INTELBRIEF
June 6, 2025
Right-Wing Parties in Europe Get a Boost from Recent Political Developments
Far-right political parties in Europe are having something of a moment and their electoral success threatens to eclipse that of traditional conservative parties in some countries. Right-wing populists are now in government or supporting ruling coalitions in Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Sweden. Karol Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist, narrowly won the Polish presidency this week in Europe’s latest election. Though Nawrocki won by a small margin, his victory highlights the continuing trend of far-right populist leaders enjoying electoral success throughout Europe. Bolstered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election, the normalization of the far-right is characterizing European politics more broadly. Nawrocki’s victory is emblematic of a more robust right-wing in Europe, which outperformed expectations last year in European parliamentary elections. Far-right parties have made gains in Portugal, Germany, and Austria more recently, while efforts in both Romania and France came up short.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) announced his departure from the government on June 3, a strategic move to force a snap election after an ongoing dispute over the governing right-leaning coalition’s refusal to concede to Wilders’ stringent “ten-point plan” on asylum. Current Prime Minister Dick Schoof will assume the reins in a caretaker role, but most expect political turmoil in the Netherlands for the foreseeable future. This collapse of the government comes weeks ahead of a critical NATO summit, scheduled to take place in The Hague later this month, where one of the pressing issues will be a discussion of increased funding from coalition members. Wilders has expressed opprobrium for the Dutch position on supporting Ukraine and Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp’s request for the European Union to revisit its relationship with Israel in the wake of the ongoing war in Gaza.
Germany held a snap election in February following the collapse of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government in late 2024. And while Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) prevailed, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been designated as a “confirmed right-wing extremist movement” by German intelligence, finished second in the election. The result was the AfD’s best ever electoral result, though the party remains politically unpalatable in terms of forming a coalition. The movement has benefited from high-profile support from individuals like Elon Musk, who posted on the social media platform X that “Only the AfD can save Germany.” Then in February, at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance sent a pointed message to the audience, noting: “Shutting people out of the political process protects nothing...in fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” Vance had previously met with the AfD’s leader, Alice Weidel.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni passed a controversial Security Decree on June 4, which has triggered a wave of protests throughout Italy. There are several key provisions to the decree, including: the criminalization of civil disobedience; enhanced law enforcement protections; the revocation of protections for pregnant women and new mothers; and expanded powers for intelligence agencies. Taken together, these new laws are considered authoritarian by opposition politicians, though Meloni has dismissed these concerns, instead insisting that the decree is “a decisive step to strengthen the protection of citizens, the most vulnerable groups, and our men and women in uniform.”
There has been a broader shift in Europe’s Overton window as center-right parties, and even left-wing parties adopt increasingly hardline stances on issues such as immigration, in attempts to claw back votes from the right. This has been seen in the case of the UK, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. In the context of the populist Reform UK party led by Brexit-campaigner Nigel Farage has made unprecedented gains, with the party siphoning eight authorities from Conservative strongholds in local elections that took place this year, and roughly 42 percent of seats. Once considered a peripheral organization, the party has transformed into a mainstream political force and is what Starmer recently stated as his “main competitor for No. 10 Downing Street.” In February of this year, Starmer met with Meloni for a bilateral discussion on integrating Italian immigration policy with the UK’s, with Starmer even pledging $4 million to assist the Italian government with its controversial irregular migration policies. Italy and the European Union have faced accusations of propping North African authoritarian regimes – including migration deals with Libya, Tunisia and Morocco – to curb high refugee flows resulting from the instability that persists across large swathes of sub-Saharan Africa.
European rearmament in the face of increasing Russian aggression following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and renewed uncertainty over America’s reliability as a guarantor of European security – with Trump’s re-election and exacerbated by recent comments made by U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth – will hinge both on achieving consensus among EU member states and on effective decision-making at the national level. However, the rise of far-right parties, both domestically and within the European Parliament – many of which are Euroskeptic – undermines the EU’s capacity to act as a unified bloc. The continued erosion of traditional political barriers, such as the dismantling of cordon sanitaires, designed to isolate far-right parties following World War II – as seen in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent decision to cooperate with the AfD at the local level – may be viewed as a necessary pragmatic move. With NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte formally unveiling plans to boost allied spending to five percent this week – a sharp increase and politically ambitious target - dialogue across the political spectrum will be increasingly essential amid mounting austerity measures and fiscal constraints. Yet, such engagement also risks legitimizing and further mainstreaming extremist groups, potentially accelerating political fragmentation across Europe in the long-term.