The European elections accelerate the ‘normalization’ of the extreme right

They were, just a few years ago, the plagued by European politics, far-right, populist and ultra-nationalist parties that found serious difficulties in participating in coalitions and governing. Making an agreement with them was taboo, in the European Parliament and in the national parliaments. Not anymore.

Election after election, the locks that closed the doors to the decision-making forums are being broken. They govern in Italy, Hungary, Finland and Slovakia and support the Executive in Sweden. It is possible that the ultra Geert Wilders party will be part of a ruling coalition in the Netherlands. In France they are the first opposition party and there are polls that give them chances of winning power. In the European elections of June 6 to 9, crucial for the future of the EU, which come at a time of enormous polarization in many Member States, they can take one more step to be accepted in the market of pacts for the next community legislature and in the halls of power in Brussels.

The last lock cracked a little more last Monday, during a debate for the European elections organized by the Studio Maastrich ideas laboratory and the leading media in Brussels Political. The German Ursula von der Leyen, who aspires to renew the position of president of the European Commission, is a moderate Christian Democrat who during her mandate has reached an understanding with socialists like Pedro Sánchez or centrists like Emmanuel Macron. But, when asked if she was open to agreeing in the European Parliament with ECR – the acronym in English for European Reformists and Conservatives, the family that includes Vox or Brothers of Italy, the party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni -, The answer was ambiguous, although eloquent: “It depends a lot on what the composition of Parliament is and who is in each group.”

Von der Leyen’s position in half-opening the door to agreements with a sector of the extreme right—she herself has put on the cordon sanitaire that she must be pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO and the rule of law—is partly explained by pragmatism, since it is likely that to legislate in the new European Parliament he will sometimes need the votes of parties located to his right. Although her team sees this opening more as tactical cooperation and as a way of differentiating the very diverse far-right groups, this position also reflects the growing porosity between the traditional right and the right from the right, and two parallel movements. .

This tactical collaboration of the extreme right and the conventional right already happens at the national and subnational level, summarizes Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, coordinator of the extensive study on the transformation of the traditional right and its impact on social democracy. It is seen in Spain, with the pacts between the Popular Party and Vox, a member of ECR ​​and a Eurosceptic party, very harsh on immigration issues, anti-abortion and that has cried out against elements included in the Constitution such as the State of autonomies. Different analyzes show how conventional parties are falling and a “fierce” struggle is taking place on the right, because the competition with the extreme right is enormous, continues Rovira Kaltwasser.

In this scenario and in a changing Europe, conservative parties have been absorbing the narrative of the extreme right in some points – such as the toughest policies on immigration -, others, as happened with the now national-populist Viktor Orbán, in Hungary, who was more well a conservative mainstream, or the Poles of Law and Justice (PiS), have been radicalizing, notes Rovira Kalwasser. Although her study says that this radicalization is not the general pattern for Western Europe. Of course, the expert emphasizes: “We must not take for granted that the conservative right parties are not going to move. And that can also happen at the European level, the difference is that it is a gradual process. And it is already happening in some factions of some parties,” he adds.

This is what is happening in the family of popular Europeans. There are those who advocate normalizing cooperation with ECR and those, such as MEP Daniel Caspary, head of the European Parliament delegation of the German CDU (Von der Leyen’s party) prefers to find a stable majority and a “flexible alliance” with socialists and the liberal group of Renew (which all polls show is declining) if they add up the numbers, he commented this Friday.

Grand coalition

Von der Leyen’s red lines appear more flexible than they were for European conservatives in the past. That is threatening to break up the grand coalition with the Social Democrats (and more recently, Liberals) that has maintained the political structure of the European Union for 70 years. The German conservative’s message is “very worrying,” says Teresa Ribera, second vice president of Pedro Sánchez’s Government and socialist candidate for the European elections, in a written comment.

Laura Thorn, vice president of the German Marshall Fund think tank, wonders about the advance in some countries of those ideas that Orbán, for example, calls “illiberal.” “Liberal democracy has been caught a bit by surprise. In many cases we have handed over the ideas of patriotism, tradition and religion to the anti-democratic,” she commented a few days ago at the Brussels Forum meeting.

The taboo has also been broken because these radical parties are approaching fundamental consensus. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) no longer wants to take France out of the euro or the EU; Meloni – who also heads her party’s list for the European elections – is favorable to NATO and firmly supports Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Le Pen’s RN has made a signing for these elections that symbolizes this double movement. This is Fabrice Leggeri, a senior official who was executive director of the European border agency (Frontex). He left the agency amid accusations of mismanagement and reproaches for the excesses in his tough approach to immigration, but his resume responds to the attempt of these parties to provide themselves with credibility to govern and tell voters that they, historically without experts or cadres of level, they also have technocrats capable of making a State function.

“We are not just dedicated to criticism, but to the construction of a project,” Leggeri tells EL PAÍS. “My arrival and that of others, and the general mood that I have felt upon entering the RN, reflects a great sense of responsibility, the will to truly be an alternative force of proposals, a force of government.”

“There is a change in the general mood of public opinion,” says Jérôme Sainte-Marie, a demographic expert and head of Camps Héméra, the theoretical training school for Le Pen’s party. “This will end up being translated by the arrival of personalities with skills that will give credibility [al RN] facing new social categories.”

For years, this was an amateur game and shrouded in an aura of incompetence. It was also the party of the working class after the collapse of the communists; Now, little by little, it conquers new segments of the population. In the polls for the European elections, he is more than 10 points ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s list. The RN presents these elections as a prelude to the presidential elections of 2027.

The idea that Le Pen’s victory in 2027 is inevitable is gradually establishing itself among the French elites. Alain Minc, essayist, consultant and close to Macron, lamented a few weeks ago in his Paris office: “People are resigned, and I think that the Frenc
h elite will not rebel.” Fatalism? Or realism? The observation actually applies to Europe as well: these parties are already part of the landscape.

The time is long gone, just over 20 years ago, when the entry of the far-right Jörg Haider into a government dominated by the Christian Democrats in Austria put the rest of the partners on guard and triggered diplomatic sanctions. And the idea that these parties govern no longer seems far-fetched. Your ideas don’t sound so outlandish. Today’s Haiders have stopped being scary.

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