Eurasia Press & News
Talk of a right-wing wave breaking over Europe has become a commonplace of political punditry, but the reality is more nuanced.
Is a right-wing, even a far-right wing, wave crashing over Europe? A lot of pundits would have it so. A recent article in Politico, with the trenchant title “Springtime for Europe’s Fascists”, ran through the usual suspects, with a special focus on the rise and rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD.
There’s no doubting the right’s momentum in large parts of Europe. Far-right parties are either in governments, or are propping up governments, in “normally” social democratic Finland and Sweden. The AfD, as the Politico article noted, is scoring 20 per cent in the polls in once staid and centrist Germany – above the 18 per cent support for Chancellor Scholz’s governing Social Democrats. “Never in the history of post-war Germany has a chancellor’s party had such low approval ratings,” as Germany’s Deutsche Welle, DW, remarked.
Conservatives romped home in this year’s elections in Greece – which not that long ago, under Alexis Tsipras, was the flag carrier of the European left. A new far-right constellation, Confederation, is polling strongly in already right-wing-governed Poland. Georgia Meloni’s right-wing “Brothers of Italy” are presiding over Italy. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party, FPO, is tipped to come first in next year’s elections. It’s a long list, and not a compete one. Who knows what elections in a jittery Netherlands, due in November, will yield?
However, even if the right, in various guises, is on a roll in Europe, talk of a fascist takeover remains wide of the mark, not least because right and far right are ideologically loose terms – umbrella words for a range of insurgent forces with a grab-bag of often conflicting agendas and few commonalities, beyond often vaguely expressed identitarian politics, opposition to large-scale immigration and much talk about helping “the family”.
Some, like Hungary’s and Poland’s rulers, are welfarist, some are not. The AfD and the FPO and Hungary’s ruling Fidesz are pro-Russian but Meloni’s Brothers of Italy don’t fit that description. Nor do rightists in Poland. Some echo US Republicans in their obsession with limiting or even outlawing abortion, but not all of them do. Some flirt with anti-EU-ism, others don’t – and dream of taking over European institutions and reshaping them, rather than getting rid of them.
Some, like Viktor Orban’s Hungary – echoing Putin’s Russia – trumpet a noisy if flakey “traditional” Christianity, which usually involves ignoring the modern variety of the faith as espoused by the current Pope. Others can’t be bothered with that, seeing no votes in a moribund Church, posing instead as defenders of the Enlightenment and of a Western secularism they see as threatened by Muslim immigration.
Moreover, in another complication, the victorious Greek conservatives are more of a classic old-style pro-European centre-right party. That suggests the doom supposedly hanging over the European centre right, and its imminent annihilation by the far right, is not a foregone conclusion.
Then there’s Spain. Right up to polling day in the Spanish elections in July, those predicting a far-right tsunami in Europe were practically salivating over the expected outcome – a victory of the conservative right, which would be propelled into office on the back of a strong vote for the far-right Vox party.
It didn’t happen. Instead, the conservatives and the left polled similar amounts of votes and the Vox vote slumped, leaving the Spanish Socialists within reach of staggering on in alliance with, or supported by, Catalan and Basque nationalists. That wasn’t on the playbook.
The Spanish vote either points to Iberian exceptionalism [with the left also in power in Portugal], or to a possible alternative explanation for what’s going on in Europe, or parts of it – which isn’t necessarily a growing tilt to the right but a growing polarisation, with right and left-wing voting blocs crystallising and entrenching their positions.
Polarisation, of course, is not necessarily a much better outcome than a simple right-wing surge. The last time voters in Spain locked themselves into fiercely opposing left-right options, in the mid-1930s, the result was a civil war.
Either way, the immediate future looks bleak for Europe’s once formidable social democrats. They remain in the saddle in Germany, may cling on in Spain – and will likely take power in Britain next year – but both those latter two countries are literally on the margins of Europe; neither sets the European weather.
Next year’s European elections will formalise the way the political wind is blowing. But for now, the only question is whether the most gains are made by the centrist conservatives of the European Peoples Party, EPP, or by the more right-wing Conservatives and Reformists. Divided and baffled, the left seems out of puff.
