The parties reshaping the political landscape in Europe
1 Italy
The League — previously named the Northern League — is part of the new Italian government. In its former incarnation, it called sporadically for northern independence, cutting loose the poor south of Italy, which drained the tax income disproportionately paid by the rich north. When Matteo Salvini took over in December 2013 it became a strongly anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic and Italian nationalist party. These policies secured it some 17 per cent of the popular vote in elections on March 4, three points ahead of that of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, allowing Salvini to claim leadership of the right.
2 Austria
Under Sebastian Kurz, the conservative People’s Party won 31.5 per cent of the vote in last October’s election, giving it the largest bloc in the national parliament. Almost as many people voted for the insurgent far-right Freedom Party, as did for the establishment centre-left party, the Social Democratic Party, which both got about 27 per cent. The Freedom Party, led by Heinz-Christian Strache seeks to curb immigration to shrink welfare benefits to non-Austrians and to curtail what it calls political Islam in the country.
3 Germany
The far-right Alternative for Germany party, known by its German initials, AfD, started five years ago as a protest movement against the euro currency, won some 13 seats, becoming the third strongest party. It marked the first time in more than 60 years that a far-right party passed the Constitutional 5 per cent threshold and took seats in the federal Bundestag. AfD attracts voters who are anti-establishment, anti-liberalisation, and anti-European.
4 The Netherlands
The anti-European Union, anti-Islam Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, finished in second place in Dutch elections held in March of 2017. It also succeeded in pushing many right-leaning parties to adopt tougher stances on immigration and is likely to influence policies in the new government. A new right-wing party, the anti-European Union Forum for Democracy, won two seats.
5 Poland
Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party were returned to power in parliamentary elections in 2015, with 39 per cent of the popular vote. Since assuming power, the party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has no official role in the government, has moved to curb public gatherings, strengthen government control of the media and curtail judicial independence, a move that is drawing concern in Brussels.
6 Hungary
Fresh off re-election six weeks ago, Viktor Orban and his right-wing Fidesz party have consolidated their power base, worrying many Western leaders about his increasingly authoritarian rule.
7 Sweden
The far-right Sweden Democrats party has turned its back on its roots in the white-supremacist movement and won some 13 per cent of the vote in elections in the autumn of 2014. That was up from only 2.9 per cent eight years earlier. The 2014 result gave it 49 of the 349 seats in the Swedish parliament.
8 Greece
Founded in 1980, the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn came to international attention in 2012 when it entered the Greek Parliament for the first time. Then, it won 18 seats. The party, which the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner described in 2013 as “neo-Nazi and violent,” holds extreme anti-immigrant views, favours a defence agreement with Russia and said the euro “turned out to be our destruction.”
9 France
While she did make the run-offs in last May’s French president election, Marine LePen has struggled to take the National Front beyond its 25 per cent benchmark. She is now involved in a rebranding and reorganising of its core values. The party does, however favour protectionist economic policies.