Research on the far right in Europe reveals a mixed picture. In April 2026, a turbulent election in Hungary forced Viktor Orbán, head of the Illiberal International, to resign as prime minister, citing years of obstruction of the EU. Shortly after, Romania’s pro-European government of Prime Minister Ilie Borojan was forced to step down following a no-confidence vote initiated by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) with support from the far-right Romanian Union Union (AUR). In Bulgaria, voters elected Rumen Radev’s pro-EU coalition, while in the Netherlands, Geert Wilder’s Liberal Party failed to form a coalition government. In Finland, the Finns Party is part of the ruling coalition, and in Sweden, the conservative-led government is supported by the Sweden Democrats.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the post-fascist Italian Federation (FdI) party has cooperated with the EU on foreign policy, but in Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council, has been blocked from doing the same by the country’s president and PiS-aligned judges. Although the Danish People’s Party is no longer part of Denmark’s coalition government, the country’s centre-left government has taken an anti-immigration stance. Marine Le Pen of the Nationalist Party (RN) is closing in on power in France, while Alternative for Germany (AfD) is leading in opinion polls in Germany. The same goes for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in the UK, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria, and the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in Switzerland.
But despite uneven development, the direction of progress is clear. The 2024 European elections saw a sharp shift to the right, with about a quarter of seats held by the far right. the current July 2026far-right MPs outnumber MPs from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) by 12 seats and outnumber MPs from the centre-left Social Democratic Party (S&D) by 61 seats. Thus, the former dominance of EPP and S&D collapsed.
The power of the far-right bloc is limited by the fact that it is divided into three groups. The most powerful of these is the Patriotic Federation of Europe (PfE), which is made up of 85 MPs from Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Austria’s FPÖ, and the RN. The European Conservative and Reform Party (ECR), led by the Italian Brothers (Italy) and PiS (Poland), has 84 seats. The remaining 27 seats are held by Sovereign States of Europe (ESN), a group of parties from eight countries led by the AfD (Germany). This tripartite split and the contradictions that led to it, particularly between the RN and the AfD, which were excluded from the PfE’s predecessor and now disbanded Identity and Democracy Group, highlight the strategic differences between Europe’s various right-wing parties both inside and outside of parliament.
But taken together, the far right has significantly increased its influence in the decision-making bodies of EU institutions. All three groups have increased their presence on committees dealing with climate change and immigration policy, and have signaled their intention to support the EPP if they cannot achieve a majority otherwise. This includes: already happened Along with legislative proposals such as the Supply Chain Act, Discuss in chat group Regarding immigration policy and other “culture war” areas. Governments led or supported by far-right parties now have more influence in the European Parliament, and the EU Commission now includes Raffaele Fitto (Italian Brothers, ECR) and Oliver Verhelyi as vice-presidents for cohesion and reform (Supported by Mr. Orbán and EPP in 2024) Health and Animal Welfare.
Differences in policy
The three far-right groups differ in (a) their fundamental stance toward the European Union, (b) their relationship with conservatives, and (c) their foreign policy agenda in the context of current geopolitical upheavals.
Attitude towards the EU
All right-wing populist parties are rooted in a fundamental opposition to monetary union and supranational integration. Best exemplified by Brexit, this is usually linked to a strategy of exit and restricting the EU to the single market, and in some cases common defense and migration policies that leave room for unilateral action at national level. This model is based on de Gaulle’s vision of a “Europe of nations” with full sovereignty within its borders and rejects further integration or expansion.
Since Brexit, far-right parties have either abandoned their Brexit commitments, including monetary union and the eurozone, or kept them only in rhetorical form, expressed as radical Euroscepticism. The Italian Prime Minister has ruled out any possibility of leaving the Union, as has the Rassemblement, whose predecessor, the National Front, was one of the most ardent supporters of secession. The AfD was the only party other than far-right parties to include the option of exit in its manifesto for the 2024 European elections.
As Viktor Orban made clear in his address to Hungarians living abroad in 2017, the option of leaving has long been replaced by calls for change. “After the fall of the Wall, we in Central Europe thought Europe was our future. Today we know that we are the future of Europe.” The plan is no longer to leave the Union, but something more fundamental: to erode and destroy it from within.
Prime Minister Orban embraces the slogan of the “Great Replacement” theory, which holds that the “purity” of Europe’s peoples is being actively undermined by elite tolerance towards immigrants and other cultures, and that the only way this can be stopped is through radical border closures, combined with Christian nationalism and anti-LGBTQ policies. Fantasies about “immigrants” have sprung up everywhere, especially since the mass influx of Arab migrants in 2015, which former AfD leader Alexander Gauland described at the time as “the best thing that could have happened to us.” These include the negation of both: Jusori A vague deportation scheme aimed at children born in Europe (the legal principle that a person’s citizenship is determined by their place of birth), but also for EU nationals who are “unassimilable”.
Such ideas go hand in hand with anti-Semitic attacks on economic globalization. These models are from Hungary’s “Stop Soros” campaign. Orbán served as a blueprint for Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, allowing him to emerge from the shadows as a prophet of Europe’s future once Trump took power. The radical right has launched an all-out attack on the narrative surrounding the Holocaust and the collaborationist or Quisling regimes involved in it, reestablishing the Horthy regime in Hungary, for example, and engaging in open revisionism of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and increasingly Austria and Slovenia (sometimes referred to as the Visegrad Group or Habsburg Connection) were able to form a blocking majority against Brussels (and Berlin and Paris), leaving the EU seemingly helpless when these countries introduced illiberal democracies lacking either separation of powers, fundamental freedoms, or an independent judiciary.
Relationship with conservatives
Jordan Bardella, who was nominated to succeed Marine Le Pen as RN leader, has also called for strict immigration restrictions and a review of national policy. Jusori principle. But Bardera and other leading figures on the far right have distanced themselves from identitarian rhetoric and the assumption of a prominent role by identitarians and neo-Nazis. The ban imposed by Marine Le Pen on contact with the AfD and other ESN representatives continues under Bardera, reinforced by public calls for a center-right alliance, if not a coalition government, with the Christian Democrats, right-wing liberals, and national conservatives. In many cases, these parties have already been almost cannibalized by the far right. See the Conservative Party in Britain, the Republican Party in France, and the range of Christian Democrats in northwestern Europe.
The FN’s “demonization” project aimed at achieving or joining government is shared by “moderate” factions within the AfD, which seek to distance themselves from identitarian slogans and policies in the hopes of appealing to right-wing voters wary of extremism. Germany’s declared “firewall” is increasingly being questioned by the CDU/CSU. This is not only because it has failed to stem the rise of extremism, but also because the centre-right would rather govern in cooperation with its rivals on the right than rely on the support of the Greens, liberal left and leftists. The fact that a coalition between the Conservatives and the Greens is either excluded by the conservative parties or made impossible by the leftward shift of the Greens also makes a right-wing coalition more likely.
foreign policy
Some expect that if the far right joins the government, it will “demonize” itself not just in rhetoric but in substance. There is precedent for this. Mr. Geert Wilders. Belgian government founded in 2025 by former Flemish separatist Bart de Weber. And Meloni’s government, despite maintaining radical cultural policies, has adopted a cooperative approach in dealing with the EU. This approach was prompted by the overwhelming support for Ukraine shown by European governments and the European Commission in the face of Russia’s war of aggression. Pro-Russian countries within the EU, again led by Prime Minister Orban, opposed this aid, leading to a split within the Visegrad Group. The AfD, which enjoys particularly strong support in eastern Germany, still wants sanctions against Russia as well as an end to all aid to Ukraine.
These obstructionists are causing significant damage not only to Ukraine, but also to the EU’s integration and ability to act, thereby exposing the gap between military and civilian capabilities in European security. As a result of energy dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies, vulnerability to EU blackmail has increased. Many far-right parties not only support Putin ideologically, but also accept material support from Russia in a Russian-led propaganda campaign aimed at destabilizing European liberal democracies.
For Meloni, by contrast, Donald Trump was a role model until his erratic policies led to massive tariff hikes and several wars of aggression of his own with the friendly acquiescence of Moscow and Beijing. All attempts to be “nice” to Trump have failed. The AfD has abandoned its traditional anti-Americanism and, thanks to the American right’s interference in European election campaigns (unsuccessful in Hungary), has come to rely on President Trump and, to some extent, his vice president, J.D. Vance.
None of this will change the uncomfortable situation that the Big Three, including China, have found Europe in. In the face of the collapse of social democracy, the isolation of the Greens, anti-Semitic radicalism in parts of the far left, and the numerical and functional weakness of the resulting coalition government, two questions remain. First, in a Hobbesian world, how will a partnership, formal or otherwise, between conservatives and right-wing populists protect liberal democracy? And second, can liberals, leftists, and conservative defenders find the pragmatic policies needed to win over voters in the months remaining before key elections in each member state?
This article is published with the support of ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
