Right-wing parties threaten to jam EU’s mainstream
Liberal politicians fear ‘Europe is disintegrating ’
After decades of backing mainstream politicians, European voters across the continent are increasingly empowering rightwing parties to upend Europe’s long march toward a common economic, social and political union.
Sunday, a right-wing, anti-immigrant party candidate won the most votes in the first round of Austria’s presidential election, a rebuke of the center-left and centrist parties that have dominated the country’s politics for 70 years.
Two weeks earlier, Dutch voters dealt a blow to European Union foreign policy by rejecting a treaty favored by the mainstream parties that would tie Ukraine closer to the 28-nation union. The rejection of the treaty signals “the beginning of the end” for the EU, said Geert Wilders, founder of the rightwing Dutch Party for Freedom.
“Europe is disintegrating as we speak,” said Sophie in ’t Veld, a Dutch liberal member of the European Parliament. “It’s a risk everywhere.”
Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration UK Independence Party, says such votes are preludes to the critical “Brexit” referendum June 23 on whether Britain should exit the EU, a move that could trigger disintegration of the economic and political alliance Europe’s ruling parties have been building. “Things are changing. I don’t believe these (EU) institutions can survive,” Farage said.
The upstart politicians’ targets are centrist leaders who have supported European unity since the 1950s, pushing for common trade, immigration, currency and budgetary rules at the price of national sovereignty and discretion in implementing social policies. In France, officials of the socialist government are considering a centrist coalition to thwart the conservative National Front, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, topped a BVA poll with as much as 30% for next year’s presidential election in the first round of voting.
“We have to get over partisan divides,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the Paris daily
Libération. “My roots are on the left, but I think that on the big issues we can perfectly well get together. ... The upcoming presidential election can’t be a repeat of classic left-right confrontations.”
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union sees the emergence of Alternative for Germany, a right-wing party that scored successes in three state elections in March by campaigning against Merkel’s welcome of more than 1 million migrants and her support of coordinated EU economic policies.
In Italy, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is rallying a coalition against the anti-EU 5-Star Movement and anti-immigration Northern League.
Conservative nationalists are in power in Hungary and Poland, where they challenge EU unity over how to stem the flood of migrants entering Europe. Their consolidation of power over their courts and crackdown on media freedom raises concerns elsewhere in the EU.
In ’t Veld sees parallels between the rise of the right in Europe and support for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in the USA.
“I see exactly the same brand of populism, the same political discourse, the same issues, the same polarization,” she told USA TODAY.
Many of Europe’s conservative politicians admire the U.S. billionaire candidate. “Go Donald Trump, go!!!,” Italy’s Northern League leader Matteo Salvini wrote on Facebook. “We are on the same wavelength.”
Some analysts say the power of the anti-EU parties may be overstated. Less than a third of Dutch voters turned out for the referendum, because some EU supporters stayed home in hopes turnout would drop below the 30% threshold needed to validate the result.
“We have to be very careful with what we see and not jump to conclusions and think that the Netherlands has gone mad and everyone is voting for Wilders,” said Adriaan Schout, Europe coordinator at the Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations. “This is not necessarily anti-European, this is saying ‘give us a good Europe.’ ”