesters, and the country was brought into a cruel civil war. Consequently, massive waves of refugees coming from North Africa and especially Syria started to reach Europe, escaping from war and violence. Europe was still economically fragile and socially struggling, and the solidarity that European leaders showed with strong condemnations against Al Assad or Muammar Gaddafi did not match their political will to accept refugees from Syria or Libya. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the exception -she even received the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for her compromise with refugees. This humanitarian crisis caused strong disparities and tensions among the 28 members of the European club (Guild, 2019). It was a crisis of values as well. How could the European Union be the leader and role model of Human Rights (the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012) while it was denying such rights to non-European peoples, simply because of their country of origin? The migrant crisis reached a point in 2015. Around 511,047 refugees entered Europe by land and sea that year (Polakow-Suransky, 2017). The arrival of thousands of people from different cultures and religions was perceived as a threat by certain groups and activated the anti-immigration narratives.

Furthermore, that year, Greece, a country that was receiving most of the refugees and that was economically struggling, organized the ‘Grexit’, a referendum to ask citizens if they wanted to leave the EU -which many Greeks blamed for their situation-. Greece decided to stay, but the financial conditions imposed by Europe were hard. More importantly, ‘Grexit’ anticipated ‘Brexit’. It created a momentum that the United Kingdom would take advantage of shortly. Less than a year later, on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted out of the EU. The “Leave” campaign focused, precisely, on the refugee crisis, immigration, and border control (Norris & Inglehart, 2018), using the motto “Take back control”. Brexit was no longer a threat, it became a reality, a rough one for true believers of the European project, and a tremendous setback for the EU as a political force for integration and a global actor.

In a way, the crises of 2008 (financial) and 2015 (refugees) draw an axis that divided Europe from North to South and East to West. The Northern countries were those economically stronger, and the South, the “PIGS” were more vulnerable. The countries in the West were, in general, more open to receiving refugees than those in the East, with weaker liberal values due to their soviet influence (Vormann & Lammert, 2019).

Some experts consider that these two crises were the latest catalysts of policies rooted in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the neoliberalist measures led by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. This neoliberalism wave promoted an unbalanced model in which politics were pushed into the background and the free market was prioritized (Vormann & Lammert, 2019). State intervention was perceived as a threat and privatization of services started spreading. This model has had consequences until today. The first victim was social mobility (Ruiz, 2022). The economic neoliberal model, starting in the 1980s, has widened up the social inequality gap (See figures 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3).

Therefore, since the 1970s and 1980s, too often the political decision-making process has been based on pure capitalism philosophy of profit and maximization, and social policies have been put behind. This has created a scenario of unbalanced power; in which people’s will through popular sovereignty has less influence than capital markets. This is what Vormann and Lammert call the “depoliticization of democratic processes” (2019).

Immigration, terrorism and Islamophobia

Even though the Muslim population only accounts for between 1% and 8% in Western democracies, the group has been stigmatized and has become a central issue for populists, especially on the right wing (Hamid, 2019).

There is a growing islamophobia in Europe (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). Indeed, immigration plays a key role in far-right populist speeches. In Europe, “populism often refers to anti-immigration and xenophobia” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 2). Right-wing populists in Western Europe use nationalism to offer nationalist solutions to all types of insecurities, while Eastern Europe remains highly ethnic nationalist (Halikiopoulou and Vlandas, 2022). Hira talks about a “xenophobic backlash” in Europe, a manipulative line of thought used by populists in which race is the easy target (Hira, 2019).

As previously mentioned, in 2015 the refugee crisis reached a peak. For instance, Greece and Hungary were reluctant to grant asylum to Syrian refugees (Fargues & Fandrich, 2012). The disparities in the asylum rates throughout Europe were high, and that obliged the United Nations to ask the European Union to uphold the principles of the EU’s Common European Asylum System (Fargues & Fandrich, 2012).

Parallelly, jihadist terrorism increased the frequency of its attacks in Europe between 2015 and 2017 (Hira, 2019). In January 2015, a group of jihadists attacked the French magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’. The satirical magazine had caricatured the Islam prophet Mahoma, something considered a serious offense in the Muslim world. The attack gave ammunition to far-right anti-Muslim parties, who argued that this was a “clash of civilizations”, in which European liberties were under attack (Hira, 2019). Islamophobia started to rise. At the end of that year, a massive and multiple jihadist attack hit Paris again. A bloody massacre was perpetrated in the Bataclan club, causing hundreds of casualties. In the following months and years, there were also terrorist attacks in Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Manchester, London and Barcelona (Hira, 2019). Far-right parties started to link the refugee crisis with terrorism (Vormann & Lammert, 2019), and the attacks inevitably created fertile soil for discrimination and anti-Muslim discourses.

The far-right started hyperbolizing the numbers of refugees, talking about an “invasion”, and referring to the “Great Replacement”, the white supremacy conspiracy theory that argues that the population in Europe is being replaced by people of non-European origin (Ekman, 2022). However, data do not support such a statement: the number of refugees has been consistently decreasing between 1980 to 2017 (Hira, 2019). The problem was not that Syrian refugees arriving in Europe were radical extremists, -they were not-, but rather, that they might be radicalized in the future if European societies failed to accept them for the color of their skin, or their religion (Polakow-Suransky, 2017). And the same logic applies today.

The threat was not only cultural but economic too. It is often claimed that migrants and refugees steal European jobs (Polakow-Suransky, 2017), but this argument has been repeatedly and empirically proven false. In many cases, they dynamize national economies (Ruiz, 2022). However, most of the electoral programs of right-wing parties across Europe coincided in rejecting immigration and refugees (Vormann & Lammert, 2017), alleging national and economic security. Moreover, even some mainstream moderate right-wing parties have begun to adopt such discourses (Halikiopoulou and Vlandasm, 2022), to the point that today almost every major right-wing populist party rejects Muslim immigration (Hamid, 2019).

Implications for the EU

Right after the end of the Second World War and throughout the second half of the 20th Century, European integration was advancing. Built up from liberal values and under the paradigm of progress and peace, with the economic help of the U.S. through the Marshall Plan, the creation of the European Union has been overall a story of success. This does not mean that its creation has not come without difficulties. Indeed, there are “two velocities” in Europe’s integration process (Yang, 2022). There are countries within the EU that seek further cooperation and integration -pro-European-, and those opposing it -Eurosceptics-. Even though Europe has coexisted with these two souls since its conception, balancing both has been challenging. One of the biggest achievements has been to keep advancing despite the increase of Eurosceptic movements. The variety and large number of countries in the European club is another additional difficulty in finding agreement and consensus. Like in the U.S., the EU has different types of countries: some are more conservative and more rural; others are more liberal and more industrialized. European integration has helped in the industrialization of many countries, especially in the South; it has also improved democratic institutions in the East; and it has sustained unprecedented levels of cooperation and peace in the continent. However, there are still uneven wealth levels among countries, something that has also led to a growing mistrust towards the EU apparatus (Vormann & Lammert, 2019).

Ultimately, the European Union is the product of a great effort, although it has an unbalanced system in which the economy has too much power in comparison to its fiscal and foreign policies (Fukuyama, 2022).

· The failed EU Constitution: the first Eurosceptic win

Even though T. R. Reid pictured a “United States of Europe”, the truth is Europe is far from this scenario. The vision that Reid and other scholars had about Europe seems to be fading away (Vormann & Lammert, 2019). And the first sign was the failed European Constitution.

In 2005, the Europeans had to vote “yes” or “no” to the creation of a European Constitution. The goal was to approve a common constitutional text for all the EU countries and continue the path toward integration, which had already achieved a common market, a common currency, and common institutions, including a Parliament.

But the outcome of the vote was not the expected. Maybe it was too ambitious, maybe it was too soon, but on the 29th May 2005, the French rejected the text in a referendum; and, even though other EU members voted in favor, like Spain, the French opposition, as well as The Netherlands, stopped de facto the European Constitution. From that moment onwards, the EU has faced several setbacks that have weakened the organization and strengthened Eurosceptics. The failure in the European Constitution process was the beginning of the end of being “one Europe”. A decade later, it came the Brexit.

CASE STUDIES

United Kingdom: The ‘Brits’ and their exceptionalism

Brexit was the big triumph of right-wing nationalist forces in Europe (Vormann & Lammert, 2019). Those campaigning to leave the EU took advantage of the historical suspicion that the UK has had toward the EU (Norris & Inglehart, 2018). Traditionally, the British have been less Eurocentric than other European countries (Tilford, 2017). For instance, the United Kingdom did not join the EU until 1973, with a constant reticent feeling toward the Franco-German axis (Tilford, 2017). Moreover, the UK did not join the common currency, the Euro, nor the freedom of movement, known as Schengen space (Begg, 2019).

David Cameron, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was a “Tory” in favor of remaining, and proposed a referendum with a tactic that ended up failing. He wanted to stop the growing Eurosceptic movement, especially through the UKIP and its leader Nigel Farage (Begg, 2019). But he miscalculated the risks.

Farage and other personalities, like Boris Johnson, the London mayor by that time, campaigned to “Leave” using text-book populist discourses to convince the British to vote out of the EU (Figure 6). They put immigration and nationalism at the center, with clear references to the refugee crisis (COFR, 2016). They put all the effort into strong identity discourses to seek the vote of disenchanted individuals. Interestingly, while the majority of those working full-time or part-time voted to remain, the majority of those not working voted to leave (Hira, 2019).

In the aftermath of Brexit, many experts wondered if it was the beginning of the end of the EU or just an isolated case (Begg, 2019). The answer is still unknown.

Hungary: the leader of far-right populism in the EU

There are different ways to end democracy, and not all of them involve guns (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). According to Freedom House, Hungary rates 66 out of 100 in its Global Freedom ranking. It is categorized as a partly free country. In Eastern Europe, the crisis of democracy is more profound (Vormann & Lammert, 2019). The phantom of the division between East and West Europe is back (Buras, 2017). If one regime in East Europe exemplifies the de-democratization process in the hands of an authoritarian far-right populist leader is Hungary under Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian leader was elected in 2010 and since then he has carried out a “cultural counterrevolution” (Buras, 2017), with an illiberal agenda and strong nationalism -Hungry for the Hungarians, he says- as core principles (Rachman, 2022).

Economically, Orbán has combined tax cuts with limited social spending, including health system and education. He has befriended oligarchs and pushed democracy to its limits, operating under an illiberal authoritarianism regime (Czech & Kassner, 2023), throwing strong attacks against Muslims, homosexuals, and other minority groups, and embracing the Hungarian flag above all.

During the refugee crisis, Hungary rejected the refugees’ dues that the EU had previously voted on and agreed for its members (Begg, 2019). Far from accepting them, Orbán’s government harassed Syrian refugees (Rachman, 2022). In a way, there is a conflict of legitimacies between the two executive powers. The EU only functions if national governments have trust in the EU institutions, at least enough to give in some power. In Hungary, through Orbán and its Fidesz party, the legitimacy of the EU is at the bottom, and Hungary is the only executive power that seems to count. To make things worse, while this defiant attitude was perceived with horror by liberals, seeing in Hungary a democratic crackdown (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), others have seen in Orbán an example and a role model, like Donald Trump (Rachman, 2022).

Just like other populists, Viktor Orbán likes to be adored (Rachman, 2022). However, Orbanism, like Trumpism, has trespassed its country borders and gone beyond their leader’s persona. Orbanism in Europe and Trumpism in the U.S. have become a pseudo-ideology that base their triumphs on the failure of liberal democracy (Brils et al., 2022).

France: Le Pen and the normalization of the Islamophobic speech

After 39 years of being the voice of the far-right in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen stepped out in 2011, and her daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over her father in the leadership of the Front National, renamed Rassemblement National in 2018. Under Jean-Marie Le Pen, the results were modest, almost minoritarian, accounting for 10–15% of the votes. However, over the last few years, following the general global trend, it has become a mainstream party, reaching the second round and disputing France’s presidency.

In the most recent elections, in 2022, Emmanuel Macron won the presidency in France, beating Marine Le Pen for the second time (the first was in the 2017 elections). However, Le Pen is shortening the distance, consolidating and significantly improving previous electoral results (PBS, 2022). Like her father, Marine Le Pen champions racist discourse and blames everything on immigration. However, more recently the ultra-nationalist candidate has minimized her xenophobic speech, to soften her image. And it looks like the operation is working. In June 2022, she accounted for an unprecedented 41% of the votes, with strong support from rural areas, workers, and young people (Tower & Gélix, 2022) (Figure 7). Macron won over Le Pen, but the gap between the two candidates is getting shorter. One of the core countries in the EU is telling the world something and no one seems to listen.

The day after Trump’s inauguration, right-wing populist forces from Europe met in Germany to give a new impulse to their agenda. Le Pen spoke up and said that: “we are living through the death of one world and the birth of a new one”. Interestingly, Zizek attributes to Antonio Gramsci a very similar expression: “The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters” (2012, p.43). The difference lies in the fact that Le Pen put it as an opportunity, whereas Gramsci conceived it as a threat. I agree with the latter.

Spain: A fragile democracy and far-right VOX

Spain was considered an “outlier” because it had no radical right representation; until VOX arrived (Halikiopoulou and Vlandasm, 2022). Ruiz explains how this far-right party in Spain has emerged as a response to the high levels of inequality in the country (2022). The case of Spain is quite compelling. The country has seen 5 national elections in 8 years. The 2008 financial crisis had tremendous social consequences, but also political ones. For starters, it changed the political map and fragmented the Parliament, making governability more difficult.

The two mainstream parties, the Socialists on the left and the Popular Party on the right started to lose votes. Populism first arrived in Spain through Podemos in 2014 (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2019; Ruiz, 2022), a left-wing movement very critical of the management of the crisis, but not Eurosceptic. However, in 2018 the Eurosceptic extreme right party VOX showed up. The party is ultranationalist and catholic, negationist, anti-Muslim and anti-immigration, anti-feminist, and homophobic. It asks for stronger border controls. It has strong ties with Le Pen in France, Meloni in Italy, Orbán in Hungary, and Steve Bannon and other members of Trump’s entourage.

Today, VOX is a party that feeds popular protests against the government democratically elected. They call for a coup d’état, asking to send the Socialist president to prison. The protestors riot violently and show Nazi and Fascist symbology.

The party does not rule Spain, but it has accomplished many things already. For instance, it is ruling in coalition in several Spanish regions, and spreading its illiberal agenda.

The Netherlands: Wilders victory

As this paper was being written, The Netherlands voted Geert Wilders’ party as the main political force. The Party for Freedom is an ultra-right force that has gained popularity with xenophobia and migration controls as its main political agenda. Wilders’ force is, like its counterparts, deeply Eurosceptic -he has promised a referendum to leave the EU already- and even though it may not have enough political capital to cobble together a government coalition (it holds 37 seats out of 150), the Party for Freedom has become the latest example of how far-right forces gain ground in Europe. Hungary, Italy, and Poland have cheered this new political outcome, and left an open question of what may happen in Austria — where FPÖ is supported by 30% of the population — and even Germany — where Alternative for Germany holds a second place in the polls with 21% of the projected votes in the state elections to be held next year (Ferrer, 2023).

The Economist has raised the alarm pointing to the Dutch as the canary in the coal mine: “Perhaps the main concern in Europe is that the Dutch result is a signal”, the article says. Voters are seen as electoral trendsetters. The Netherlands was among the first countries to see its political scene fragment away from “big tent” centrist parties of the left and right, starting in the 1980s. With The Netherlands results, the EU is getting more nervous.

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

There is a paradox in the future of Europe, which is that it is not exclusively in Europe’s hands. In this highly interconnected world, the actions of regional and global powers have consequences everywhere. Humans mirror actions and attitudes (Hanna & Meltzoff, 1993), it is in our nature, and global leaders do too. Rachman’s book, ‘The Age of Strongmen’, clearly shows the influence that authoritarians pose on other rulers (2022).

Right-wing populism has eroded the democratic discussion (Glynos & Mondon, 2019). According to Vormann and Lammert, populism is only another symptom of a much more profound crisis of liberal democracy (2019). As Mudde and Kaltwasser put it, “populism is not against democracy; rather it is at odds with liberal democracy” (2017, p.95).

As previously mentioned, the European Union, like the U.S., has been a paradigm of democracy and peace under liberal values, believing in multilateral and international organizations as a diplomacy tool and soft power (Nye, 2019). However, with a convulsed economy, a war in Europe and the Middle East, and China and Russia pushing for authoritarianism (Rachman, 2022; Diamond, 2017), liberal democracy is highly eroded.

Hira insists that the West is in a relative long-term decline; something with direct implications for how the new world order will operate (2019). For instance, the development model that China sells is substantially different than the Euro-American, and its gaining power and influence. China promises to bring new infrastructure and development with no human rights attached, or any other liberal condition (Hira, 2019). And while other emerging powers like India are starting to imitate this model, Europe seems paralyzed. The EU shall seek to make itself stronger in liberal values: tolerance, respect, and human and civil rights as its presentation card. There are indeed multiple global actors in fierce competition, but the goal should be to raise the values standards up and push other countries to match; not the other way around.

The war in Ukraine has left several lessons. One of them is how fragile Europe is. At the beginning of this paper, I sustained that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has united Europe and the West in general, and has resurrected NATO, an alliance based on the Cold War logic and framed in the liberal World Order led by the United States. But again, this resurrection might have been merely temporary. Multilateral structures like NATO, the United Nations, or the World Bank were built in a world different than the one we have today. These institutions need structural reforms. And they need to convince rather than impose. Because the world is no longer divided into two hemispheres, it is multipolar, with strong regional powers and with rising authoritarian populists in command. In this regard, the 2024 elections will be crucial. If Donald Trump wins, the trend of global democratic recession will consolidate and gain traction. But If Trump loses, the U.S. and the EU have an opportunity to reformulate liberal democracy and win its citizens back.

Economically, the game is tricked; socially, people have been. Both cause social unrest, tension, and the rise of populism. And the danger lies in how far-right populisms channel people’s discontent. It is not enough to criticize the extreme right or even take advantage of the fear that its growth may generate. It is imperative to tackle the economic and social roots: data shows that the more unequal societies are, the more far-right populism there is. Thus, reducing inequality would reduce social unrest. Self-criticism is necessary, authoritarian right-wing populisms do not appear out of nowhere, they are the shadow created by liberal democracy itself. Europe shall learn from past mistakes. The 2008 crisis cut deep. The club of 27 needs to seek non-cyclical-oriented economic policies to build a more resilient economy in the Eurozone (Zettelmeyer, 2019).

As per the cultural backlash, the European Union needs to take action actively and not only reactively. It needs to start to believe in its leadership, and make itself strong in liberal values again. Someone needs to take Merkel’s legacy in that task.

The process of European integration has led to inequalities within and among the European countries and plays a causal role in the growing crisis of trust in all European societies (Vormann & Lammer, 2019). Moreover, the European Union needs to go further from a mere economic alliance. It is either that or disintegration (Vormann & Lammert, 2019). The EU shall be democratic and liberal or die (Castells, 2019), because it was conceived like this, it is in its nature, and it is its reason to exist. The EU may be doomed to be built at two velocities, but not completely divided. In the 2015 refugee crisis, the core European values should have been preserved, instead of serving them à la carte. As Larry Diamond suggests, populism becomes a threat to democracy when other powerful democracies stand by and let it happen (2017).

Advancing in European integration does not imply competing with the nation-states; rather, is seeking a balanced solution between them and the supranational structures of the EU. No nation-state would give up its power and sovereignty to an entity that so many times has shown signs of weakness. The EU should take advantage of nation-states’ power in favor of the Union, in an asset-based approach, focusing on the strengths of each member to benefit the Union (E Pluribus Unum). Authors like Fukuyama (2022) or Grygiel (2017) point to this direction for Europe, as the only strategy that may provide a long, balanced, and democratic solution to save the EU.

Also, as Fukuyama argues, states have a degree of power and legitimacy that no supranational organization can match (2022). States offer identity and community, something the European Union is struggling with (Castells, 2019). Therefore, the EU shall find a balance between national identity and liberal universalism (Fukuyama, 2022).

Finally, the European leaders should acknowledge the red flags that several countries are giving through their electoral results. The year 2023 ends with the far-right governing in Italy and Hungry, as the first force in The Netherlands, as the second force in France, and third in Spain. The EU should take action, and rethink the common project to captivate Europeans’ minds and hearts, again.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my parents, who are always there for me. To Mireia, without her I would not be here. To my friends, who have always supported me. And to Javier, who has given me the strength to keep fighting for my dreams.

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ANNEX

Figure 1: The rise of right-wing populists’ parties has come at the expense of both the mainstream left and right

Retrieved from: Halikiopoulou, D. and Vlandas, T. (2022)

Figure 2: Cumulative share of right-wing populist party votes received in 2021

Retrieved from: Halikiopoulou, D. and Vlandas, T. (2022)

Figure 3: Graph showing the relationship between levels of income and political polarization

Retrieved from: McCarty, Poole & Rosenthal (2016)

Figure 4: Shared Prosperity in the EU between 2009 and 2014

Retrieved from: World Bank

Figure 5.1: Income inequality in the United Kingdom, 1946–2021

Retrived from: World Inequality Lab

Figure 5.2: Income inequality in Spain, 1951–2016

Retrived from: World Inequality Lab

Figure 5.3: Income inequality in Italy, 1956–2019

Retrieved from: World Inequality Lab

Figure 6: Brexit cartoon

Retrieved from The New York Times

Figure 7: The rise of far-right among youth in France

Retrieved from: Tower, K. and Gélix, C. (2022)

Figure 8: Map of voting districts results in France in 2017 and 2022

Retrieved from: CNN