Lithuania and EU flags waving under a cloudy sky. Photo: Andy Liu.

Lithuanian Populist Far-right (In)security Discourse During the European Parliament Elections in the face of Russia’s War Against Ukraine

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Please cite as:

Ulinskaitė, Jogilė. (2024). “Lithuanian Populist Far-right (In)security Discourse During the European Parliament Elections in the face of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024.https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0077

 

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Abstract

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia has disrupted the previously perceived stability in Central and Eastern Europe (CCE) and exacerbated the prevailing sense of insecurity. The evolving circumstances are reshaping the political terrain and presenting avenues to mobilize support for the populist far right. However, to date, the far-right populist parties in Lithuania have not been successful in either national or European Parliament (EP) elections, as they have failed to surpass the required thresholds. However, the most recent European Parliament elections were an exception, with the election of a long-standing far-right politician in Lithuania as an MEP. This study delves into an analysis of the discourse employed by Lithuanian far-right populists throughout the 2024 EP election campaign, with a specific focus on the narratives pertaining to (in)security that they propagated. The investigation seeks to ascertain whether the far right capitalized on the situation to fuel discussions on crisis with the aim of attracting support and identifying the strategies utilized in constructing the narratives surrounding (in)security.

Keywords: populist far right, European Parliament election, insecurity, immigrants, European Green Deal, traditional values

By Jogilė Ulinskaitė (Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania)

Introduction

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 disrupted the sense of stability in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), exacerbating existing widespread insecurity and evoking memories of Soviet repression. Although the unyielding support of the Lithuanian political elite and society for Ukraine has cultivated a rally around the flag effect, the prolonged conflict has underscored the critical importance of defence solutions. These conditions create a conducive environment for the far right to mobilize support. Although far-right populists thus far have been unable to surpass the 5% threshold required to secure seats in the national legislature, shifting circumstances provide the far right with opportunities to advocate for increased security measures and criticize the political establishment for its perceived inaction. The election of far-right politician Petras Gražulis to the European Parliament (EP) in 2024 signifies a change in the reception of contentious political discourse. The central question of this chapter concerns whether the far right is leveraging these conditions to acquire backing and the methodologies utilized to mould narratives of (in)security.

In this chapter, I define the populist far right as political agents who adhere to the procedural norms of democracy and are situated at the extreme right end of the left–right ideological spectrum. Their rhetoric is distinguished by populism and nativism, where the nation is viewed as a homogeneous entity that needs to be defended from both a corrupt political elite and perceived external threats (Wodak, 2019). The populist far right portrays the political elite as corrupt, acting against the populace’s interests and advancing the agenda of the European Union (Golder, 2016; Buštíková & Kitschelt, 2009; Wodak, 2019). Finally, they place a strong emphasis on traditional family values and a nostalgic yearning for an idealized past (Wodak, 2019).

This article analyses the discourse of three populist far-right political organizations. The National Alliance (Nacionalinis susivienijimas, NS) failed to secure any parliamentary seats in the 2020 elections but gained 3 out of 51 seats on the Vilnius City Council in 2023. The People and Justice Union (Tautos ir teisingumo sąjunga, TTS) held one parliamentary seat in a single-mandate constituency until late 2023. The third party, the Christian Union (Krikščionių sąjunga, KS), aligned with the Lithuanian Family Movement (Lietuvos šeimų sąjūdis, LŠS) in the 2024 EP election. LŠS, known for organizing the ‘Great March in Defence of the Family’ and other anti-government protests, won five seats across various municipal councils in spring 2023 on the ballots of different political parties. The analysis draws on electoral manifestos, official election debates and communications via official Facebook pages and websites during the EP election campaign.

In this chapter, I present the results of the EP elections in Lithuania and then examine the rhetoric employed by Lithuanian far-right populists during the election campaign, focusing particularly on articulated narratives of (in)security. The analysis looks at whether the campaign focused more on leveraging the crisis – a tactic often used by the Lithuanian far right – or if it instead tried to offer ideas for creating security in a volatile situation.

European Parliament election campaign and results

The 2024 EP elections in June marked the third time Lithuanian voters had been to the polls within six weeks, leading to an intertwining of election debates across different institutions. The preceding presidential election had dominated both public and political agendas, with some candidates leveraging it to boost their popularity ahead of the EP elections. Additionally, national parliamentary elections scheduled for autumn compelled many candidates to focus their campaigns on domestic issues. As a result, EP election debates were heavily dominated by national concerns, such as social benefits and employment, rather than EU-specific policies. The compressed electoral timeline and emphasis on national issues may have contributed to voter fatigue, as evidenced by the low turnout for the EP elections (28.94%), which was significantly lower than in previous years when it coincided with the presidential runoff (53.48% in 2019 and 47.35% in 2014).

The 2024 EP elections in Lithuania saw voters lean towards mainstream candidates and a significant degree of continuity, with five of the country’s eleven elected MEPs retaining their seats from the previous term. Moreover, two of the new MEPs had previously served as European Commissioners, further reinforcing the presence of experienced EU-level politicians on the Lithuanian slate. The most successful parties were the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats, who won three seats and 20.92% of the vote. The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania came second with two seats and 17.63% of the vote. The following political parties shared the remaining six seats, taking one each: Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (8.95%), Freedom Party (7.94%), the Union of Democrats ‘For Lithuania’ (5.84%), Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania–Christian Families Alliance (5.67%), the People and Justice Union, TTS (5.34%), Liberals’ Movement (5.31%).

The notable exception to the support for the mainstream was electing Petras Gražulis, a leader of TTS, with 5.45 % of votes. TTS is itself an amalgam of several outfits, including the Centrists–Nationalists, Gražulis’ political movement ‘For Lithuania, Men!’ (Už Lietuvą, vyrai!), and the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists and Republicans. Lacking a cohesive ideological core, TTS has been predominantly associated with the persona of its leader, Gražulis, since 2021. Gražulis, a figure of notable controversy, has garnered international attention, including recognition on Politico’s list of the most eccentric MEPs (Wax & Cokelaere, 2024). His political profile is characterized by determined opposition to the LGBTQ+ community, particularly evident in his contentious engagement with ‘Pride’ events. The controversy surrounding Gražulis extends beyond rhetoric into legal domains. He is currently facing criminal prosecution for alleged defamation of LGBTQ+ individuals (Steniulienė et al., 2024), which led to him being denied joining and questioning by the EP party of his choice – the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. Eventually, he joined the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group.

Gražulis, who served as a member of the Seimas (Lithuania’s parliament) from 1996 to 2023, has consistently secured his position through single-mandate constituency victories. His political career reached a critical juncture in the winter of 2023 when he was impeached by the Seimas. The impeachment process, triggered by his unauthorized voting on behalf of another MP, culminated in a ruling by the Constitutional Court that the politician had broken his oath of office and violated the constitution (Gaučaitė-Znutienė et al., 2023). During election debates, Gražulis strategically reframed this decision as political persecution to express his indignation and to present himself as a victim of censorship and political repression. The election outcomes indicate that his party achieved significant success in the regions outside the major cities of Lithuania. A decline in voter turnout, the dissolution of the right-wing populist party Order and Justice (Andrukaitytė, 2020), and the absence of other ideologically similar political leaders (such as Remigijus Žemaitaitis, another controversial right-wing politician) in the EP elections all contributed to the backing received by this politician.

In general, the populist far-right parties in Lithuania experienced limited electoral success. Only one such party surpassed the 5% threshold necessary for representation. Despite conducting an intensive campaign, the National Alliance expressed disappointment with its performance, garnering only 3.79% of the vote. In a post-election press conference, one of the party’s leaders, Vytautas Sinica, posited that their programmatic provisions and discourse might have been too complex for the electorate, suggesting a potential reconsidering of their campaign strategy ahead of the national elections. The Christian Union’s even less favourable outcome, securing only 1.37% of the votes, further underscores the challenges far-right parties face in Lithuania.

Prioritizing culture wars over the war in Ukraine: Fighting the usual suspects

Despite the prevalent focus in Lithuanian public discourse on the war against Ukraine (and the Russian threat) and broader defence and security matters, the far-right narrative gives precedence to Lithuania’s internal security. All scrutinized political parties emphasize the nation’s sovereignty over EU federalism and express a dedication to shielding the nation from the ‘dictates of EU bureaucrats’ and the so-called ideologies promoted by the EU, such as genderism and multiculturalism. Safeguarding the nation and traditional family values serves as the foundation and primary perspective through which all other matters are examined.

For example, the Christian Union asserts that Lithuania encounters a dual threat: ‘Our country and the entirety of European civilization face the threat of war, while internally Lithuania is undermined by an ideology that is hostile to the natural family, the Lithuanian language, culture and traditions, Christian values and scientific truths’ (Central Electoral Commission, 2024). Nevertheless, every other section of the manifesto highlights the importance of safeguarding family and traditional values. Similarly, the National Alliance’s campaign material prominently features the threat of war but as a backdrop. The primary focus of the National Alliance’s propositions is the defence of traditional European cultural values against EU bureaucrats and their supposed intentional effort to push Europe toward a multicultural identity to undermine the authority of nation-states.

These so-called ideological dangers are linked to the Istanbul Convention, an international agreement to prevent and combat violence against women, which is yet to be ratified in Lithuania and is vehemently opposed by far-right political groups. The Istanbul Convention is labelled as the ideology of genderism – a foe deemed worthy of resistance by A. Rusteika (Jursevičius, 2024) or a social engineering venture rooted in Marxist ideology, aiming to dismantle the family structure in Europe by Radžvilas (Jursevičius, 2024).

Another identified adversary is the LGBTQ+ community. The EP elections coincided with Vilnius Pride – a fact not overlooked by the National Alliance. The party noted that the demands from the LGBT community are endless, starting from recognition and parades to gender transition rights, marriage, and adoption (Sinica, 2024).

The spectre of communism is continuously brought up by the far right to evoke cultural trauma from the Soviet era. The character and magnitude of this threat were most eloquently articulated by the elected MEP: “Europe today is simply a poison that brings genderism, drugs and everything else that destroys the idea of the founding fathers, whether Schuman or Adenauer, who created this Europe. Now, they are destroying all values, Christian values, by introducing Leftism, same-sex marriage and all these perversions. I want to tell you that we are going backwards; in fact, Europe has returned to the ideas of Russia or even Lenin…. If these values return, the family will be destroyed; with what they are doing, there will be no more Europe [in the future]” (Pumprickaitė, 2024).

In addition to these internal threats emanating from the EU, migration is another usual suspect in the list of far-right threats. The image of migrant flows, so characteristic to the discourse of the EU’s far-right politicians, is also articulated in Lithuania, with a particular focus on Russian-speaking migrants. The unprecedented influx of immigrants in 2022, primarily driven by the reception of Ukrainian refugees, and the subsequent 15% increase in the foreign population in 2023 have catalysed the securitization of discourse.

The far right’s strategic focus on Russian-speaking migrants from Belarus and Central Asia suggests selective targeting of specific groups of immigrants. Migrants, both those trying to cross the border illegally and those who have obtained visas to work in Lithuania (mainly from Central Asian countries and Belarus), are portrayed as a homogenous group and as ‘invaders’, disloyal to the Lithuanian government and a threat to Lithuanian identity. Meanwhile, refugees from Ukraine are rarely mentioned by the far right. In a society that still actively supports Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees – some 89% of Lithuanians agree that Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war should be accepted (European Commission, 2024) – it is difficult to portray them as malicious intruders. Although the governing political parties have taken stringent measures to restrict migration across the Belarus–Lithuania border, the far right has also criticized the government for being insufficiently restrictive and ‘kept the borders open until the European Commissioner for Migration herself came to Lithuania and authorised the turnarounds’ (Radžvilas & Sinica, 2024).

The European Green Deal is a new usual suspect emerging in the rhetoric of the Lithuanian far right. The Green Deal and renewable energy policies are framed as ‘extremist’ and examples of ideological ‘fanatism’ emanating from Brussels aimed at burdening ordinary citizens with regulations and fines (Radžvilas, 2024a). While nominally supporting environmental protection, they advocate for a ‘rational’ approach (Central Electoral Commission, 2024: 21) that does not ‘ruin the European economy’ (Central Electoral Commission, 2024: 18).

This stance allows the far right to position themselves as pragmatic defenders of national economic interests against perceived EU overreach. First, the EU environmental policies are portrayed as a threat to Lithuanian farmers, who are purportedly already disadvantaged by lower EU subsidies than their counterparts in the West. Secondly, it is argued that environmental restrictions impose undue burdens on businesses, potentially compromising competitiveness (Tapinienė, 2024). The far right’s unexpected positioning as defenders of both business and agricultural interests during the EP election campaign represents a strategic adaptation of their rhetoric.

Security issues: bridging defence and social conservatism

Security and defence issues, already prominent in the CEE region, have come to dominate Lithuania’s public discourse, not least because of the election of the president of Lithuania in the spring, the official who is the commander-in-chief of the Lithuanian armed forces. Security and defence issues dominated the election debates and are also at the forefront of public opinion: a recent Eurobarometer survey shows that 60 % of Lithuanians (in contrast to 37 % of EU citizens) argue that the EU should focus more on defence and security issues to reinforce its position globally (European Parliament, 2024). In response to perceived security challenges, the Lithuanian government has implemented a series of proactive measures, including augmenting defence expenditure, planning strategic military acquisitions and initiating reforms to the conscription system.

Within this heightened security context, far-right political organizations find themselves compelled to engage with international security issues. Their security discourse is characterized by a multifaceted narrative that interweaves the concepts of national defence, national identity and traditional family values. This rhetorical strategy positions these parties as unique defenders of both conservative societal norms and robust national security.

Gražulis, the People and Justice Union leader, presented a forceful critique of the West. He asserted that the root cause of conflicts, including the current war, is the accommodating stance of US President Biden and the Western powers more broadly (Tapinienė, 2024). Furthermore, he censured the Lithuanian government, alleging that it is stoking tensions and provoking Putin. Gražulis’ proposed remedy for the prevailing insecurity is the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States. He revealed that his outfit had opened an electoral campaign office in Lithuania supporting Trump, emphasizing the former US president’s purported dedication to peace and traditional values: ‘We support Trump’s views on the traditional family and traditional values. We trust Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, at the expense of Russia’ (ALFA.LT, 2024).

Within the discourse of the National Alliance, a distinct sentiment of distrust towards international partners in the West is evident. Vytautas Radžvilas, the National Alliance leader, portrays Lithuania as positioned within the ambiguous sphere situated between the two competing geopolitical forces of Russia and the West. While advocating for the development of the defence industry at the national level and financial support at the EU level in the party manifesto, Radžvilas simultaneously contends that in the event of a conflict, no NATO or European allies would intervene to protect Lithuania (Radžvilas, 2024b). Specifically, he underscored a sense of mistrust towards the United States in light of the shift in US strategic focus toward the Pacific Ocean region (Beniušis et al., 2024). Conversely, the Western European allies are depicted as engaging in friendly interactions with Russia. Even the deployment of a German army brigade to Lithuania, although welcomed, does not instil complete confidence, and the primary focus remains on bolstering Lithuania’s national defence capabilities (Ibid.). The proposed solution is two-fold. Firstly, to enhance sovereignty and national security for self-defence, Lithuania must strive for independence from Brussels (Radžvilas, 2024b). Secondly, Lithuania should rally a coalition comprising Central Eastern European and Scandinavian nations to advocate for reforms within EU policy (Beniušis et al., 2024).

All analysed political parties endorse the European integration of Ukraine. It appears inevitable in a country where, as of May 2024, 77% of Lithuanians supported granting Ukraine candidate status (European Commission, 2024). However, even this pro-European stance is exploited by the far right to advance their political agenda. Gražulis and the Christian Union advocate for Ukraine’s accession, citing its potential to combat ‘genderism’ and uphold Christian principles. Nevertheless, there are lingering reservations. Aurelijus Rusteika, one of the leaders of the Lithuanian Family Movement, highlights concerns that the European project entails a loss of national sovereignty, prompting questions about Ukraine’s willingness to relinquish its autonomy to Brussels (Jursevičius, 2024). Additionally, the National Alliance posits that the integration decision will be a pivotal choice between the major geopolitical players, namely the West and Russia (Jursevičius, 2024). Even in cases where unequivocal public backing exists, the far right manages to cultivate an environment characterized by scepticism and lack of clarity.

Conclusion

The European Parliament election in 2024 marked a significant milestone as the populist far right in Lithuania managed to surpass the 5% electoral threshold for the first time. Factors such as support from regions outside major cities, low voter turnout, the disbandment of the right-wing populist party Order and Justice, and the absence of similar ideological leaders in the EP elections all contributed to the rise of politician Petras Gražulis. Nevertheless, it is crucial to note that current circumstances have seen political parties engaging in debates that reinforce narratives of insecurity in society.

The party led by Petras Gražulis, along with other political entities under scrutiny, navigate their rhetoric by considering prevailing societal attitudes towards Ukraine and Ukrainians while also fuelling discontent towards familiar targets such as the Istanbul Convention and the LGBTQ+ community. However, notwithstanding the difficult security situation prevailing in the region, the primary focus of policymakers has centred on the cultural wars within the state. This year, the influx of migrants originating from Belarus and Central Asia, as well as the implications of the European Green Deal on farmers and businesses in Lithuania, have been underscored as potential threats to the nation. Although the analysed political parties emphasize their commitment to the security and defence of Lithuania, their discourse primarily reflects a deep-seated scepticism towards international partners, emphasizing the pivotal role of upholding Lithuania’s sovereignty and implementing national defence strategies as the key to ensuring security both at the global level and domestically. However, the European elections in June are not the end of the story; the national parliamentary elections in autumn will be another opportunity for far-right populist parties in Lithuania to repeat established and articulate new (in)security narratives.

 

(*) Jogilė Ulinskaitė is Associate Professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University. She defended her PhD thesis on the populist conception of political representation in Lithuania in 2018. Since then, she has been researching the collective memory of the communist and post-communist past in Lithuania. As Joseph P. Kazickas Associate Research Scholar in the Baltic Studies Program at Yale University in 2022, she focused on reconstructing emotional narratives of post-communist transformation from oral history interviews. Her current research integrates memory studies, narrative analysis and the sociology of emotions to analyse the discourse of populist politicians. Email: jogile.ulinskaite@tspmi.vu.lt

 

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Evika Siliņa (R), Prime Minister of Latvia, meets with António Costa (L), President-elect of the European Council, in Riga, Latvia, on October 9, 2024. Photo: Gints Ivuskans.

Populism and the 2024 European Parliament Election in Latvia

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Please cite as:
Auers, Daunis. (2024). “Populism and the 2024 European Parliament Election in Latvia.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0076

 

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Abstract

Populism has been a feature of Latvia’s political landscape since the 1990s. New insurgent parties have utilized increasingly anti-establishment rhetoric, often through intensive and innovative use of social media, to win seats in the Latvian parliament and even join government coalitions. However, European Parliament elections in Latvia have been comparatively free of populism. There are two main reasons for this. First, and most importantly, there is a broad pro-European consensus in Latvia. Membership in the European Union and NATO is central to all three Baltic nations’ security strategy in light of growing threats from Russia. As a result, there is no serious Eurosceptic party in Latvia and no explicitly Eurosceptic politicians have ever been elected to the European Parliament from Latvia. Second, Latvia’s voters tend to support serious, experienced politicians in European elections, believing that they are better placed to support Latvia’s national interests in the European system. Party politics take second place in campaigning, with the focus being on the experience of candidates (after all, Latvia elected just nine MEPs in 2024) rather than policy differences. As a result, populist anti-elite rhetoric has less salience. This chapter will explore the extent to which the 2024 European Parliament election in Latvia has continued these trends.

Keywords: Latvia; populism; European Parliament; Russia–Ukraine War; election campaign

 

By Daunis Auers* (University of Latvia)

Introduction

Populism – understood here as a thin ideology magnifying a binary divide between the ‘pure people’ and a ‘corrupt elite’ (see Mudde 2004 and Stanley 2008) – has been a feature of Latvia’s political landscape since the 1990s. Both national parliamentary elections and local government elections have seen a broad bouillabaisse of populist parties campaigning, winning seats and even taking up local and national office. In contrast, European Parliament (EP) elections have been largely free from populist campaigning and few populists have won seats in the EP.

This analysis is divided into four main parts. The first section identifies the key contemporary populist parties in Latvia. The second part drills down on the supply side of the campaign, briefly outlining the nature of EP elections in Latvia, explaining why populists are more marginalized in this vote than in other elections in Latvia, and outlining key policy debates over the course of the campaign. The third section drills down on the electoral results (the demand side) and political manoeuvring following the 8 June poll. The final section reflects on the broader impact of the election on Latvian and European populist politics.

Background

A broad variety of populist actors has populated Latvia’s political stage over the last few decades. Institutional weaknesses, internal feuding as well as a failure to deliver on (often outlandish) populist promises, have contributed to a steady rhythm of party collapse and construction. KPV LV (a Latvian abbreviation for ‘Who Owns the State’?) was formed in the run-up to the 2018 election, ran a fiercely populist anti-establishment campaign, and finished second with a vote share of 14.25% and 16 of 100 parliamentary seats. However, following the established Latvian populist pattern, the party imploded and collapsed within a few months of the election.

By the following parliamentary election in 2022, the populist vacuum had been filled by two new parties that won seats in the legislature. The For Stability! (Stabilitātei, S!) party, founded in 2021, appealed to Latvia’s significant Russian-speaking minority, which makes up around one-quarter of the electorate, while Latvia First (Latvija Pirmā Vietā, LPV) campaigned on a Trumpist national–populist platform that aimed to win both Latvian and Russian-speaking voters. S! finished fifth, with a 6.8% share of the vote and 11 of the Latvian parliament’s 100 seats. LPV also polled above Latvia’s 5% threshold for parliamentary representation with 6.2% of votes and received nine seats.

S! benefitted from the collapse of support for the Harmony Social Democracy (Saskaņa Sociāldemokrātija, SSD) party, which had previously monopolized the Russian-speaking vote in Latvia. However, SSD was quick to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which went against the general sentiment of Latvia’s Russian speakers, who were either more uncertain of placing blame for the war on Russia or those having been exposed to Russian state propaganda, were supportive of Russia’s actions. S! was quick to fill the void, walking a rhetorical tightrope of refusing to blame Russia and instead arguing for ‘peace’, as well as focusing on antivaccine and anti-establishment rhetoric.

LPV was founded in 2021 as a platform for Ainārs Šlesers, a serial political entrepreneur who has previously founded and led the New Party (Jaunā Partija, JP), Latvia’s First Party (Latvijas Pirmā Partija, LPP), For a Good Latvia (Par Labu Latviju, PLL), the Šlesera Reform Party (Šlesera Reforma Partija, ŠRP) and United for Latvia (Vienoti Latvijai, VL), and previously served as a former deputy prime minister, economics minister and deputy mayor of the capital city of Rīga. LPV’s 2022 electoral campaign focused on a sharp critique of the incumbent prime minister, Krišjānis Kariņš, and sitting president, Egīls Levits (which they referred to as the ‘Kariņš–Levits regime’), particularly focusing on their COVID-19-era policies and Latvia’s stagnant economy. The party initially denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even expelling the party’s candidate for president, Jūlija Stepaņenko, from the party ranks after she refused to denounce the war. However, in subsequent years, the party has softened its stance, increasingly talking about the need for negotiations, peace and the renewal of economic relations with Russia.

Both S! and LPV have languished in parliamentary opposition since the 2022 parliamentary election. Latvia has never had a party representing Russian-speaking interests in a government coalition and Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has made it even more unlikely that the pro-Kremlin S! could break this pattern. While LPV is more mainstream and critical of Russia on the Ukraine war issue, the party’s founder and leader, Ainārs Šlesers, has long been identified as one of Latvia’s three ‘oligarchs’. Centrist parties have erected a cordon sanitaire around LPV. LPV’s aggressive anti-establishment discourse has made it relatively easy for other parties to keep it out of coalition negotiations. The two parties’ status in opposition gave their anti-establishment populist discourse greater authenticity. They dominated the populist part of the EP election campaign. Latvia’s mainstream public and private media focused their debates, interviews and media stories on those parties polling above 2% in public opinion surveys. Thus, S! and LPV were invited to participate in various broadcast debates and interviews, while the five other populist parties in the campaign were largely ignored.

Briefly, these other five populist parties were, first, the Sovereign Power (Suverēnā Vara, SV) party, which also primarily appealed to Russian speakers and was dominated by politicians that had previously been in the more centrist pro-Russian speaker SSD, as well as Jūlija Stepaņenko, who had been expelled from LPV for her refusal to denounce Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The New Latvian Union (Apvienība Jaunlatvieši, AJ) was a curious combination of experienced populists (such as Aldis Gobzems, who was KPV LV’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2018 election) and failed Russian-speaking populists (such as Glorija Grevcova, who had been elected to parliament on the S! ticket in 2022 but was stripped of her seat in parliament having been found guilty of lying about her education and professional experience). Power and Strength of the Nation (Tautas Varas Spēks, TVS) was a political vehicle for Valentīns Jeremejevs, a Russian-speaking businessman who has long been seeking a place in Latvian politics. The populist Nation, Land, Stateness (Tauta, Zeme, Valstiskums, TZV) party was a minor nationalist outfit that recruited Aleksandrs Kiršteins, a prominent nationalist politician who had been expelled from the National Alliance party after an unsanctioned trip to China. Finally, the Centre Party (Centra Partija, CP) made clear that it was a political vehicle for politicians from more radical pro-Russia parties that had been barred from competing in the election. Despite its name, CP was the only authentically Eurosceptic party in the election, largely down to it featuring a long-running and unsuccessful Eurosceptic Latvian politician – Normunds Grostiņš – on its slate of candidates.

The supply side

Populists have fared badly in Latvia’s EP elections since 2004. There are two major reasons for this. First, Latvia has few seats in the EP – just nine (up from eight, after a reallocation of seats following Brexit) in 2024 – and Latvia’s MEPs have a resultingly high profile in domestic politics. As a result, Latvia’s voters have tended to vote for sober, politically experienced personalities to represent Latvia’s national (rather than party) interests in the EP. This pattern of voter behaviour is a structural weakness for populist parties that might have well-known personalities in their ranks but typically lack the gravitas of government experience that Latvia’s voters seek. Second, Euroscepticism is weak in Latvia. Kārlis Bukovskis (2018) has explained that this was down to the crucial role of the EU (and NATO) in guaranteeing Latvia’s security as well as the visible role of EU funds in Latvia’s economic development since 2004.

LPV was the only populist party participating in this election that was able to mitigate the political personality challenge. It did this by deploying two tactics. First, although the party’s charismatic chairman, Ainārs Šlesers, did not stand for the EP, he appeared in most interviews alongside the lead candidates. Moreover, his surname was on the ballot as his son, Ričards Šlesers, was the third candidate on LPV’s candidate list (although the younger Šlesers refused to take part in interviews or debates in the election campaign). Indeed, the party’s official manifesto opened with the words ‘vote for Šlesers’ team’ (Central Election Commission of Latvia, 2024a). Second, the party’s lead candidate on the electoral list was Vilis Krištopāns, a former prime minister from the 1990s who moved to the US state of Florida in the early 2000s, having labelled Latvia a ‘country of fools!’ (muļķu zeme!).

Populist parties campaigned around three key issues. First, the war in Ukraine, both in military and economic terms, was the dominant theme in the election. A second dimension was mainstream politicians’ supposed incompetence (or ‘selling out’) in defending Latvia’s economic interests in Brussels. This perfidy was typically linked to domestic corruption and incompetence and was frequently accompanied by a criticism of the European Green Deal (particularly its potentially negative impact on Latvia’s economy). A third theme concerned the defence of traditional family / Christian values versus progressive, liberal ideals in Brussels.

Latvia shares a 284-kilometre-long border with Russia and a 173-kilometre-long border with Belarus. As a result, Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 inevitably had a significant impact on Latvia’s domestic and international politics. While Latvia’s mainstream parties were united in denouncing Russia’s actions, supporting international sanctions as well as military, humanitarian and financial support for Ukraine and increasing domestic military spending, re-introducing conscription and developing domestic military readiness, populist parties tended to adopt more ambivalent positions.

While LPV’s leaders consistently denounced Russia’s actions in Ukraine, they pushed for a more nuanced approach to Russia, arguing that the sanctions imposed by the EU were too harsh (particularly in their impact on Latvia) and that both Europe and the United States continued to have dealings with Russia – so why shouldn’t Latvia? As to the issue of Ukraine joining the EU, LPV insisted that the high level of corruption in Ukraine meant that membership should be off the table (for the moment). S! insisted that Ukraine needs to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria for eligibility before it can be considered a member of the EU. S! also refused to identify Russia as the aggressor in the war, preferring to say both sides were at fault and that if elected to the EP, it would seek to create a new party group based on ‘peace and diplomacy’. Indeed, S! argued that the war was irrelevant to the European Union (stating that it was a NATO issue), that the EU should limit assistance to Ukraine to the humanitarian sphere and generally sought to avoid entering into deeper discussions on the theme. S! even pushed for renewing energy imports from Russia, and its leaders similarly argued that the EU should compensate Latvia for the adverse economic impacts of the war. The smaller populist parties agreed with LPV and S! that the EU should share the costs of policing and securing Latvia’s eastern border with Russia and Belarus. CP went further in stating that it would push for peace in Ukraine and continue the work of former MEP Tatjana Ždanoka (who has been charged with spying for Russia’s FSB security service and was banned from competing in the 2024 elections).

The second major populist theme was a sharp denunciation of Latvia’s MEPs and governing elite for their previous domestic and European economic policies. S! was typically harsh in its criticism, writing in its program that: “As part of the European Union, we have lost our self-esteem, our ability to protect our sovereign rights and our country’s development opportunities. Today’s European Union policy, which directly affects Latvia, is virtually incompatible with our country’s development and prosperous future. The total economic poverty, bankruptcy of entrepreneurs, immigration policy, absence of a children’s program, artificially inflated taxes and prices on energy resources are a direct signal that Latvia’s future is at risk” (Central Election Commission of Latvia, 2024b).

LPV similarly argued that mainstream politicians have not defended Latvia’s interests in Europe. AJ’s program argued that the previous generation of Latvia’s politicians was incompetent and corrupt, making ‘boring’ speeches in Brussels and allowing Latvia to join the EU on unfavourable terms, leading to the destruction of domestic industry and the economy. Indeed, AJ went so far as to argue that Latvia’s underdevelopment was deliberately planned by EU politicians and civil servants alongside colluding national politicians. It stated that it would push for compensation from the EU for the damage done to Latvia, for example, by closing domestic sugar factories. LPV particularly focused on the travails of the Rail Baltica project (a major infrastructure project constructing a north-south European gauge railway axis linking Latvia and the other two Baltic states to Poland). The European Green Deal was similarly criticized as being unrealistic and against Latvia’s economic interests, as the country was already among the greenest and most environmentally clean in Europe.

Finally, the populist block of parties was sharply critical of Europe’s progressive politics, arguing that the EU had been hijacked by pro-LGBTQ+ and Green groups and that they would correct this policy direction by focusing on traditional families (those with a mother and a father) and supporting core Christian values. SV argued that policies should favour traditional families over other forms of family. This issue was also connected to immigration – TZV argued that the EU should not be enlarged with people coming from alien non-Christian cultures. Antivaxxer tropes also appeared, for example, with AJ warning of a planned secret treaty between the EU and the World Health Organization (WHO) that would allow for pandemics to be declared at any time, as well as uncovering an alleged EU plan to destroy printed books in Latvian libraries.

S!’s criticism of the EU ultimately hinted at being open to the idea of Latvia leaving the EU if the conditions of membership were not favourable. When asked during the final pre-election debate on Latvian public television if Latvia should leave the EU and forge a closer relationship with Russia or Belarus, S!’s lead candidate Nikita Piņins answered, ‘Only time will tell’ (Latvian Public Media, 2024) while in an interview with Delfi TV, party leader Rosļikovs stated that ‘if the EU continues to strangle Latvia – what’s the point [of membership]?’ (DelfiTV, 2024). Populist politicians generally adopted a far more aggressive and belligerent tone than their mainstream counterparts. In the Delfi TV interview with LPV leaders, the female moderator repeatedly asked the male politicians to stop shouting and be less aggressive in their speaking style. This approach can be seen as part of the populist performance in Latvia – populists echo ‘the people’s’ anger at the state of politics and the economy, frequently arguing that the mainstream media are in cahoots with the governing parties and are thus institutionally opposed to opposition (populist) parties.

The demand side

The final election results came with few surprises. As surveys had predicted, the mainstream parties won the largest share of votes, and of the populist forces, only LPV won a single seat in the EP (and this was won by a former Latvian prime minister, Vilis Krištopāns, continuing the Latvian trend of electing experienced, proven former political office-holders in European elections) (see Table 1).

Table 1. Results of the 2024 European Parliament election in Latvia

Party (European Parliament group) Number of seats in EP  Share of vote Name of elected MEPs
New Unity, JV(European People’s Party, EPP) 2 25.1% Valdis DombrovskisSandra Kalniete
National Alliance(European Conservatives and Reformists, ECR) 2 22.1% Roberts ZīleRihards Kols
Latvia’s Development, LA(Renew Europe) 1 9.4% Ivars Ījabs
United List, AS(European Conservatives and Reformists, ECR) 1 8.2% Reinis Pozņaks
Progressives, PRO(The Greens / European Free Alliance) 1 7.5% Mārtiņš Staķis
Harmony Social Democracy, SSD(Socialists and Democrats, S&D) 1 7.1% Nils Ušakovs
Latvia First, LPV(Patriots For Europe, PfE) 1 6.2% Vilis Krištopāns
Source: Central Election Commission of Latvia (2024c).

However, after being elected to the European Parliament, LPV’s Vilis Krištopāns found himself without a political home. He was blocked from joining the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group by the National Alliances’s Roberts Zīle (a vice president of the European Parliament and senior figure in the ECR), who stated that LPV’s pro-peace rhetoric on the Russia–Ukraine War made it an unsuitable partner for ECR. Krištopāns eventually joined the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group.

The populist parties’ weak performance in the election was unsurprising. Their position on the Russia–Ukraine War was out of kilter with most ethnic Latvians (who make up three-quarters of the electorate) – a 2023 poll found that 78% of respondents who speak Latvian in their family sympathized with Ukraine, while only 27% of those that speak Russian in their family did so (Krumm, Šukevičs & Zariņš, 2023: 10). A 2024 report found that 58% of respondents who speak Latvian in their family believed that membership of the EU was an advantage in the fulfilment of their dreams, while only 24% of those who speak Russian in their family did so (Ločmele, Zatlers & Krumm, 2024). The core populist ‘peace’ rhetoric and criticism of the EU only had traction with a minority of the population and these votes went to the candidate with the most experienced political CV.

Future perspective

Latvia will now have a major politician in the PfE group, the largest far-right political group in the European Parliament. As a result, LPV will further integrate into the PfE’s network of far-right parties and the party is likely to emerge as the first vocal Euroskeptic force in contemporary Latvia. After all, in a press conference held after returning from Brussels, Krištopāns stated that ‘having got know the European Parliament, the situation is even worse than I thought. The European Parliament has been taken over by left-wingers, pride supporters, climate fanatics and [illegal migrant] Welcomists’! (LPV, 2024).

 

(*) Daunis Auers is Professor of European Studies at the University of Latvia, a Jean Monnet Chair (2022–2025), Director of the PhD program in Social Sciences and Director of the privately-funded Latvia’s Strategy and Economic Research (LaSER) think tank. He studied at the London School of Economics and defended his PhD at University College London. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley (2005–2006) and the University of Washington, Seattle (2023–2024) and a Baltic-American Freedom Foundation Scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit (2014). He has published widely on political parties, elections, referendums, populism and the radical right as well as economic competitiveness.

 

References

Bukovskis, K. (2018). Latvia’s Controlled Discontents. European Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_latvias_controlled_discontents

Central Election Commission of Latvia. (2024a). European Parliament elections 2024: Candidate lists: Program – Latvia First [Latvija Pirmajā Vietā]. Central Election Commission of Latvia. Retrieved 22 July 2024 from https://epv2024.cvk.lv/kandidatu-saraksti/latvija-pirmaja-vieta#programma

Central Election Commission of Latvia. (2024b). European Parliament elections 2024: Candidate lists: Program – STABILITĀTE! Central Election Commission of Latvia. Retrieved 22 July 2024 from https://epv2024.cvk.lv/kandidatu-saraksti/politiska-partija-stabilitatei#programma

Central Election Commission of Latvia. (2024c). European Parliament elections 2024: Election results. Central Election Commission of Latvia. Retrieved 22 July 2024, from https://epv2024.cvk.lv/velesanu-rezultati

Delfi TV (2024). European Parliament pre-election debates with candidates and parties, DelfiTV, Retrieved 22 July 2024 from https://www.delfi.lv/ep-velesanas-2024

Krumm R., K. Šukevičs and T. Zariņš (2023). Under Pressure. An Analysis of the Russian-Speaking Minority in Latvia. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Rīga, Latvia. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/baltikum/20445.pdf

Latvian Public Media (2024). European Parliament pre-election debates and interviews. Retrieved 22 July 2024 from https://www.lsm.lv/eiroparlamenta-velesanas-2024/

Ločmele N., V. Zatlers and R. Krumm (2024). The Latvian Dream. The Seeds of Freedom in a Divided Society. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Rīga, Latvia. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/baltikum/21340.pdf

LPV (2024, 11 July). ‘Kā un kāpēc tika izveidota jaunā EP deputātu grupa ‘Patroti Eiropai’? / V.Krištopans LatvijasRadio 1’. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W0KUV-52PI

Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x

Šlesers, Ainārs. 27 June 2024. X. https://x.com/SlesersAinars/status/1806350812941090917

Stanley, B. (2008). The thin ideology of populism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95–110. doi.org/10.1080/13569310701822289

 

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Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, attend a center-right coalition rally in Rome, Italy on March 01, 2018. Photo: Alessia Pierdomenico.

The Spectrum of Italian Populist Parties in the 2024 European Elections: A Shift in the Balance of Power on the Right

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Please cite as:

Biancalana, Cecilia. (2024). “The Spectrum of Italian Populist Parties in the 2024 European Elections: A Shift to the Right.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0075

 

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Abstract

Italy has historically been one of the strongest proponents of a united Europe. However, recent years have seen a rise in Euroscepticism within the country, with a notable increase in the electoral support for Eurosceptic parties. Have the 2024 elections confirmed or refuted this trend? Italy features a variety of populist parties, both on the right and on the left, each with different Eurogroup affiliations and varying positions on European integration. As a result, during the 2024 campaign, the parties adopted different strategies. The results of the 2024 elections highlight two significant trends: a decrease in turnout and the strengthened influence of Fratelli d’Italia, reflecting a sustained support for right-wing populist ideologies among Italian voters.

Keywords: populism; Euroscepticism; Fratelli d’Italia; Lega; Forza Italia; Movimento 5 Stelle; European Parliament

 

By Cecilia Biancalana* (Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Italy)

Populism and Euroscepticism in Italy: Diverse actors and perspectives

Italy is an intriguing case study for examining the role, characteristics and influence of populist parties within the European context. Its relevance is due to two primary reasons related to the role of populism in the country and the attitudes of its citizens and political elites towards Europe.

On the one hand, Italy has been described as a ‘populist paradise’ (Tarchi, 2015) due to the strong presence and variety of populist parties. Indeed, Italy hosts a spectrum of populist movements spanning both right and left ideologies (Biancalana, 2020). This diversity extends to the European stage, where, as we will see, populist parties not only exhibit varying levels of Europhilia and Euroscepticism but also belong to different European groups. Notably, within the centre-right, three Italian parties fit the model of right-wing populism to varying degrees (albeit being quite different from each other): Forza Italia (FI), Lega (officially named Lega per Salvini premier), and Fratelli d’Italia (FdI). For instance, in the 2019–2024 legislature, FI was part of the European People’s Party (EPP) group, FdI was a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), presenting a more moderate stance than the Lega, which was part of Identity and Democracy (ID). Moreover, there was also a populist party leaning towards the left, the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), standing among the Non-attached (NA) group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who do not belong to any of the recognized political groups.

On the other hand, Italy has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of a united Europe, both at the elite level (Conti, 2017) and among the general populace (Isernia, 2008). However, it has recently become increasingly Eurosceptic (Brunazzo & Mascitelli, 2020).

Italy as a populist paradise

Regarding populism, as mentioned, Italy has long been regarded as a testing ground for populism, earning it the designation of the ‘laboratory of populism’ (Tarchi, 2015). Various forms of populism coexist within the country, which we will briefly describe, also considering their relationship with Europe. As anticipated, the leading populist parties today are FdI, Lega, FI and the Movimento 5 Stelle. Collectively, these four parties secured 58.31% (Chamber of Deputies) of the vote in the September 2022 general elections, highlighting the significant electoral strength of populism in contemporary Italy. These parties are characterized by varying degrees and types of both populism and Euroscepticism.

Scholars have categorized FdI in contrasting ways (see Bressanelli & de Candia, 2023 for a comprehensive review): post-fascist, radical-right populist and national conservative. Here, we will consider FdI as a radical right party with elements of populism and Euroscepticism (Donà, 2022). Established in 2012, the party traces its roots to the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), a neo-fascist party founded in 1946 by supporters of former dictator Benito Mussolini. Since 2017, FdI platforms have introduced elements of nationalism, nativism and authoritarianism, along with anti-European Union (EU) stances. FdI made its electoral breakthrough in the 2022 elections, securing 25,98% of the vote and entering government for the first time under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni. The party promotes an extreme right-wing ideology, defending a homogeneous populace against perceived threats, such as LGBTQ+ groups and immigrants, particularly from Muslim-majority countries.

In the international arena, FdI advocates for national sovereignty over supranational integration while maintaining a relatively moderate stance on opposition to the EU (see Conti, di Mauro & Memoli, 2021). FdI is affiliated with the more moderate ECR group in the European Parliament (EP), of which Meloni has been president since 2020. Within the ECR group, FdI actively participates in crucial decisions alongside mainstream political factions, collaborating with them while distinguishing itself from the more radical right and Eurosceptic ID group. However, FdI continues to engage in ideological battles on specific policies such as civil liberties, environmental issues, gender equality, and EU constitutional matters (Bressanelli and di Candia 2023).

The Lega, known as Lega Nord until December 2017, was founded in 1991. Initially, it was a regionalist party (Bulli & Tronconi, 2011) that strongly advocated for Northern Italy’s interests and displayed ethnochauvinism towards Southern Italy, positioning itself against central political institutions. Since Matteo Salvini became party secretary in 2013, the Lega has shifted its focus to hostility towards immigration and European integration. Salvini’s leadership transformed the Lega’s claim and shifted the opposition to central political institutions from Rome to Brussels: the EU is portrayed as an enemy that deprives Italian citizens of resources and the freedom to determine their own destiny (Albertazzi et al., 2018; Brunazzo & Gilbert, 2017). Salvini has forged alliances with other right-wing populist parties, including France’s Rassemblement National (RN), which has been part of the same EP group: previously ID and currently the newly established group Patriots for Europe (PfE). They both held Eurosceptic views and had previously opposed the euro. However, by 2019, the Lega had dropped the idea of Italy exiting the euro, following a similar shift by Marine Le Pen in 2017.

Silvio Berlusconi’s FI was founded in December 1993 following the Tangentopoli corruption scandals. FI participated in the March 1994 general elections, securing 21,01% of the vote, heralding Berlusconi’s emergence as a prominent figure in Italian politics. Berlusconi is frequently cited as an exemplar of right-wing populism (Fella & Ruzza, 2013). As a billionaire media mogul, he entered politics as an outsider, leveraging his television channels to directly appeal to the people, a strategy that foreshadowed figures like Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra and Donald Trump in the United States. Historically, FI displayed ambivalent attitudes towards the EU (Conti, 2017) but has shifted towards a more pro-European stance in recent years. This transformation is partly attributed to the leadership change following Berlusconi’s passing in 2023, with Antonio Tajani, a former president of the EP, assuming leadership of the party (Biancalana, Seddone & Gallina, 2024).

The M5S is the newest among Italian populist parties and the only one not positioned on the right (Ivaldi, Lanzone & Woods, 2017; Mosca & Tronconi, 2019). Founded in October 2009 by former comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo, the party gained significant electoral momentum in the 2013 general elections, securing 25,56% of the vote (Chiaramonte & de Sio, 2014). In the 2018 general election, the M5S further increased its support, capturing 32.68% of the vote and entering a populist coalition government with Salvini’s Lega. After the collapse of the government with the Lega, the party formed a new government in partnership with the leftist Partito Democratico (PD). Between 2021 and 2022, the M5S joined Mario Draghi’s technocratic ‘grand’ coalition government.

The M5S’s relationship with Europe also reflects this fluidity and flexibility. In 2014, following its initial electoral success, the M5S campaigned against the euro, advocating for a referendum on Italy’s exit from the eurozone and rejecting significant EU financial constraints like those imposed by the ‘fiscal compact’. During the electoral campaign for the 2018 general elections, under a new leader, Luigi Di Maio, the M5S moderated its Eurosceptic stance, emphasizing that Italy’s departure from the euro was neither imminent nor planned. Nevertheless, according to Conti, Di Mauro and Memoli’s survey among MPs in 2019, when the M5S was part of a coalition government with the Lega, it could be unequivocally categorized as Eurosceptic. Furthermore, in 2019, the M5S adopted more moderate and ambivalent positions (see Conti, Marangoni & Verzichelli, 2020).

Following the dissolution of the coalition with the Lega and its subsequent alliance with the PD, the M5S supported Ursula von der Leyen’s appointment as president of the European Commission and endorsed the installation of a pro-European leader like Mario Draghi as Italy’s prime minister in early 2021, signalling a shift towards pro-Europeanism. Indeed, after five years (2014–2019) in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group (created by Nigel Farage) and five years in the NA group, after the 2024 elections, it joined the GUE/NGL group, signalling a clear shift towards the left at the European level as well.

Against this backdrop, what were the main issues of the 2024 campaign? How did these parties perform in the 2024 elections? Before addressing these questions, let us analyse Italians’ relationship with Europe.

The Italian case: From Europhilia to Euroscepticism

Regarding the relationship between elites and citizens and Europe, we know that historically, Italy has been a staunch supporter of European integration, with EP elections reflecting a dominant narrative that views Europe as synonymous with peace, prosperity, and political stability (Brunazzo & Mascitelli, 2020). As one of the founding members of the EU, its membership has enjoyed wide support among the political elite and the general public alike. By the early 1990s, nearly all parties shared not only broad support for the integration process but also specific support for the EU. However, the ‘permissive consensus’ supporting EU integration has been replaced by a ‘constraining dissensus’ (Hooghe & Marks, 2009). Indeed, since the mid-1990s, the previous narrative has significantly shifted (Conti, Marangoni & Verzichelli, 2020), and both Italian citizens and political elites have become much more critical toward EU integration (Brunazzo & Mascitelli, 2020).

It has been argued that this shift is due to multiple crises, such as the financial and economic crises (including the transition to the single currency and, more recently, the Great Recession and subsequent austerity policies) and migration crises (specifically the so-called refugee crisis in 2015–2016), which have significantly affected Italy and led to increased opposition to the EU. Consequently, a considerable electoral market for Eurosceptic parties has emerged, marking a notable departure from Italy’s post-war Europhile stance and reflecting a more complex and divided perspective on European integration (Conti, di Mauro & Memoli, 2021).

This shift is exemplified by two events: the success of populist Eurosceptic parties in the general elections of March 2018 and the subsequent formation of a government by two Eurosceptic parties, the M5S and the Lega, marking a turning point in Italian history within the EU (Conti, Marangoni, & Verzichelli, 2020). The second event is the result of the 2019 EP elections, which highlighted the growing Euroscepticism within the country. The Eurosceptic Lega Nord, led by Matteo Salvini, won 34.26% of the vote. The M5S, also critical of the EU, especially the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), garnered 17.06%; for their part, FI won 8.78%, and the far-right nationalist party, FdI, received 6.44%. Have the 2024 elections confirmed or refuted this trend?

Populist parties’ campaign and issues

After five years of significant political and economic turbulence, including a general election (2022), three changes in government (the PD–M5S coalition in 2019–2021, the technocratic Draghi government in 2021–2022, and the Meloni administration starting from 2022), and multiple crises in which the EU played a notable role, such as the COVID-19 and energy crises, the 2024 European elections emerge as a crucial indicator of both internal power dynamics within Italy’s party system and within the right-wing governing coalition, as well as their positions on Europe.

Consistent with its nationalist traits, FdI’s program – entitled Con Giorgia l’Italia cambia l’Europa (‘With Giorgia, Italy changes Europe’) – emphasizes defending the identity of European peoples and nations, referencing Europe’s ‘Judeo-Christian roots’. In her final rally, consistent with her sovereigntist traits, the party leader and Prime Minister Meloni stressed that ‘Europe must rediscover its historical role, focus on a few major issues, and leave other matters to national governments that do not need centralization’ (Pinto 2024). Throughout the campaign, Meloni had to balance her dual role as prime minister, which requires international credibility and as a populist party leader, striving to maintain equilibrium between these positions. 

Lega’s campaign is markedly more Eurosceptic, echoing the slogan ‘Più Italia, meno Europa’ (‘More Italy, less Europe’), which, interestingly, was previously used by FI in the 2014 European elections. Lega’s platform, Programma elezioni europee 2024, focused on halting the EU’s technocratic and centralizing drift and restoring the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Key proposals include rejecting the European Green Deal, ending austerity policies and protecting Italian production chains. The campaign was further stirred by the controversial candidacy of General Vannacci, a very controversial figure who ran as an independent on Lega’s lists. General Vannacci became known for his book Il Mondo al Contrario (‘The world turned upside down’), published in 2023, which sparked significant backlash due to homophobic, racist and sexist content. Despite internal opposition, Vannacci received substantial support, securing over 530,000 preferences and leading in four out of five constituencies.

Forza Italia remains the most pro-European party, presenting a ten-point program – Con noi al centro dell’Europa (‘With us at the heart of Europe’) – that includes goals like ‘building common defence and security’ and ‘reforming European treaties’. On 21 May, at a campaign event, FI’s national secretary Antonio Tajani criticized Lega’s Euroscepticism, remarking, ‘When I hear “Less Europe”, all beautiful things, but with no effectiveness and no logical sense’ (Canepa, 2024), adding that without being part of a broader project, Italy risks being overwhelmed and rendered irrelevant. Interestingly, as mentioned, this slogan was used by FI ten years ago, indicating the party’s softened positions vis-à-vis Europe over time.

In summary, on the right, Lega has sought to radicalize its stance to attract votes from those discontented with Meloni’s institutionalization, whereas FI has positioned itself as the moderate pole.

On the contrary, the Movimento 5 Stelle aimed to attract votes from the left, focusing on peace and opposing arms to Ukraine. Its program, entitled L’Italia che conta. Protagonisti in Europa (‘An Italy that counts: Protagonists in Europe’), emphasized anti-austerity measures, defence of the public healthcare system, anti-corruption efforts, environmental protection, and labour issues, including introducing a minimum wage and a 32-hour workweek.

Results: Decreased Turnout and a Shift in the Balance of Power Among Populist Parties

The 2024 European elections in Italy revealed some significant trends. The first one is the decline in voter turnout, which dropped by over 6 percentage points compared to the 2019 European elections (48.3%, down from 54.50%). This decline continues a long-term trend: turnout was 85.65% in 1979, 81.07% in 1989, 69.76% in 1999, and 66.47% in 2009.

Moreover, it is worth noting that in previous years, Italy’s voter turnout in European elections was consistently higher than the EU average. For instance, in 1979, Italy’s turnout was 85.65% compared to the EU average of 61.99%, and this pattern continued through the 1980s and 1990s. By 2019, Italy’s turnout was 54.5%, whereas the EU average was 50.66%. This trend ended in 2024, with Italy’s turnout declining further to 48.31%, while the EU average increased to 51.07%. Nevertheless, despite this increase in abstentionism, the latest Eurobarometer survey (Standard Eurobarometer 101, April–May 2024) indicates that 50% of Italians ‘tend to trust’ the EU, compared to a European average of 49%.

Regarding the performance of populist parties, it is notable that all the parties in the centre-right governing coalition (FdI, FI, Lega) improved their results compared to the 2022 general elections, the most recent national election in Italy. This outcome is significant as the ‘honeymoon’ period of the government elected in 2022 could have been expected to wane, and populist parties in office in other countries lost votes. This result marks a consolidation of the approval of the Meloni government at the domestic level.

However, it is also worth comparing the 2024 results with those of 2019, the most recent European elections. In this respect, FdI significantly increased its vote share from 6.44% in the 2019 European elections to 28.76% in the 2024 European elections, even improving on its result from the 2022 general election (25.98%). Forza Italia also improved its vote share, rising from 8.78% in the 2019 European elections to 9.59% in the 2024 European elections. This positive outcome under Antonio Tajani, the new leader following Berlusconi’s passing, indicates stable support within the electorate. In contrast, the Lega’s vote share saw a notable change, declining dramatically from 34.26% in the 2019 European elections to 9% in 2024. It is worth noting that in the 2022 general elections, the party scored 8.97%.

Within the right-wing area, we observe a shift in the balance of power between Lega and FdI: Giorgia Meloni’s party has become the strongest, while the Lega has declined. Concerning the 2022 general elections, data from the polling agency SWG (SWG 2024) shows indeed that there has been a shift of votes from other partners within the centre-right coalition towards FdI. While 68% of the votes FdI represent a confirmation of their 2022 vote, 16% come from the centre-right (8% from Lega and 8% from FI), and 16% come from other political areas (7% from other lists and 9% from abstention).

Conversely, the Movimento 5 Stelle experienced its worst performance in a national election in history. Its vote share dropped from 17.26% in the 2019 European elections to 9.98% in 2024. This result continues the decline observed in the 2022 general elections (15.43%). In the analysis of the Five Star Movement electorate conducted by SWG, it is evident that only 40% of those who chose them in 2022 reaffirmed their choice in 2024. The remaining votes were distributed as follows: 13% voted for a centre-left party, 6% for a centre-right party, 6% for another party, and a significant 35% abstained from voting.

This result can be explained by the absence of prominent candidates on the lists, indicating that the Five Star Movement failed to consolidate its political constituency. Additionally, the renewed bipolar competition in Italy between the right and left has significantly diminished the influence of a third party like the M5S. It is to be noted that the M5S shifted to the left over the years. However, left-wing voters likely feel better represented by other leftist parties, such as the PD and the Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS).

 

Finally, it is worth asking what the main differences between the populist parties are concerning the characteristics of their electorate. In this respect, a pre-electoral survey conducted by CISE (De Sio, Mannoni & Cataldi 2024) indicates that M5S voters differ from right-wing ones in terms of education. Right-wing parties are more popular among less-educated voters and have less support among university graduates. In contrast, the M5S draws strength from those with a secondary education. The party also receives considerable support from the unemployed, affirming its focus on social issues.

There are also some differences within the centre-right coalition (especially between FdI and Lega, the two parties whose power dynamics have reversed over the last few years), mainly regarding gender and social class. Concerning gender, FdI has a predominantly male profile, while Lega has a more female-oriented electorate. Regarding social class, the Lega is strong among the most disadvantaged classes (a relatively new trend for the Lega), while only 10% of FdI support comes from the lowest class, rising to 36% among the highest class. These figures indicate a strong complementarity between the two parties.

Conclusions

In sum, regarding the impact of populism in these elections, we note that in the 2019 European elections, the combined vote share for the right-wing populist parties – Lega, FdI and FI – was 49.5%. By 2024, this total increased to 51.7%. Including the percentages for the M5S, we see that the total for populist parties was 66.6% in 2019 and slightly decreased to 62.5% in 2024. This figure underscores the growing strength of right-wing populism in Italy and highlights a persistent and possibly deepening support for right-wing populist ideologies among Italian voters.

However, looking at the absolute votes, we note an increase in the percentage of votes for populist parties, but not in absolute terms. The votes for right-wing populist parties decreased from about 13 million in 2019 to 11 million in 2024. Including the Movimento 5 Stelle, the votes for populist parties (both right and left) fell from nearly 18 million in 2019 to just over 13 million in 2024. Abstention has also affected these parties, which may no longer be seen as a credible protest alternative to non-voting.

In summary, the results of the 2024 elections highlight two significant trends: a decrease in turnout and the strengthened influence of right-wing populism, particularly of FdI, within the centre-right coalition. Right-wing populism is increasingly prominent in Italy (at least among those who decide to vote), reflecting a sustained and potentially deepening support for right-wing populist ideologies among Italian voters.

Conversely, the steep decline of the M5S marks a critical point for the party, indicating a need for strategic reassessment and potential repositioning within the Italian political landscape. This decline could also indicate a return to bipolarity after the ‘electoral earthquake’ of 2013 (Chiaramonte & de Sio, 2014). In this new bipolar system, for the time being, FdI holds the lion’s share of the right-wing representation.

 

(*) Cecilia Biancalana is an assistant professor in the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin. Her research focuses on political ecology, party change, populism and the relationship between the internet and politics.

 

References

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Biancalana, C. (2019). Four Italian Populisms. In Multiple Populisms (pp. 216–241). Routledge.

Biancalana, C., Seddone, A., & Gallina, M. (2024). Italy: Political Developments and Data in 2023. European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook.

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Brunazzo, M., & Gilbert, M. (2017). Insurgents against Brussels: Euroscepticism and the right-wing populist turn of the Lega Nord since 2013. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 22(5), 624–641.

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Chiaramonte, A. & De Sio, L. (2014). Terremoto elettorale. Le elezioni politiche del 2014. Bologna: Il Mulino.

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Conti, N., Di Mauro, D., & Memoli, V. (2022). Euroscepticism and populism in Italy among party elites and the public. Italian Journal of Electoral Studies (IJES), 85(1), 25–43.

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De Sio, L., Mannoni, E. & Cataldi, M. (2024, 10 June). Chi ha votato chi? Gruppi sociali e voto. CISE. https://cise.luiss.it/cise/2024/06/10/chi-ha-votato-chi-gruppi-sociali-e-voto/

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SWG (2024, 10 June). Swg Radar speciale elezioni 2024. Elezioni europee – analisi dei flussi di voto. https://www.swg.it/pa/attachment/6666e60a2e297/Radar_speciale%
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Figure 5: Asylum seekers' tents near the International Protection Office and Refugee Legal Service on Lower Mount Street, Dublin, Ireland, on July 7, 2023. Photo: Derick P. Hudson.

Ireland After the 2024 EP Elections: The Centre Holds … Just About

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Please cite as:

O’Malley, Eoin. (2024). “Ireland After the 2024 EP Elections: The Centre Holds … Just About.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0074

 

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Abstract

The 2024 European Parliament elections in Ireland came on the back of a rise in the prominence of immigration as an issue. Although Ireland had seen significant migration in the early to mid-2000s, the large number of migrants at this time had no significant impact on politics or voting. Nor was Ireland a country that saw any significant anti-EU sentiment. Thus, Ireland could be seen as an anomaly in Europe. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sudden rise in the numbers in Ireland seeking international protection (asylum seekers). Most of these came as a direct result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and again, Ireland saw a positive reaction to inward migration even though the country accommodated a comparatively high number of Ukrainian refugees per head of population despite the country’s geographic distance. There had previously been ethnonationalist parties on the ballot paper in European and national elections, but they had never really featured. In 2024 none got elected, although some did in the concurrent local elections. The vote for some explicitly populist ethnonationalist parties was greater than ever before. This result occurred partly because Sinn Féin, another populist–nationalist (but not wholly ethnonationalist) party, saw its support drop dramatically. It suggests, however, that Ireland may not remain the anomaly it has been. In all about a third of the voting electorate chose parties or candidates that can be categorized as populist.

Keywords: migration; Ireland; populism; EU Pact on Migration; farmers

 

By Eoin O’Malley * (School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland)

Introduction

While electorally successful populism has always existed in Irish politics, the 2024 European election campaign and results in Ireland saw the emergence of a type of populism that had not hitherto been seen. Appeals, for instance, to a ‘pure Irish people’ that is distinct from a ‘corrupt elite’ are common not just in contemporary politics but in the nationalist politics on which the Irish state is founded. But there had never been an appetite in Ireland for any sort of ‘othering’ of migrants (or indeed other minorities). Although the results of the 2024 elections generally returned moderate, non-populist politicians, the centre parties’ success belies the emergence of a stronger chauvinistic ethnonationalism, indicating a possible direction of travel towards increased levels of populism. This chapter will outline the existing and emerging populist parties present in Ireland and then set out the context of the rise of migration as an issue since Ireland’s last general election in February 2020. This background leads into a discussion of the 2024 campaign, an outline of the results, and, finally, a discussion of trends.

Populist parties in Ireland

For many years, Ireland was an anomaly in having no electorally successful, hardline-ethnonationalist populist outfit, as most other European countries have. The standard explanation for this absence is that Ireland has an established nationalist–populist party that is left-leaning and explicitly progressive (i.e., pro-migrant rights). In turn the reason for this might be that the narrative of Irish nationalism is ‘small guy nationalism’, given that the Irish ‘story’ is of forced emigration, with no ‘great past’ to which the country might return (O’Malley, 2008). Sinn Féin, an explicitly left–populist party, was directly linked to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), which killed thousands of people during the Troubles from the late 1960s to 1998. While much of that campaign of violence was clearly sectarian (and thus ethnonationalist), following its transition to normal politics in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement) in 1998, Sinn Féin has espoused what it called ‘civic nationalism’, although it continues to champion a particular type of cultural nationalism that excludes those living in Northern Ireland who identify as British.

Sinn Féin was largely responsible for suppressing support for conservative ethnonationalism when immigration rose in the mid-2000s to where about 17% of the population in Ireland was foreign born (up from negligible levels in the early 1990s). It opposed a referendum in 2004 to change the origin of citizenship from jus soli to one based on the child’s heritage. Yet it remained outside the mainstream, being ‘Eurocritical’, opposing all new EU treaties, which because of Irish law must be passed by referendum. It was particularly critical of what it saw as the neoliberal bent of EU institutions.

Sinn Féin support rose in the 2010s as it adopted a more populist line. It adopted the policy approach led by small left-wing parties in opposing water charges, suggesting that the charges were a prelude to privatization designed to benefit elite supporters of the main governing party, Fine Gael. Sinn Féin used populist communications strategies to categorize Fine Gael and the main opposition party at the time, Fianna Fáil, as two sides of the same elite coin. There was some truth to this; these were not parties with strong ideological divisions, and in 2016, Fianna Fáil had signed a confidence and supply agreement to support a new minority Fine Gael government, enabling Fine Gael to remain in power. Shortly before becoming the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald declared that that pact ‘serves only to confirm the political establishment’s indifference and inability to act in the interests of the many’ (An Phoblacht, 2017). Sinn Féin and McDonald have frequently referred to the mainstream party leaders as ‘the lads’ or called them ‘an old boys’ club.’

One of the parties that had led the anti-water charges protests was People Before Profit (PBP), a small, Trotskyite, populist party with four Teachtaí Dála (TDs; MPs in English). It is an electoral front for the Socialist Workers’ Party, although it also forms an alliance with the Socialist Party, whose electoral label is Solidarity. It had no seats in the EP, but Clare Daly of Independents4Change had been a member of Solidarity, leaving because it refused to work with Mick Wallace, who was then an independent TD. Both Daly and Wallace went on to take seats in the European Parliament, sitting with The Left group.

Because of the Irish electoral system, also used in Irish EP elections, many non-party or independent candidates run for elected office, more often than not using populist campaign styles. One such MEP, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, was first elected to the EP as an independent candidate in 2014 on an explicitly anti-EU and anti-elite platform. His appearance and pronouncements were unconventional and anti-establishment. A member of The Left group in the EP, his voting record suggests he was concerned with protecting farmers’ interests.

Independent Ireland, formed in November 2023 and comprising three TDs, calls for greater control of migration but opposes EU co-operation on migration as well as action to tackle climate change. It might be categorized as a farmers’ party, but it also ran a candidate in Dublin whose main issue was migration. It describes itself as ‘a party that puts our people first … delivering on a program of reform and common-sense solutions’ (Independent Ireland, 2024). Farmers had traditionally been a powerful lobby group in Ireland, with most Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil usually sympathetic to their needs. But the inclusion of the Greens in government since 2020 (as well as some legal requirements from Brussels) saw the government implement policies against the wishes of many farmers. Ireland successfully negotiated an opt-out on a nitrates directive, but that was a small win for farmers.

The other smaller parties that fielded candidates were more clearly of an extreme position. A group of parties ran candidates, all claiming to speak for the Irish people, and most of which subscribe to ‘Great Replacement’ theories. Although they ran as separate parties, many voters would find it difficult to distinguish between the Irish Freedom Party (IFP), the National Party, Ireland First and The Irish People. The IFP’s aim is to re-establish ‘the national independence and sovereignty of Ireland and [restore] its national democracy by leaving the European Union’, no easy task in a country that regularly boasts the highest level of approval for EU membership among all the member states (Irish Freedom Party, 2024). It hoped that it might be able to benefit from migration being a significant issue at the elections, focusing heavily on that issue. IFP is led by Herman Kelly, who had been the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) press officer in Brussels. IFP had fielded candidates in previous elections but with limited success.

The National Party had also fielded candidates before, yet polled miserably. As with most of these parties, it is socially conservative and emerged from the pro-life movement. Comically, it split in two ahead of the elections, with the two factions each running candidates under the same banner. In terms of presentation it appears fascistic, with the diminutive leader almost copying Adolf Hitler in his physical appearance. It displays textbook populism in its stance ‘against the corrupt and amoral establishment who push replacement level immigration which will in time completely destroy Irish nationality’ (National Party, 2024).

Ireland First is a new party, largely a vehicle for Derek Blighe, a self-styled ‘citizen journalist’, who became prominent during the 2023 anti-immigrant protests (detailed further below), including spreading videos that would seem to encourage the rioting in Dublin. It describes itself as centre-right; most observers would see it as conservative nationalist and clearly populist: ‘Career politicians have consistently let us down, and it is time for the people, the true backbone of Ireland, to take matters into their own hands’ (Ireland First, 2024).

The Irish People is the newest of these parties. It presented itself as a loose coalition of independent candidates working under a shared banner and agreed principles, including ‘supporting Family values, advocating for Free Speech, prioritizing Housing for Irish citizens, endorsing Sensible Immigration policies, maintaining Neutrality in international conflicts, ensuring Education is free from indoctrination, and supporting Rural and farming communities’ (The Irish People, 2024). It railed against what it sees as ‘extremist’ policies being implemented by the government using nationalist rhetoric normally reserved for parties such as Sinn Féin.

While it would be hard to identify these parties on a left–right spectrum, another populist party that emerged and was sometimes accused of being ‘far right’ is more clearly on the left economically. Aontú emerged as a splinter group from Sinn Féin over the party’s stance on abortion. The leader of Aontú was a Sinn Féin TD who was disciplined for opposing the repeal of a provision in the Irish constitution banning abortion. The party shares Sinn Féin’s focus on a united Ireland and left-leaning economic policies, which it styles as ‘economic justice’. However, its supporters clearly position themselves on the right of the political spectrum, possibly because of abortion (Red C, 2024).

The 2020 general election and beyond

In the 2019 European elections Sinn Féin lost most of its seats and dropped seven percentage points in a performance that surprised most observers and has never been satisfactorily explained. Within the party the analysis was that it had become too angry and negative and not solutions-focused, but you could have argued it was this anger that saw the party rise in the polls. There seemed to be no obvious change in communications or electoral strategy in the following months. Nevertheless, seven months later, in the general election, the party’s support surged, becoming marginally the most popular in terms of votes, and would have been clearly the most popular in terms of seats except that it had underestimated its likely support and fielded too few candidates to take advantage of its popularity.

Sinn Féin benefited from economic grievances, particularly housing-related ones (Cunningham and Marsh, 2021: 231–4). The party’s increased vote share in 2020 was to a great extent the result of the medium-term strategy of linking Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as the same party using the (somewhat pejorative) ‘FFG’ label mentioned above. So when voters came to think of an alternative to the existing government, it was difficult for Fianna Fáil to present itself as that alternative. The acuteness of the housing crisis also helped the party. Sinn Féin had campaigned vigorously on the housing issue, and it was this that brought it increased support among young progressive voters. Sinn Féin focused relentlessly on this issue, questioning whether the gains made from the country’s strong economic growth could reach ordinary people. The party also used a strategy of associating Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil with a ‘landlord class’, something with powerful resonance in Ireland due to the country’s nineteenth-century famine.

When the two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, eventually formed a coalition government (together with the Green Party) in mid-2020, Sinn Féin doubled down on this rhetoric. It used its being the largest party in terms of votes to claim that somehow the party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, was nefariously denied the position of Taoiseach (prime minister). In tweets and other public communications, party supporters and representatives used language to deny that Micheál Martin was the rightful Taoiseach. They used hashtags such as #notmytaoiseach and spoke of McDonald as ‘the people’s choice’. This populist rhetoric was common in the subsequent years in opposition. And it worked. Although Fine Gael received a poll boost from its early handling of COVID-19, of which Sinn Féin was broadly supportive, Sinn Féin clearly became the largest party in voting intentions.

However, Sinn Féin also began to transition to become a more mainstream party, one that might be taken seriously as a prospective party of government. Walking this tightrope between populism and responsible party was to prove divisive for its supporters. Its mainstream position on COVID-19 probably led to the loss of some supporters, although individual party representatives were able to voice what many considered conspiracy theories on this issue without sanction by the party. In the months leading up to the EP elections, the party’s finance spokesman spoke to financiers in London to reassure them that Sinn Féin would not pose a threat to their interests. Mary Lou McDonald made a similar trip to Silicon Valley to reassure investors of her party’s intentions.

While it could have gotten away with this – even if it would have criticized others for doing it – the party also changed or took more mainstream positions on other issues. It dropped plans to immediately implement a wealth tax and instead said it would refer it to a commission on taxation. It opposed the EU Nature Restoration Law, causing some internal party division and criticism from left-wing groups. Sinn Féin supported the government’s referendum proposals to remove references to mothers and protections of marriage in the constitution, replaced instead by the vague concept of ‘durable relationships’. When a groundswell of opposition to the proposed changes led to their defeat, some in Sinn Féin acknowledged that the party was out of step with the people. It also supported legislation on hate crimes, which opponents claimed could limit free speech. The party then changed its mind on the issue, indicating it would oppose in later stages the legislation it had earlier voted for. The party was then criticized for a series of shifts in position and accused of ‘flip-flopping’ by its opponents.

However, it was its position on migration for which Sinn Féin received most opprobrium. The increase in refugees following the Russian invasion of Ukraine put severe pressure on Irish homelessness services. A subsequent spike in migration from other places, the Middle East and North Africa especially, put significant pressure on the ability of the state to accommodate them in the middle of an already-existing housing crisis. In 2023 Ireland saw violent anti-immigrant protests as hotels and other buildings were being used to accommodate the increased numbers of applicants for international protection. The mainstream political reaction, including that of Sinn Féin and the small populist left parties such as PBP, was condemnatory – dismissing those protesting as ‘far right’ or being led by the ‘far right.’

Sinn Féin’s falling support, then, can be seen as the party’s failure to hold together the coalition of supporters it had created since 2020. That coalition might be classified into three groups: anti-British nationalists who are most concerned about a united Ireland, young to middle-aged, less-educated ‘losers from globalisation’, and young left progressives who are most affected by the housing crisis. This coalition held together when the core issue was housing. But when migration was the focus of most media and public attention, the equivocal nature of the Sinn Féin response pleased none of these groups, the first two of which might have preferred to see the party oppose migration more clearly, whereas the last group might have been appalled at such an anti-progressive stance.

Aontú was in a position to soak up some of Sinn Féin’s faltering coalition. It more clearly called for controls on immigration and opposed the EU migration pact. It had scored some success in its referendum campaign opposing two new proposed amendments, one to redefine the traditional meaning of family and another to remove references to mothers from the constitution. Both were heavily defeated by voters. Aontú claimed to be ‘the only party listening to the people’ and campaigned on this line coming up to the EP elections.

With a riot in Dublin city centre in late 2023 and an increase in the importance of the migration issue, a political response and adverse fallout were inevitable. The minister for justice, Helen McEntee, was seen as ineffectual on the issue. Some media reports showed that Ireland had deported just 100 of the 7,300 failed asylum applicants since 2023. The government slowly started to shift its position, but when Leo Varadkar (Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach) stood down in April 2024, replaced by Simon Harris, there was an expectation that he might shift the government’s position. Certainly the rhetoric from the government changed somewhat, although no specific shift in policy could be identified.

The campaign for the 2024 EP elections

In opinion polls coming up to the EP election campaign migration rose as one of the main issues that respondents felt was important (the others mainly being housing and the cost of living). One of the most notable features of the polls was the fall in support for Sinn Féin. Much of this support appeared to be going to independent or small-party candidates rather than the mainstream parties. As there is a low threshold to get on the ballot, the ballot paper had a large number of candidates in each of the three constituencies (Dublin, 23 candidates for 4 seats; Ireland South, 23 candidates for 5 seats; and Midlands-North West, 26 candidates for 5 seats). The large number of candidates meant that they would inevitably split their vote and reduce their chances of exploiting the new salience of migration among the Irish electorate.

Sinn Féin had been vocally pro-migrant rights, but that message became more equivocal over time as some representatives acknowledged the pressure that recently arrived asylum seekers put on services. It tried to refocus public anger on the government, but its messaging was confused. In the run-up to and during the campaign, Sinn Féin changed its emphasis on migration. It rejected criticism that it was for ‘open borders’, saying it opposed the EU Pact on Migration on the basis that the party ‘firmly believes that Ireland must retain our sovereignty over these matters if we are to have an immigration system that is fair, efficient, and enforced’ (Ó Laoghaire, 2024). This shift was seen as a response to the direct threat from chauvinist nationalism in the form of some microparties, some with fascist overtones and from independent candidates or from Independent Ireland. Anti-immigrant protests increased in scale and number and, at some of them, crowds waving Irish flags shouted: ‘Sinn Féin are traitors!’ These protesters were able to use nationalist rhetoric, which had previously tended to be pro-migrant, by referencing a centuries-old attempt to replace the Catholic native population in a series of ‘Plantations’. These groups then referred to a ‘great replacement’ through a ‘new plantation’. There was a sense that Sinn Féin, once masters of nationalist populism, was now losing to nationalist populism.

On other issues, populist parties such as Sinn Féin and PBP were more in tune with the public mood. All these parties had opposed what it saw as the weakening of Irish neutrality by consecutive governments’ involvement in military partnerships, such as the NATO Partnership for Peace and PESCO, a platform for member state co-operation in European defence. PBP is explicitly anti-EU because of what it sees as the Union’s ‘imperial agenda’ and support for neoliberalism. Both it and Sinn Féin took strong positions on the Israel–Hamas war, including calls for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. On the issue of the Russia–Ukraine War, PBP took positions that were less in tune with popular opinion and often seen as pro-Russian, including calls for Ukraine to enter peace talks. Sinn Féin’s position was more equivocal. Historically it was more aligned with Russia, often blaming the West for being unnecessarily aggressive toward Putin. The invasion of Ukraine meant that the party said it was fully behind the smaller country. But it continued to abstain on packages designed to support Ukraine in the EP.

Two of Independent Ireland’s three EP candidates were high-profile broadcasters, one a recently retired regional correspondent for the national broadcaster and another a late-night phone-in-show host – often referred to as a ‘shock jock’. Their high profile immediately made them contenders to take seats. Although some saw Independent Ireland as an extreme right-wing group, it regards itself as centrist (albeit with a conservative bent). Outside Dublin it campaigned on farming issues, being critical of EU regulations and ‘EU overreach’, and also spoke more fervently in favour of greater control of migration than other centrist parties.

No seats for the new extremes, but …

Although Fine Gael (the European People’s Party-aligned governing party) lost vote share and one seat (down to four), it was relatively pleased with the outcome. At 20.8%, its vote share was slightly above the other centrist governing party, the Renew-aligned Fianna Fáil (20.4%), which gained two seats to equal Fine Gael’s four seats. Most pleasing for them was that they both were well ahead of Sinn Féin. The most prominent populist party sitting with The Left group in the EP, Sinn Féin won a seat in two constituencies but lost their only seat in another. It polled just 11% of the first-preference vote, about the same as in 2019, but well down on its polling in the run-up to the elections. It lost most in rural constituencies.

Despite the significant support for independent candidates, two prominent outgoing MEPs lost their seats. Independents4Change MEPs polled almost 5% of the vote, but both Clare Daly and Mick Wallace suffered from splits in the populist, anti-establishment left vote. We can see also in vote transfer patterns that they were also probably hurt by the presence of anti-immigrant candidates customarily considered on the ‘far right’. They also complained of a media campaign against them. The media had indeed been less than friendly to the pair in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion and their pro-Russian analysis of that conflict. On the other hand, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan comfortably retained his seat.

The new party, Independent Ireland, polled well in two of the three constituencies, picking up a seat in Midlands-North West probably at the expense of Sinn Féin. The winning candidate chose to sit with the Renew Europe group in the EP, which caused some annoyance within the party, as Renew was seen as too mainstream. The smaller left and right populist parties mentioned above failed to win representation in the European Parliament, partly because their votes were split between too many candidates. However, parties and candidates that were aggressively anti-immigrant (so, excluding Independent Ireland) polled a collective 7%, higher than ever before. This result suggests that the immigration issue has a resonance at the polling booths in Ireland that was not previously expected.

Discussion and perspectives

The unwinding of the voting coalition that had sustained Sinn Féin’s popularity was the most notable outcome of the EP and local elections in June 2024. The impact on Sinn Féin’s strategic choices is as yet not clear, but it is difficult to see how the party can recover this vote while immigration remains a significant issue. The party admitted that immigration was the issue that had caused it difficulties, and within months of the result, published an immigration policy that was immediately criticized for ‘dog whistle’ politics. A post-election study shows that Sinn Féin voters did not regard migration as one of the top three issues in the European elections (Red C 2024). This is despite it being the second most important issue for voters overall. It suggests that the voters Sinn Féin has lost are those who thought about migration. Even if it ceases to be an issue, the party may have lost some of its anti-establishment reputation among a section of voters. In the EP it has tended to oppose many of the proposals coming from the European Commission, and that is unlikely to change in the medium term. However, the Sinn Féin member elected for Dublin is highly motivated by concern for climate change, and she might shift the party’s direction on issues such as the European Green Deal.

The Independent Ireland member elected to the Renew Europe group, Ciarán Mullooly, is unlikely to feel tied to any whip and will oppose environmental measures that curtail agriculture. The same will be true of ‘Ming’ Flanagan. If the relative success of the mainstream parties was prominent in the post-election analyses, it ignores the fact that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s combined support is lower than it has ever been. At least 40% of the first-preference vote went to parties or candidates that can be uncontroversially labelled populist.

Moreover, populist sentiment is common in Ireland for those parties identified here as populist. Although attitudes toward migrants split these parties on a clear left–right basis, when it comes to statements such as ‘Most politicians only care about the interests of the rich and powerful’, those most likely to agree are supporters of Sinn Féin (74%), PBP-Solidarity (84%), Aontú (71%) and Independent Ireland (78%) compared to 40% for Fianna Fáil voters. Conspiracy theories associated with populism are also more likely to be believed by supporters of these parties; 38% of Sinn Féin supporters and 45% of Independent Ireland’s supporters agreed with the statement ‘A small, secret group of people is responsible for making all major decisions in world politics’. Furthermore, when it comes to trust in news sources, supporters of Sinn Féin (25%), PBP-Solidarity (24%), Aontú (13%) and Independent Ireland (25%) have the lowest levels of trust in the state broadcaster RTÉ.

This points to an available market for populist parties, particularly on the right. It seems that the problem is that support is divided between too many parties. However, the emergence of a significant political leader might tie together some of the anti-migrant and anti-European sentiment that is out there to create a significant electoral force in the future.

 

(*) Eoin O’Malley is Associate Professor of politics at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. He is author or editor of seven books on Irish politics, and author of over 40 peer-reviewed publications. His research centres mainly on Irish politics, including the party system and political leadership. e-mail: eoin.omalley@dcu.ie

 

References

An Phoblacht (2017). ‘Fianna Fáil plays at opposing Fine Gael but Fianna Fáil pact with Fine Gael keeps Leo Varadkar in power’ An Phoblacht 18 November, https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/27200

Cunningham, Kevin & Marsh, Michael (2021) ‘Voting Behavious: The Sinn Féin Election’, in M. Gallagher, M. Marsh, & T. Reidy (eds) How Ireland Voted 2020: The End of an Era, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 219–54.

Independent Ireland (2024) party website at https://www.independentireland.ie/

Ireland First (2024) party website at https://ireland-first.ie/

Irish Freedom Party (2024) party website at https://www.irishfreedom.ie/

Irish People, The (2024) party website at https://www.irishpeople.org/

National Party (2024) party website at https://nationalparty.ie/

Ó Laoghaire, Donnacha (2024). Dáil Éireann Debate, 1 May 2024, Vol. 1053 No. 3.

O’Malley, Eoin (2008). Why is there no Radical Right Party in Ireland? West European Politics, 31(5), 960–977.

People Before Profit (2024). ‘Vote Left, Transfer Left’ https://www.pbp.ie/vote-left-transfer-left/

Red C (2024). ‘Post Local & European Elections Study – Data Report 2024’ available from https://neds.ie/reports/NEDS-2024-local-european-elections-report.pdf

 

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Viktor Orbán, Hungary's Prime Minister, arrives for a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on June 22, 2017. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.

A Pyrrhic Victory for the Populist Right in Hungary

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Please cite as:
Csehi, Robert. (2024). “A Pyrrhic Victory for the Populist Right in Hungary.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0073

 

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Abstract

The 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections have produced tectonic shifts in the Hungarian political landscape. While the populist governing party, Fidesz, secured first place in the elections, it lost two seats in the EP, and a new political force emerged that has reshuffled the power balance in Hungary’s opposition. Additionally, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party, along with the pro-government media and social media outlets, spent huge amounts to deliver the government’s campaign messages, and the party reportedly broke mobilization records before the election. Orbán’s campaign returned to the themes of the 2022 national parliamentary election and made the war in Ukraine its centrepiece. Although the initial campaign slogan was ‘no migration, no gender, no war’ and all three elements resonated with Fidesz voters the most, the last component has eclipsed the other two. Orbán used fear-mongering and built a Manichean narrative where anybody failing to vote for Fidesz was part of the ‘pro-war’ camp. He labelled all his domestic and international political opponents ‘pro-war’ and even claimed that the Hungarian opposition was carrying out the demands of its international financiers in Brussels and Washington. The radical right-wing Our Homeland (OH) focused more on the municipal election yet led a negative campaign against the EU, claiming that Brussels has fallen under the influence of globalists and international interest groups and seeks to build a federal superstate. OH also managed to send one MEP to Strasbourg. Overall, while both Fidesz and OH have joined separate, rebranded, right-wing Eurosceptic groups, their political isolation within the EP remains a challenge.

Keywords: right-wing populism; Russia–Ukraine War; migration; gender; elites; Brussels; Soros

 

By Robert Csehi* (Department of Political Science, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest)

Background

In January 2024, it seemed that elections for the European Parliament (EP) would not hold any great surprises. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán and his populist Fidesz party were expected to gain a majority of the votes, potentially repeating their electoral success from five years before and securing the party a majority of Hungary’s 21 EP seats. Also, it was expected that the radical right-wing populist Our Homeland (OH) party would potentially manage to send one representative to Strasbourg, given the historical success of radical Hungarian parties in European elections. After their defeat in the 2022 national parliamentary elections, opposition parties were still trying to come up with effective strategies to challenge Orbán’s government, yet most struggled even to influence the political agenda. Given their repeated losses to Orbán’s Fidesz, a growing number of the electorate became disillusioned with them and questioned their political credibility and capabilities. It was in this relative political tranquillity that a political scandal erupted, which eventually led to the emergence of a new political force that redrew the electoral map for Hungary.

In early February 2024 Katalin Novák, the president of the republic, found herself in a clemency scandal. The year before, she had granted a presidential pardon to someone who had helped cover up his superior’s paedophile crimes by forcing one of the victims to withdraw his confession. The issue was extremely sensitive given the Orbán government’s ongoing ‘protect our children’ campaign, which was used to mobilize against Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community. Although President Novák resigned, as did the former justice minister, Judit Varga, who was supposed to lead the Fidesz party list in the EP elections and who also had to sign off on the pardon, the public never received a justification for the pardon and never got to know the person who initiated the process. After Varga resigned from leading the party in the EP elections, her former husband, Péter Magyar, began posting on social media about the alleged involvement of the government in the matter and criticized them for being too cowardly to sacrifice his former wife instead of those who were truly responsible. Although he initially denied any ambition to become a politician, his first interview on the YouTube channel, Partizán, received so much attention (in the interview, he revealed much of his insider experience as part of the government) that he eventually decided to venture into politics, and established a new party, Respect and Freedom (Tisza). Within a few months, he was touring around the country making speeches and decided to run in the EP elections, where candidates of the party were selected through online voting. Given Magyar’s previous involvement with Fidesz, the governing party had a hard time finding a political antidote to his challenge. For their part, the established opposition parties were caught in a bind as Magyar lacked the kind of credibility challenges vis-à-vis voters they themselves laboured under.

In the end, although Fidesz came in first in the EP elections with 44.82% of the votes, this result is the party’s worst performance in an EP election. Pro-government commentators were quick to emphasize that the party received over 2 million votes, more than it had ever achieved before. This increase is largely attributed to the higher-than-average turnout, as the EP elections were held alongside municipal elections. However, this does not change the fact that the governing party (or coalition) has lost 2 seats in the EP and sent only 11 MEPs to Strasbourg. Magyar’s Tisza received 29.6% of the votes and sent seven representatives to the EP. The leftist environmentalist coalition (DK–MSZP–P) managed to secure only two seats compared to their previous five (the DK had four, and the MSZP–P had one MEP). In the 2019 EP election, DK received 16.05% of the votes, whereas in 2024, the coalition managed to gain only 8.03%.

While the leftist coalition survived Tisza’s challenge, the liberal Momentum did not. The party only received 3.7% of the votes and thus lost its two mandates in the EP. The radical right-wing populist OH doubled its support compared to 2019 and managed to secure one seat in the EP with a vote share of 6.71%. While 11 parties were competing for mandates, in the end, only 4 parties (or party coalitions) will represent the Hungarian people in Strasbourg.

The supply side: Populist tropes featuring war and peace

The governing party, Fidesz (in coalition with the Christian Democratic People’s Party or KDNP), started its EP campaign with Orbán’s 15 March commemoration speech. There, he relied on his usual Eurosceptic populist tropes and claimed that ‘Brussels has abandoned Europeans, and even turned against them’ (Orbán, 2024) and that ‘the people of Europe fear for their freedom in the face of Brussels’ (Ibid.). He blamed the EU for wrongdoing and claimed that because of the incompetent leadership in Brussels, ‘instead of peace, we have war, instead of security we have a rule-of-law ruckus, instead of prosperity we have financial blackmail’ (Ibid.).

Later, Tamás Deutsch, a Fidesz MEP, summarized the party’s criticism against ‘Brussels’ in ten points (Fidesz, 2 April 2024): its failure to manage the COVID-19 crisis; its incompetence in bringing a quick end to the Russia–Ukraine War, and its war-mongering; the European Green Deal; its position on and failure to curb illegal migration; a ‘gender ideology’ it imposes on member states; its failure to prevent Brexit; its rule-of-law ‘jihad’ against certain member states; incompetence that led to the collapse of the distribution of EU funds; pushing member states into debt, and; the Hungarian left that acts against the country in Brussels. Although Deutsch criticized the EU on its economic policies, its ‘gender agenda’, its rule-of-law procedures and migration policies occasionally during the campaign, the party’s fundamental message was summarized in the campaign slogan: ‘no migration, no gender, no war’. It was repeated so often at the beginning of the campaign that the mayor of a small village even posted it as a ‘welcome sign’ at the entrance to the village.

The slogan was supposed to reflect the various dimensions of the antagonistic relationship between the position of Fidesz and that of ‘Brussels’. As Orbán put it: “They [i.e., Brussels] want to press us into a war, they want to saddle us with migrants, they want to re-educate our children. But we shall not go to war, we shall not let in migrants, and we shall not hand over our children” (Orbán, 2024).

Orbán claimed to stop illegal migration into Hungary despite the EU’s alleged liberal policies and called for ‘resistance’ to ‘gender ideology’ in the name of safeguarding Hungarian children against the alleged LGBTQ+ propaganda. Tamás Menczer, the party’s communication officer, even argued that ‘we shall never forget that the Hungarian left would destroy the peace and security of Hungary. They would bring us into the war, they would let migrants in, and they would let the gender propaganda loose’ (Fidesz, 6 April 2024). While the first two elements of the campaign slogan featured in the social media messages of the governing party in the beginning, the third message, ‘no war’, gained ever-increasing attention in the party’s campaign and ultimately eclipsed the other two. Pro-government social media influencers even went so far as to discuss the implications of a potential nuclear bomb in Budapest as a result of the war psychosis in Brussels and the West in general.

Orbán employed a pro-war versus pro-peace distinction, essentially a form of the Manichean division often utilized by populists. He applied this moral dichotomy not only to European politics but also to the Hungarian political scene. On the one hand, he claimed that: “Brussels is actually a prisoner of George Soros’s network … the Soros network is embedded in the European institutions – so much so that the European institutions are giving them money for their operations … [T]hey’re present within the Commission, they’re in the European Parliament, and quite a few prime ministers are clearly Soros-backed people” (Fidesz, 22 March 2024a).

Additionally, he also argued that ‘the pro-war governments, the bureaucrats in Brussels [and] George Soros’ network, are sending millions of dollars to the pro-war left in Budapest’ (Fidesz, 19 April 2024). Deploying a typical populist narrative frame, Orbán not only criticized the EU for failing to listen to the people but also linked his domestic opposition with a malevolent elite. He and his party often pictured members of the different opposition parties conspiring with Brussels against Hungary, who were trying to push Hungary into the Ukraine–Russia War. In fact, most party figures who participated in the campaign actually claimed that the Hungarian opposition would enter the war because that is what ‘their financiers’ (Fidesz, 30 April 2024) are expecting from them. Among others, they claimed that ‘the feeding channel, the umbilical cord of the Hungarian left is here in Brussels and America, so they are fed from here, financed from here, bought by the kilo’ (Fidesz, 22 March 2024b). They often referred to Brussels and Washington as ‘the paymasters of the Hungarian left’ (Fidesz, 19 April 2024). Fidesz’s messages frequently depicted prominent European politicians, from Emmanuel Macron to Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen, as warmongers. These messages also highlighted their alleged Hungarian allies, including key opposition figures such as former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, MEPs Klára Dobrev, Anna Donáth, Katalin Cseh and the new political actor, Péter Magyar. The claims about a pro-war Hungarian left were also repeated by Tamás Deutsch, Fidesz MEP, in the only televised debate where each party list leader of the EP election (altogether 11 parties) had 8 minutes to ‘debate’ with one another. Interestingly, the TikTok campaign of the governing party has never mentioned Russia as a responsible actor for the war in Ukraine, instead blaming European actors and NATO for escalating the conflict by supporting Ukraine with money and weapons. Throughout the campaign, it was unclear what Orbán and his party meant by ‘peace’ and how they would achieve it once their candidates appeared in the EP.

The campaign of the governing party appealed to the most basic fear of the population and constantly pictured the European Parliamentary elections as a decisive battle where people had to decide about war or peace, life or death, whether one was willing to send his/her sons, grandchildren into the war. Although the social media campaign has built heavily on Orbán – who also toured the country himself, appearing unannounced in different places where he would talk to a selected audience – and his speeches and interviews, other party members also participated in the campaign. Most importantly, Deutsch and another MEP, András László, were quite active in conveying the party messages to the people, mainly about the war. Billboards were also widely used that featured the word ‘war’ made out of pictures of their domestic political opponents and George Soros. In contrast, they also had a billboard with the word ‘peace’ featuring Orbán in the background.

Overall, Orbán and Fidesz have crafted a populist narrative that positions themselves as the voice of peace, claiming to represent the people’s true interests. This narrative sharply contrasts them with all other domestic political actors and their supposed financiers in Brussels. The governmental parties, along with the pro-government social media influencer group Megafon, spent an enormous amount on social media campaigns—more than any other political force in Europe (Portfolio, 2024). In addition, at the ‘Peace March’ held a week before the election, Orbán promised a record-breaking mobilization, which he referred to as ‘the day of one million encounters’ (Fidesz, 5 June 2024).

Although the radical right-wing, populist OH party did not have a specific EP election manifesto, it campaigned with negative messages about the EU. László Toroczkai, the party head, blamed the EU for its undemocratic nature, its globalist agenda, its pursuit of a federal superstate, and its corrupt dealings. The party’s main message centred on the idea that Brussels had been captured by globalist, international interest groups. Interestingly, food safety was frequently highlighted in the party’s social media campaigns. While their primary focus was on the ‘state capture’ accusation against the EU, the party also emphasized issues related to migration into the EU, particularly stressing the security aspect. Their domestic political messages highlighted labour migration as a significant issue, with the party’s MP, Dóra Dúró, advocating for higher wages instead of relying on guest workers and criticizing the government’s strategy to build battery factories. The party’s emphasis on domestic issues was partly due to their greater focus on municipal elections rather than the EP election. With much more limited financial resources than Fidesz, their message distribution was also more restricted.

The demand side: Older, less educated and rural populations as the mainstay of right-wing populism

As pointed out, Fidesz came out on top in the EP elections, even though it secured its worst result ever and effectively lost two mandates compared to 2019. In the capital, Budapest, the difference between the party and its primary challenger, Tisza, was 0.31%, yet in 9 out of 23 electoral districts, Magyar’s party won. Within the counties, the relative dominance of Fidesz was more traceable: they won in each of the 19 counties, and their winning margin fluctuated between 27.67% (in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county) and 9.29% (in Pest county). Overall, there were 60 municipalities where Tisza received more votes than the governing party (Bódi and Kovalcsik, 2024), which must not be overstated, given that there are over 3,000 municipalities in the country. Interestingly, while OH came in second place in 17 of the 19 counties in the municipal elections, their vote share for the EP elections per county was much lower. Yet, compared to the party’s 2019 results, they managed to double their vote share in every settlement size category.

Initial studies on the demographic composition of Fidesz voters have started to emerge. One analysis reveals a clear pattern: the lower the percentage of high school graduates in a municipality, the higher the vote share for Fidesz (Hajdu, 2024). This correlation between education level and support for the governing party is deeply rooted in broader socioeconomic conditions: areas with lower educational attainment typically have lower wages, leading to greater reliance on welfare programs. Another poll highlighted that 63% of Fidesz voters are aged 50 or older, compared to just 29% of Tisza voters in the same age group (Propeller, 2024). Additionally, 34% of Fidesz voters are 65 or older, indicating that a significant portion of the voting base is in retirement, reflecting their increased dependence on state support. This is consistent with Orbán’s policies, which are consistently favourable towards pensioners.

Given that Fidesz’s campaign revolved around the notion of war and peace, it is worth looking into how much this message was successfully distributed. Poll data suggests that the governing party was once again successful in creating a cleavage: while 77% of Fidesz voters would not have sent any assistance to Ukraine, only 29% of Tisza voters would have done the same (Molnár, 2024). This survey, unsurprisingly, also suggested a positive correlation between the level of schooling and readiness to send assistance to Ukraine.

Another poll focused on support for Hungary’s EU membership just before the EP elections, aiming to assess the impact of Eurosceptic populist messages on public opinion regarding the country’s role in the EU. The results showed that 51% supported and 32% somewhat supported EU membership overall. However, Fidesz voters were the least supportive: only 25% fully supported EU membership, with another 46% somewhat supportive. In contrast, Tisza voters overwhelmingly backed EU membership, with 83% fully supportive and 13% somewhat supportive (Király, 2024). The same poll also asked about the most pressing issues facing the EU. Unsurprisingly, given the campaign context, 65% of respondents identified the war as the most serious issue, overshadowing concerns like migration, climate change, economic disparities among member states, and an ageing population. Regarding migration, 65% of Fidesz voters saw migration into Hungary as a significant problem, while 81% of Tisza voters viewed emigration from Hungary as a more significant issue.

While no new polls have been conducted on public views regarding migration or gender – the other two main campaign themes of Fidesz – a 2022 poll revealed that Fidesz voters rated the seriousness of these issues at 4.4 and 4.0 on a 1–5 scale, respectively (D. Kovács and Bita, 2022). These scores were above the national average, indicating that pro-government voters were more sensitive to these messages.

Overall, the data suggests that Fidesz voters tend to be older, less educated and rural residents. They are also more receptive to Eurosceptic rhetoric and resonate more strongly with issues related to migration, gender and the war in Ukraine.

Conclusion and discussion

Despite the electoral success of Fidesz, this victory was essentially pyrrhic. Not only did the party record its worst performance in the history of EP elections in Hungary, but it only secured its ‘victory’ at great cost (money spent on social media, billboards, and the like) and ostensibly with a massive mobilization campaign. In comparison, Tisza did not spend much on social media, had no billboards, and lacked any mobilization strategy given the early phase of its party building (the party was effectively created a couple of months before the EP elections).

Furthermore, despite one of the most significant victories across the EU, Orbán’s party faced the challenge of allying with others on the European scene. Initially, the governing parties strived to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group led by Italy’s prime minister, Georgia Meloni. Ultimately, Orbán rejected this option because he did not want to sit with the anti-Hungarian Romanian party, Alliance for the Unity of Romanians. Additionally, there was a cleavage on the Russia–Ukraine War: not only Meloni and Jarosław Kaczyński but also smaller members of the ECR from Finland, Latvia and Lithuania, held diametrically opposed views to Orbán’s on the matter. Most of these parties overwhelmingly supported financial assistance to Ukraine.

After weeks of negotiations, Orbán succeeded in forming a new coalition based on the former Identity and Democracy group, initially with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Czech ANO, which was ultimately led by the French National Rally (RN). Although the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group is the third-largest faction in the EP, it could not secure any significant positions, and thus, Fidesz’s political isolation continues.

Little about the party’s objectives is known: a smaller European Parliament and correspondingly greater sovereignty for member states, a revision of the European Green Deal, and a more robust fight against illegal migration. Given that Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in July 2024, Fidesz is expected to pursue these objectives by putting them on the EU agenda. The extent to which Hungary can deliver on Fidesz’s objectives is yet another question, although Orbán’s international diplomatic meetings in the first weeks of July 2024 signalled his dedication to focusing on international matters. It is worth mentioning that Magyar’s Tisza has joined the European People’s Party (EPP). As a result, KDNP, Fidesz’s coalition partner, which remained in the EPP after Fidesz left the centre-right bloc in 2021, announced that they would also leave the EPP.

The far-right OH joined a new faction led by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), whose leader visited his Hungarian counterpart, László Torockai, before the election. The Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) only has 25 MEPs, so their influence, along with that of OH, remains marginal.

 

(*) Robert Csehi is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences at Corvinus University of Budapest. His research focuses on comparative and European politics. More specifically, he studies populism and Euroscepticism in the Central and Eastern European region, the institutional development of the EU in general, and its economic governance framework in particular. His previous work appeared in Democratization, the Journal of European Public Policy, West European Politics, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, Politics & Governance, and European Politics and Society. His book, The Politics of Populism in Hungary, was published by Routledge in 2022. E-mail: robert.csehi@uni-corvinus.hu

 

References

Bódi, Mátyás and Kovalcsik Tamás (2024). Térképen mutatjuk, hol verte meg a Tisza Párt a Fidesz-KDNP-t. https://telex.hu/valasztasi-foldrajz/2024/06/12/terkep-tisza-part-fidesz-magyar-peter-nagyobb-tamogatottsag

D. Kovács, Ildikó and Bita Dániel (2022). A Fidesz-szavazók nagyobb problémának tartják a genderlobbit, mint az inflációt és az egészségügy állapotát. https://24.hu/belfold/2022/03/25/magyarorszag-problematerkep-inflacio-egeszsegugy-gender-migracio-kozvelemeny-kutatas-zavecz/

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (22 March 2024a). 3. RÉSZ – Orbán Viktor a Kossuth rádióban. Jó néhány európai miniszterelnök is Soros embere. #orbanviktor #magyarorszag #radio https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7349104473341463840. TikTok.

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (22 March 2024b) 5. RÉSZ–Orbán Viktor a Kossuth rádióban. A baloldalt Brüsszelből és Amerikából etetik. #orbanviktor

https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7349104473341529376. TikTok.

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (2 April 2024) Miért kell változás Brüsszelben? – Deutsch Tamás 10 pontja. https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7353264916117212448. TikTok

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (6 April 2024) A baloldal háborúba vinné Magyarországot.
Védjük meg Magyarország békéjét és biztonságát! #magyarorszag #beke #biztonsag

https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7354766116100623648. TikTok

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (19 April 2024) Ne hagyjuk Magyarországot!
Harcolnunk kell, meg kell védeni a magyar emberek békéjét és biztonságát, meg kell védeni a gazdasági eredményeinket, meg kell védeni a családjainkat és különösen is a gyerekeinket! #orbanviktor #kampany #magyarorszag. https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7359584736945179936. TikTok

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (30 April 2024) Amikor azt gondoltuk, hogy nem lehet már rosszabb, akkor megkaptuk a nyakunkba a háborúpárti dollárbaloldalt és a háborúpárti Brüsszelt is. Nem kérünk belőlük! #menczertamas #baloldal #brusszel. https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7363691186420223264. TikTok

Fidesz [@fidesz_hu] (5 June 2024) Szombaton jön az Egymillió Találkozás Napja!
A választás előtti 24 órában, 50 ezer aktivistánk egyetlen nap alatt egymillió embert fog személyesen a választásra buzdítani. #fidesz

https://www.tiktok.com/@fidesz_hu/video/7377030865337027872. TikTok

Hajdu, Miklós (2024). Nincs fideszes többség, ahol a lakosság legalább 60 százaléka érettségizett. https://g7.hu/adat/20240612/nincs-fideszes-tobbseg-ahol-a-lakossag-legalabb-60-szazaleka-erettsegizett/

Király, András (2024). Hiába sulykolja a kormány, hogy háborúban állunk Brüsszellel, a magyarok elsöprő többsége még mindig EU-párti. https://telex.hu/kulfold/2024/06/05/eu-ep-median-kozvelemeny-kutatas-tisza-part

Molnár, Gergő (2024). Závecz Research: kettéosztja Magyarországot Ukrajna EU-s támogatása. https://index.hu/belfold/2024/05/31/europai-unio-ukrajna-haboru-tamogatas-segitseg-felmeres-kozvelemeny-kutatas-partok-kormany-ellenzek/

Orbán, Viktor (2024). Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the 176th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–49. https://abouthungary.hu/speeches-and-remarks/speech-by-prime-minister-viktor-orban-on-the-176th-anniversary-of-the-hungarian-revolution-and-war-of-independence-of-184849

Portfolio (2024). Duplaannyit költöttek a magyar kormánypártok hirdetésekre, mint Európában bármelyik másik erő. https://www.portfolio.hu/unios-forrasok/20240603/duplaannyit-koltottek-a-magyar-kormanypartok-hirdetesekre-mint-europaban-barmelyik-masik-ero-689779

Propeller (2024). Itt vannak az adatok: kiderült, hogy kik szavaztak a Fideszre és kik Magyar Péterre. https://propeller.hu/itthon/4038304-magyar-peter-fidesz-kdnp-szavazok-eletkor

 

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Leader of the Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, delivers a speech during a pre-election campaign event in Thessaloniki, Greece, on May 16, 2023. Photo: Giannis Papanikos.

Economic Malaise and Political Discontent: An Analysis of the 2024 European Parliament Election in Greece

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Please cite as:

Vasilopoulou, Sofia. (2024). “Economic Malaise and Political Discontent: An Analysis of the 2024 European Parliament Election in Greece.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0072

 

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Abstract

The 2024 European Parliament (EP) election in Greece was held against a background of geopolitical instability in Europe’s neighbourhood. However, domestic – rather than European – issues dominated the campaigns, including the economy, inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. The electoral results were primarily an anti-government protest vote and confirmed a trend of electoral fragmentation across the political spectrum. On the right, three relatively new far-right populist parties received parliamentary representation, i.e., the Greek Solution, Victory and the Voice of Reason. On the left, SYRIZA–PA maintained its second place, although its support declined substantively compared to the previous EP election. Course of Freedom and the KKE, on the other hand, were key electoral beneficiaries in the left-wing space. Younger age groups primarily opted for SYRIZA–PA, whereas older groups were more likely to support New Democracy. That said, far-right parties also received votes from younger generations. Geographically, the far right is more successful in the north of Greece. The key message of this election was political discontent and a general feeling of economic malaise posing dilemmas across the political spectrum.

Keywords: elections; public opinion; populism; the left; the right; Greece

 

By Sofia Vasilopoulou* (King’s College London)

Introduction

Greeks went to the polls on Sunday, 9 June 2024, to elect 21 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Although a total of 31 parties competed for Greek citizens’ votes, only eight received enough votes to reach the 3% electoral threshold for parliamentary representation. The elections were held against a background of geopolitical instability with the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza. Yet, domestic questions, such as the economy, inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, influenced the vote.

The electoral results confirmed a trend of electoral fragmentation on both the left and right ends of the politicalspectrum despite the centre-right New Democracy retaining first place. On the right, three far-right parties with populist agendas, including Greek Solution, Victory and Voice of Reason, elected four MEPs in total. The substantive policies of these parties share several similarities, and their narratives are all based on a similar populist logic. However, their 2024 EP election campaigns prioritized different issues. Whereas Greek Solution talked more about its economic agenda and the cost-of-living crisis, Victory focused on religion and family, and Voice of Reason placed emphasis on Islam and the so-called ‘woke culture’.

On the left, the Coalition of the Radical Left–Progressive Alliance (SYRIZA–PA) came second with approximately 15% of the vote, translating into four EP seats. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Course of Freedom secured two and one seats, respectively. These parties vary substantively in their policies. SYRIZA–PA put forward a centre-left agenda, Course of Freedom continued its anti-establishment rhetoric, and KKE maintained its communist agenda.

In what follows, I first analyse the policies of Greek populist parties on domestic and international issues. I then proceed to examine the electoral results, offering a glimpse into some socio-demographic and geographic patterns of the vote. I will finally conclude with some thoughts about the dilemmas presented to parties following the electoral results.

The ‘supply-side’ of Greek populism in the 2024 EP election

Greece has been characterized as a populist democracy (Pappas, 2014), in which populism tends to be observed across the party system and is expressed through blame-shifting and exclusivist narratives (Vasilopoulou et al., 2014). Greek populism cuts across the left–right dimension and is generally concentrated among the political parties that reject the mainstream politics of the ‘old two-party system’ associated with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and New Democracy (Tsatsanis et al., 2018). Based on this distinction, this section discusses the ideologies and positions of six populist parties in Greece in the run-up to the 2024 EP election in Greece.

Right-wing populism

Greek Solution (Ελληνική Λύση) – EP group: European Conservatives and Reformists

The far-right populist Greek Solution was founded in 2016 by Kyriakos Velopoulos, a former member of the far-right Popular Orthodox Rally (Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός) and the centre-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία).

The party rose to prominence amid Greek protests against the Prespa Agreement signed between Greece and North Macedonia to settle an enduring dispute between the two nations. During that time, other far-right parties in Greece were experiencing electoral decline, which favoured Greek Solution. For example, members of the Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή), an extreme right-wing party (Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2015) were being indicted for running a criminal organization, and the Independent Greeks (Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες) had lost credibility among their voters for participating in an electoral coalition with the left-wing SYRIZA (Συνασπισμός της Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς).

Greek Solution has a prominent anti-establishment narrative glorifying the ‘pure’ Greek people against the ‘evil’ and ‘corrupt’ Greek political elites. Its populist message is combined with an ethnonationalist rhetoric, which is said to derive its strength from ‘Hellenism’. The party’s core beliefs may be summarized by its focus on ‘Greece, religion, family’. During the 2024 EP election campaign, the party leader professed to ‘make Greece and Greeks proud again’, arguing that Greek Solution has ‘clean hands and clean ideas’ (Greek Solution, 2024a).

On the cultural dimension, Greek Solution is critical of immigration, and what it calls ‘the language of rights’ and ‘imposed’ multiculturalism (Greek Solution, 2024b). It is pro-Russian (Dimitropoulos 2022; Wondreys, 2023) and against compulsory vaccinations (in.gr, 2021). While not openly calling for a Greek exit from the European Union (EU), Greek Solution has a vision for a Europe of nation-states extending from Lisbon to Siberia that is Christian and includes Russia, i.e., what the party calls a ‘European Europe’ that gives veto power to all member states (Greek Solution, 2024c). Despite its Eurosceptic position, the leader of Greek Solution argued that EP elections are very important because nine out of ten decisions made in the Greek Parliament derive from EU legislation and that, therefore, abstention would mean support for the national government (Greek Solution, 2024d).

On the economic dimension, the party offers a somewhat blurred policy combination of low taxation mixed with economic intervention and welfare chauvinism (Georgiadou & Mavropoulou, 2022). The party’s EP election campaign primarily focused on the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ framed with a robust anti-establishment narrative. For example, they castigated the government, declaring that ‘Greeks are hungry and poor, but politicians are rich’. In its pre-electoral campaign, the party also focused on the expressed needs and priorities of the primary economic sector, specifically agriculture. Its economic plan consisted of reducing food production costs to support farmers by removing fuel duty, flat taxes and investment in mining to subsidize free schemes for energy self-sufficiency across Greece. Interestingly, and contrary to the cultural model of far-right voting behaviour (Norris & Inglehart, 2019), Greek Solution’s party leader attributes the rise of far-right parties to economic reasons, such as poverty, unemployment and the cost-of-living crisis (Greek Solution, 2024b).

Democratic Patriotic Movement–Victory (Δημοκρατικό Πατριωτικό Κίνημα–Νίκη) – EP group: Non-Attached

The far-right Victory was founded in 2019, shortly after the signing of the Prespa Agreement, which, it argues, has been a betrayal to the Greek people considering that there is only ‘one’ Macedonia, which is ‘only Greek’ (Victory, 2024). The party first competed in the 2023 general election and gained ten seats. It puts forward an ultra-conservative religious narrative premised on an ethnic conception of Greek national identity and a belief in the primacy of the church over the state.

Victory makes populist appeals differentiating between the ‘good’ Greek people (who are equated to the Greek nation) and the elites presented as ‘gangs’ that place their partisan interests over the ‘sacred’ national interest (Victory, 2024). The party rejects left–right ideology, suggests that parties have colluded against the Greek people and the Greek nation, and promises to ‘free’ Greece from these partisan interests. It calls for binding referendums on important questions, the removal of the electoral threshold, and the reduction of the size of the Greek Parliament from 350 to 200 deputies.

On the cultural dimension, the party opposes liberal values, is against minority rights, and talks about Greece’s ‘spiritual, biological and territorial self-destruction’ (Victory, 2020). Its ideology is premised on a strong belief in the Orthodox Christian religious tradition. The party is careful to avoid criticisms that it strategically employs religion in its discourse and argues that ‘We do not have a religion, we have faith’. Victory is firmly against LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, arguing that ‘nature is law’, and proposes to establish a ‘Ministry of National Demographic Growth’ that would ‘ensure the biological future of the Greek nation in our ancestral land’ (Victory, 2020b) and address issues related to family, childbirth, immigration and repatriation. To that end, the party promises birth subsidies, benefits for stay-at-home mothers with two or more children, and tax reductions for families. The party is prone to conspiracy theories, for example, arguing that LGBTQ+ Pride events are supported and subsidized by the US embassy, George Soros and international lobbies (Victory, 2024b). It is also against vaccinations (Newsbeast, 2023).

Victory’s position towards the EU is rather blurry. The party appears to support a Greek exit from the EU so the country is ‘free from its guardians’, but it does not openly advocate for it. It suggests that Greece needs to focus first on being socially and economically stronger and praises the Visegrad countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) for promoting their national interests within the EU (Victory, 2020c). It is noticeable, however, that the EU was not a salient issue in the party’s 2024 European manifesto, which focuses primarily on domestic issues, including measures to support family, population growth, cheap energy and rural communities. Victory is pro-Russian and criticizes Greece’s support for Ukraine in the ongoing conflict.

The party has a staunch anti-globalization agenda, supports strategic investment in agriculture and Greek self-sufficiency in food and energy. While it supports low taxation for both businesses and households, it proposes tax increases on banks and multinational corporations as well as on money transfers to other countries.

Voice of Reason (Φωνή Λογικής) – EP group: Patriots for Europe

Voice of Reason is a relatively new far-right party founded in 2023 by Afroditi Latinopoulou, a former New Democracy candidate. The party describes itself as a contemporary patriotic movement that serves Greek identity and values, such as ‘Homeland, religion, family.’ Like Greek Solution and Victory, it portrays Greece in decline and seeks to appeal to the ‘ordinary Greek’ against the corrupt establishment. The party is against ‘political correctness’ and portrays itself as being censored from Greek media (Latinopoulou, 2024). Interestingly, although the party does not have any known links to the Spartans or the Golden Dawn, Latinopoulou criticized as anti-democratic the decision of the Greek Supreme Court to ban the Spartans from running in the 2024 EP election on suspicion they were being led by Ilias Kasidiaris, a former Golden Dawn member of the Greek Parliament currently serving a prison sentence for directing a criminal organization (Newsbreak, 2024).

The ideology of Voice of Reason draws inspiration from the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ theory. It argues that globalization, atheism, Muslim immigration and a rights discourse are replacing Greek culture and Christianity. It maintains that ‘Brussels’ is a pro-globalization entity whose decisions support global financial interests. The leader claims that she is in favour of a ‘Europe of nations, not a Europe of illegal immigrants and rights’ activists’ (Danikas, 2024). According to the party, migration policy and the so-called ‘woke culture’ were at stake in the 2024 EP election (Voice of Reason, 2024). The party warns about the ‘Islamization of Greece and Europe’. Its policy solutions consist of the deportation of illegal immigrants, the closing of Greek borders, and the relocation of reception centres for migrants outside Greece. The party is staunchly against the acceptance of non-heterosexual sexual orientations, same-sex marriage and adoption rights. It prioritizes demographic growth through measures that support the ‘Greek’ family.

Left-wing populism

Coalition of the Radical Left–Progressive Alliance (Συνασπισμός της Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς – Προοδευτική Συμμαχία, SYRIZA–PA) – EP group: The Left

SYRIZA has been the main opposition party in Greece since 2019. The party was founded in 2004 and remained at the margins of the Greek party system until it rose to power during the Greek crisis. SYRIZA is a radical left populist party that critiques international capitalism and attempts to provide a socially just alternative to it. It is socially progressive, committed to equality and rights, and has historically put forward a version of soft Euroscepticism, criticizing the EU’s democratic deficit. During the Greek crisis, it adopted a fervent populist rhetoric blaming domestic and international elites for the Greek crisis (Vasilopoulou et al., 2014). It embraced an anti-establishment protest strategy, arguing that a different – anti-neoliberal – path was possible to take Greeks out of poverty and social exclusion.

After SYRIZA-PA’s defeat in the 2023 national election, the party elected a new leader, Stefanos Kasselakis, a relatively unknown politician and a former banker. Kasselakis was elected on a ticket prioritizing transparency, justice, labour rights, progressive taxation, and LGBTQ+ rights. The transformation of the party following its new leadership remains to be seen, especially considering that it has led to ongoing debates and factional splits within the party. During the 2024 EP election campaign, the party refrained from strong anti-neoliberal rhetoric and instead talked about a ‘progressive’ political space. The party had a positive message asking Greeks to opt for SYRIZA-PA at the ballot box: ‘For a better life, now’. Instead of an anti-establishment agenda, SYRIZA-PA talked about social protection, security and opportunities for all.

Course of Freedom (Πλεύση Ελευθερίας) – EP group: Non-attached

Course of Freedom is an anti-establishment political party founded in 2016 by former President of the Greek Parliament and SYRIZA MP Zoe Konstantopoulou. Its policy proposals are mixed, making it difficult to firmly place the party on the left–right spectrum. The leader explicitly argues: ‘We look neither right nor left. We look forward’ (CNN, 2024).

On the cultural dimension, the party puts forward an equality and inclusion agenda that tolerates differences and supports human, minority and LGBTQ+ rights (Course of Freedom, 2024b). It supports same-sex marriage and is pro-Palestinian (Chatzikonstantinou, 2024). At the same time, the party adopts a strong sovereigntist narrative seeking to appeal to ‘popular conscience’ with emotive language. For example, it demands reparations from Germany for the Second World War and seeks to ‘shake off the yoke of the memorandum despotism, the totalitarianism of the Eurobureaucracy, the debtocracy, the bankocracy and the interests and oligarchies that support, feed and benefit from this anti-democratic regime’ (Course of Freedom, 2024a). Course of Freedom has also been critical of the Prespa Agreement, appealing to nationalist voters opposed to austerity.

Communist Party of Greece (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, KKE) – EP group: Non-attached

The KKE was founded in 1918 and is considered an orthodox communist party guided by the ‘revolutionary worldview of Marxism–Leninism’ (KKE, 2013). It is among the few parties in Europe with such an ideological agenda that has maintained a persistent level of electoral success. In line with its communist ideology, the party rejects ‘bourgeois democracy’ and seeks to overthrow capitalism.

The KKE employs populism in its discourse (Hawkins et al., 2020). It has an anti-elite rhetoric arguing that Greek mainstream parties ‘blackmail the people’ and that New Democracy should be ‘afraid of the people’ (902.gr, 2024). On the cultural dimension, whereas KKE is tolerant of immigration, it is fervently against the decriminalization of drug use and exhibits culturally conservative attitudes towards LGBTQ+ rights, including same-sex marriage and adoption (Naftemporiki, 2024).

The party has a hard Eurosceptic stance, supporting Greece’s exit from the EU. It views the EU as imperialistic, anti-democratic, capitalist and exploitative. It perceives the EU’s impact on national sovereignty to be adverse and an impediment to social justice. In his pre-electoral speech, the party leader called the workers and the people to use their vote in order to ‘raise a red flag against the EU, SYRIZA and PASOK’, arguing that these parties satisfy the wishes of their ‘exploiters’ under the ‘delusion’ of social democracy (902.gr, 2024).

The KKE is also anti-American, anti-NATO and anti-EU. It is pro-Palestinian yet views the war in Ukraine as an imperialistic conflict between the ‘bourgeois powers’, i.e., the EU, NATO and the US, and ‘capitalist Russia’ (KKE, 2023). Economically, it proposes the nationalization of all industries and a centrally planned economy.

The campaign context

The 2024 EP election occurred against the backdrop of public dissatisfaction with domestic politics. Based on a Pew Research Centre (2024) opinion poll conducted between January and March 2024, 53 % of Greek respondents reported an unfavourable view towards the EU, which was 3 percentage points higher compared to 2023 and the largest group across the European countries surveyed. The same poll reported that in Greece, in contrast to other EU member states, public Euroscepticism derives primarily from left-leaning citizens. In addition, satisfaction with democracy had dropped from 32 % in 2021 to 22 % in 2024 (Pew Research Centre, 2024b) and was – not for the first time – the lowest across the sample of European countries. It is therefore no surprise that citizen dissatisfaction with the government was prominent among the public. For example, only 35% of respondents thought that their vote in the EP election would change things in Greece, 48% saw it as an opportunity to express protest (Alco, 2024), and 60% as a chance to vote against the government (To Vima, 2024).

Although public interest in the EP election was relatively high at 56% (Alco, 2024), national issues dominated the campaigns and were core to citizens’ decision-making. When presented with a list of issues that would influence their vote in the 2024 EP elections, 53.4 % of respondents answered the cost-of-living crisis and the economy. Other issues included European issues (8.2%), security (7.8%), health (7.6%), foreign policy (6.9%), the Tempi train crash (a deadly head-on collision between two trains in the Thessaly region in 2023) (6.5%), education (2.9%) and same-sex marriage (2.9%) (To Vima, 2024). These responses reflected a feeling of general economic malaise. For example, according to a Metron Analysis survey conducted in May 2024, the top two most important issues facing the country included the cost-of-living crisis (40%) and the economy (27%) (Kathimerini, 2024a). Most parties also devoted their campaigns to national issues. Although there was no official pre-electoral TV debate, on 24 May 2024, there was an informal debate in the Greek Parliament during its last session prior to the EP election, where questions of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis also dominated.

Interestingly, according to the Youth and Democracy Eurobarometer (2024) survey, the top priority for young Greeks is fighting poverty and economic and social inequalities (45%, 9 percentage points above the EU average). This is followed by preserving peace, reinforcing international security and promoting international cooperation (35%), and promoting human rights, democracy and common European values (31%).

Electoral results

Confirming the ‘second-order’ character of EP elections, only 41.39% of the electorate turned out to vote (table 1). Although this followed a general trend of declining turnout (Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2012), turnout was particularly low in 2024, i.e., over 12 percentage points lower than the 2023 national election and over 17 percentage points lower than the 2019 EP election.

Prior to the election, New Democracy and SYRIZA-PA had set themselves specific goals. On the one hand, the leader of New Democracy claimed that he was aiming for the same electoral result as in 2019 (Reporter, 2024). On the other hand, SYRIZA-PA’s Kasselakis claimed that he would be satisfied if his party gained over 20% of the vote (EFSYN, 2024). Both leaders’ claims failed to materialize, as the electoral result was overall one of electoral fragmentation both on the right and the left.

On the left, SYRIZA-PA’s electoral result dropped compared to the previous national and EP elections to just under 15%. The KKE received 9.25% of the vote, translating into two MEPs. Lastly, Course of Freedom received 3.4% of the vote, remaining relatively stable compared to the 2023 national election. On the right, three political parties received parliamentary representation, including Greek Solution with 9.3 %, Victory with 4.37 % and Voice of Reason with 3.04%. Together these parties elected 4 out of 21 MEPs.

The socio-demographics of the vote

There were no clear socio-demographic patterns of support for populist parties as defined by age and employment (Tables 2 and 3). Based on the exit poll (Kathimerini, 2024b), younger age groups primarily opted for SYRIZA–PA, whereas older groups were much more likely to support New Democracy. Course of Freedom benefited electorally from the youngest 17–24 age group. Young Greeks also opted for the far right going against the perception that these parties’ strongholds are among the older generations. In fact, older people voted primarily for New Democracy. Whereas Greek Solution received the least votes from the 17–24 age group, Voice of Reason received its second-best outcome in the same group. In addition, Greek Solution was the third most preferred party among the 25–34 age group.

In terms of employment status, SYRIZA–PA attracted support from public and private sector employees as well as pensioners. KKE was mostly successful among private sector employees and farmers. On the right, Greek Solution received significant support from farmers, which is consistent with the party’s strategy to add to its ballot a female farmer from the north of Greece, Galato Alexandraki, who was elected as an MEP. Farmers, nonetheless, were quite fragmented in their political preferences also supporting the left-wing populist Course of Freedom. Pensioners were much less likely to opt for Greek Solution, Victory or Voice of Freedom. Victory was very successful among public sector employees, whereas private sector employees were the top group for Voice of Reason.

There is also an interesting geographic dimension to the far-right populist vote (for a European perspective, see also Ejrnæs et al., 2024). In many districts in Northern Greece, these parties received above-average results. Specifically, Greek Solution came second in six electoral districts of the north, including Imathia (18.42%), Pella (17.28%), Kilkis (16.54%), Thessaloniki B (15.82%), Serres (15.64%), and Drama (15.52%).

Conclusion

The key message of this election is political discontent and a general feeling of economic malaise. Citizen protest against the government and domestic issues, such as inflation, the economy and the cost-of-living crisis, dominated the 2024 EP election in Greece. The results confirmed a trend of fragmentation across the political spectrum, which poses dilemmas both on the right and the left. On the right, the strength of the populist far right limits the electoral potential of a centrist strategy for the centre-right New Democracy. If New Democracy were to move towards the centre, multiple contenders would likely contest for the political space to its right. At the same time the far right is also divided, and it is not clear whether these parties are willing to work together. On the left, there is a discussion on the possibility of SYRIZA–PA joining forces in order to be able to challenge New Democracy. This strategy is also not without complexity: for SYRIZA–PA, it might entail that the party fully loses its radical and populist appeal, whereas PASOK might be seen as disloyal towards its core voters.

 

(*) Sofia Vasilopoulou (PhD LSE) is Professor of European Politics at King’s College London, UK. Her research and teaching interests lie in Comparative Politics, Political Behaviour, Party Politics and European Union Politics. Her work examines the causes and consequences of political dissatisfaction among the public and the ways in which this is channelled through party strategies and party competition. Specific themes include Euroscepticism and far-right politics. She has published articles in leading international peer-reviewed journals, including the European Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, European Union Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of European Public Policy and West European Politics. She is the author of Far-Right Parties and Euroscepticism: Patterns of Opposition (ECPR Press and Rowman & Littlefield 2018) and The Golden Dawn’s Nationalist Solution: Explaining the Rise of the Far Right in Greece (Palgrave Macmillan 2015 with Daphne Halikiopoulou). She is Joint Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Political Research.

 

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Election poster of Björn Höcke for the AfD party with the slogan roughly translating to "forbidden good" in Sonneberg, Thuringia, Germany, on August 4, 2024. Photo: Shutterstock.

Germany’s 2024 EP Elections: The Populist Challenge to the Progressive Coalition

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Please cite as:

Arzheimer, Kai. (2024). “Germany’s 2024 EP Elections: The Populist Challenge to the Progressive Coalition.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0071

 

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Abstract

The 2024 European parliamentary election in Germany marked a significant shift in the political landscape, with devastating results for the governing coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats (FDP). Chancellor Scholz’s SPD and the Greens experienced substantial losses, while the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) saw a modest increase in their vote share. The most notable gains were made by the populist radical-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly formed left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a breakaway from the Left (Die Linke), highlighting a growing demand for populist politics in Germany. The Left itself suffered heavy losses. Despite internal scandals and controversies that contributed to a considerable drop in support in pre-election polls, the AfD leveraged anti-immigration sentiments and economic concerns to gain substantial support. The BSW capitalized on left–authoritarian positions, emphasizing welfare and anti-immigration policies. Both parties also criticized Germany’s support for Ukraine and styled themselves as agents of ‘peace.’ The election results underscored the unpopularity of the ‘progressive coalition’ in Germany and reflected the impact of high inflation, energy security concerns and contentious climate policies on voter behaviour. Voter turnout was the highest since 1979, indicating heightened political engagement. Like in previous elections, populist parties were much more successful in the post-communist eastern states. While its impact on the European level is limited, the election sent shock waves through Germany, suggesting a shift in future policy directions, particularly concerning the green transformation and relations with Russia.

Keywords: Alternative for Germany (AfD); Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW); Germany; Russia; Ukraine; east–west differences

 

By Kai Arzheimer* (Institute for Political Science, University of Mainz)

Introduction and background

The result of the 2024 European parliamentary election in Germany was devastating for the governing three-party coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats (FDP). Chancellor Scholz’s SPD lost 2 percentage points compared to the 2019 EP election, polling just 13.9%, the worst result for the party in any national election since the Second World War. The Greens, which had done exceedingly well in the 2019 ‘green wave’, lost nearly half their votes and fell back to 11.9%. The Liberals lost only 0.2 percentage points, but their result of 5.2% put them precariously close to the electoral threshold that applies in national elections (although not in European ones).

Conversely, the main opposition Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) polled a combined 30%, a modest 1.1-percentage-point improvement on their 2019 result. While the result ensures they are the strongest party, it is low given both historical standards (they won 44.5% just 20 years ago) and the abysmal approval ratings of the government parties.

The combined vote share of these mainstream parties was just 61%. At least as far as perceptions were concerned, the big winner in these elections was the populist radical-right ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD, 15.9%), followed by the new left-wing populist ‘Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance’ (BSW, 6.2%). An additional 17% of the vote went to smaller parties, including the arguably populist ‘Left’ (2.7%), the arguably right-wing populist ‘Free Voters’ (FW, 2.7%), and ‘The Party’ (1.9%), a satirical outfit.

These results were almost perfectly in line with pre-election polls. The so-called ‘progressive coalition’ and its policies have been deeply unpopular almost from the get-go (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, n.d.), and the radical-right AfD has been the main beneficiary of this discontent. More specifically, after the initial rally-round-the-flag effect following Russia’s renewed attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the government’s popularity began to decline due to high inflation and worries about (energy) security.

In 2023, things went from bad to worse for the government and have not improved since. The coalition had planned to re-purpose unused special credit lines enacted during the pandemic to fund their programs for a green transformation of Germany’s economy. The intention was to reconcile the Greens’ ambitious plans for climate protection with the SPD’s interest in expanding welfare and the FDP’s insistence on not declaring a ‘budgetary emergency’ for 2024. While such a declaration would have allowed the government to suspend the constitutional ‘debt brake’, abusing the older credit allowances to notionally comply with the deficit rules was a dubious move at best. Following a complaint by the Christian Democrats, Germany’s Constitutional Court declared the federal budget unconstitutional and void, throwing the coalition in disarray just six months before the election (Kinkartz, 2023). With no money left to paper over them, the fundamental conflicts within the coalition were laid bare.

Early in 2023, the Christian Democrats, alongside much of the media, had also launched a campaign against a government flagship policy aimed at reducing Germany’s CO2 emissions by accelerating the phasing out of older oil and natural gas heating systems. Subsequently, all of the opposition parties and much of the media framed this policy as ideological and removed from the lives of ordinary people, making heat pumps a part of the culture wars and forcing the government to water down its proposals.

As previous Christian Democrat-led governments had signed up to the relevant European and international rules and agreements and had enshrined in German law the very climate targets the policy was designed to meet, this was arguably a populist (in a broader sense) move by the main opposition, one that was happily supported by smaller opposition parties and even by some FDP MPs. Both mainstream and populist opposition parties also sided with large-scale farmers’ protests against some cuts to agrarian subsidies that eventually forced another government U-turn (Arzheimer, 2024).

Finally, Germany accepted more than a million Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s 2022 invasion. While this caused few large-scale problems, an ongoing and very public conflict over funding between the federal government, the state governments and the municipalities, as well as the Christian Democrats’ constant push for harsher rules and stricter enforcement, helped to bring the issue of immigration back onto the agenda in 2023, after its salience had been low for several years (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen n.d.). The Israel–Hamas war played only a minor role in the campaign, but a knife attack by an Afghan man on an anti-Islam activist that left a police officer dead just days before the election triggered a fresh debate about immigration, Islamism and the longstanding policy against deportations to Afghanistan (Deutsche Welle, 2024c).

Against this background, the result of the European elections was hardly surprising. Nonetheless, it sent shock waves through the German polity that still reverberate.

The supply side: populist parties in the ascendancy

Alternative for Germany

The AfD was founded in 2013 as a right-of-centre, soft-Eurosceptic outfit that presented an ‘alternative’ to the bailout policies that followed the 2010–2011 Eurozone crisis (Arzheimer 2015). It quickly transformed into a characteristic radical-right populist party that attracted the prototypical electorate (Arzheimer & Berning, 2019). While many radical-right parties are striving to soften their public image, the most radical faction has dominated the AfD since 2017 (Pytlas & Biehler, 2023), and the AfD embraces openly extremist actors both within and outside the party (Arzheimer, 2019). As a consequence, the party as a whole is under surveillance by the domestic intelligence agency, and its youth wing, as well as several state branches, have already been classified as right-wing extremist. Like many other far-right parties in Europe, the AfD also has a longstanding association with Russia and has repeatedly voiced sympathy for Putin and his regime. Although the party toned down its statements immediately after the February 2022 invasion, it has since highlighted the economic consequences of the war and the sanctions for Germany and re-invented itself as a party of ‘peace’ (Arzheimer, 2023), even adopting the classic dove symbol in some of its publicity materials.

In the run-up to the 2024 European elections, the party floated the idea of including a call for the dissolution of the European Union in its manifesto, dropping this idea from the final version after a public backlash. However, the selection of candidates was strongly influenced by the most radical elements within the party. The top spot of the list went to Maximilian Krah, a sitting MEP with well-documented connections to German right-wing extremists, Russia and particularly China. Krah’s membership in the Identity and Democracy (ID) group had previously been suspended over allegations of fraud (Dahm, 2023). Petr Bystron, the second on the list, was a sitting MP in Germany’s Bundestag, known both for his extreme views, his fondness of conspiracy myths, and his support for Putin’s Russia. Asked why he would give up his seat in the Bundestag to become an MEP, he said he needed to get to ‘the source of the poison’ (Fiedler, 2023).

In January 2024, the AfD’s campaign got in trouble even before its official start. Investigative journalists reported on a meeting between representatives of the AfD, members of the extremist ‘Identitarian movement’, and potential donors. At the meeting, the participants had discussed plans for a ‘remigration’ – a euphemism for the expulsion of millions of immigrant-origin Germans. This story triggered a large-scale countermobilization, with hundreds of thousands of Germans taking to the streets to protest the AfD (Deutsche Welle, 2024a). These events contributed to a relative decline of AfD support in the polls, which had risen to an unprecedented 22% in December 2023 but dropped to around 17% over the next six weeks or so. It also negatively affected the relationship between the AfD and Marine Le Pen, who dominates the ID group in the European Parliament.

But his was just the beginning of the campaign’s woes. Two months before the election, a Czech newspaper published audio files that strongly suggested that Bystron had received at least 20,000 euros from the Russian propaganda portal ‘Voice of Europe’. As Bystron was a German MP at the time and vote buying is illegal in Germany, he quickly became the object of a full criminal investigation, which is still ongoing. Just a couple of days later, Krah’s parliamentary offices were searched by the police, and one of his aides was arrested as an alleged Chinese spy. While Krah himself has not been charged so far, a preliminary probe into allegations that he sold his vote to China and Russia is still underway (Deutsche Welle, 2024b).

Things came to a head in mid-May when Krah played down the atrocities committed by the Waffen SS in countries occupied by Nazi Germany in an interview with an Italian journalist. In response, the whole AfD delegation in the EP was excluded from the ID group (Reuters, 2024). Krah resigned his seat on the AfD’s national executive and was formally barred from speaking on the stump by the leadership, leading to the paradoxical situation that the campaign rolled on without the two top candidates.

As much of the AfD’s activities are social media-centric anyway, it probably did not matter too much. The AfD continued to push their core issues – first and foremost immigration, but also the economic impact of the war on Germany, climate denialism and hard Euroscepticism – without too much regard for their invisible candidates.

The Left and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance

The Left party is the product of a merger between the (primarily eastern) PDS, itself the successor of the GDR’s former state party, and the WASG, a mostly western group that broke away from the SPD over welfare reforms enacted in the early 2000s (Hough, Koß & Olsen, 2007). It is considered far left and populist (Rooduijn et al., 2023), although many in the party take a rather pragmatic approach to politics, especially at the local and regional levels.

Sahra Wagenknecht was arguably the party’s most prominent, controversial and charismatic politician. She started out as an orthodox communist in the early 1990s, a position that left her isolated within a decidedly post-communist party even after she changed her views. She gladly embraced the role of the outsider. As a gifted and very telegenic public speaker, she has been one of the most frequently invited guests on political talk shows for decades, although she stands for minority positions within a minor party.

During the so-called immigration crisis of 2015–2016, Wagenknecht became a (moderate) immigration sceptic. In 2018, she helped launch a leftist network that brought together tens of thousands of supporters but collapsed when she abandoned it the following year instead of turning it into a personal party, as many had expected. Wagenknecht was also critical of the anti-COVID measures and began cultivating a sizeable audience on social media during the pandemic (MDR, 2024).

In 2021, Wagenknecht published a book that was widely seen as the manifesto of an upcoming political project. In it, she accused her party of pandering to a ‘lifestyle left’ while ignoring the concerns of true working-class voters: welfare and immigration.

The Left’s reaction to Russia’s attack then provided the final straw. The 2011 basic program stresses the party’s links to the peace movement, highlights its ‘internationalist’ credentials and calls for the dissolution of NATO and a ‘common security architecture’ that would include Russia. However, the sheer scale of human suffering in Ukraine has led many in the Left to reconsider these positions. The Left’s manifesto for the European elections reflects this ambiguity. On the one hand, the document is highly critical of the US and NATO and even claims that the eastern enlargement of NATO has ‘contributed to the crisis’ (Die Linke n.d., 65). On the other, it highlights Ukraine’s right to self-defence, condemns the attack as a war crime, and demands that Russia withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory (without specifying whether that includes Crimea). Wagenknecht, however, took a more clearly pro-Russian stance. She routinely claims that the US and the collective West are blocking a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine for reasons of their own.

In September 2023, Wagenknecht and her supporters in the Left’s parliamentary registered the ‘Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance — Reason and Justice’ (BSW), which legally became a political party on 8 January 2024. Ten of the Left’s 38 MPs in the Bundestag eventually joined the new group. Amongst state-level MPs and the rank-and-file, the rate of defections was much lower.

This new party created much interest amongst political observers even before it was formally founded because it was assumed that it would cater to the so-far neglected demand for left–authoritarian (i.e., pro-welfare but anti-immigrant) politics in Germany (Wagner, Wurthmann, & Thomeczek, 2023). The EP election manifesto published in April 2024 (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, 2024) offers precisely that, dressed up in a populist fashion. The preamble blames politicians and EU elites for broken promises and ignoring the problems of ordinary citizens. The BSW wants to shrink the bureaucracy and, more importantly, the scope of the European Union by shifting back competencies to the member states.

At the same time and somewhat contradictory, they want the EU to enact higher minimum wages, higher corporate tax rates, stricter rules against money laundering, and limits on financial transactions. The BSW also demands new policies that would allegedly strengthen Europe’s industrial base through a ‘reasonable’ approach to climate protection and securing access to cheap energy and raw materials. This policy is framed as a precondition for expanding welfare. The BSW also rejects future enlargements and wants to curb not just illegal migration but also the recruitment of qualified workers from outside the EU. Instead, the party wants to reduce the ‘push factors’ for immigration by creating more equitable conditions globally. While the rejection of Islam is more muted than in the AfD’s statements, and while the AfD in turn keeps their most radical demands out of their manifesto, this is quite similar to the policies that the AfD offers.

However, the highest degree of overlap with the AfD can be seen in the BSW’s approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The sanctions, which are mentioned 14 times in a manifesto of 20 pages, are painted as harmful for Germany while having no effect on Russia itself. For the BSW, the attack on Ukraine is a ‘proxy war’ between the US and Russia (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, 2024: 14) that was ‘started on a military level by Russia’ but ‘could have been prevented and stopped by the West’ (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, 2024: 17). The only (alleged) violations of international law that the manifesto addresses are the Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria (Ibid.). The BSW even adopts an idea that the AfD previously launched in parliament (AfD Fraktion im Bundestag, 2023: 3) – making support for Ukraine conditional on Kyiv’s willingness to enter negotiations with Russia – albeit with a twist. It would incentivize Russia by offering to stop all military aid for Ukraine immediately should Russia agree to negotiate.

Demand for populism in Germany

Taken together, the AfD (15.9%), Left (2.7%), and BSW (6.2%) achieved a significant (nearly 25%) share of the vote. Moreover, at 64.8%, turnout was the highest since the EP’s first direct election in 1979, which suggests a high degree of interest and political involvement. Put differently, there is considerable demand for populist politics in Germany, even if the level is still lower than in France or Italy.

In line with second-order-election theory (Reif and Schmitt 1980), domestic actors and attitudes (the unpopularity of the federal government in particular) dominated the campaign. In a post-election poll (see ZDF Heute, 2024), just 10% of the AfD’s voters, 38% of the BSW’s voters, but a massive 85% of the Left’s remaining voters said that ‘Europe’ was more important for their decision than ‘Germany’. This poll result suggests that AfD voters are (even) more inward-looking and fundamentally Eurosceptic than the BSW’s. The average across all parties was 47%.

However, the issues at stake (immigration, Russia’s war against Ukraine, social and economic transformations) are international by nature and were often presented within a European frame of reference by the parties. Moreover, the AfD’s ouster from the ID group, as well the overtures of the (German) president of the commission towards Giorgia Meloni and her European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, helped to make this one of the most Europeanized EP elections ever.

Nonetheless, support for all three populist parties showed a striking geographical pattern that is very specific to German politics: they are much more successful in the eastern states (i.e., the territory of the former German Democratic Republic). Outside some university towns and the Berlin/Potsdam region, the AfD became the strongest party in all eastern districts and states, with state-wide results varying between 27.5% in Brandenburg and 31.8% in Saxony. In their heartlands in rural Saxony, they won up to 40% of the vote. Conversely, their best results in the western states were 14.7% in Baden-Württemberg and 15.7% in Saarland. There is no western district where they won more than 21%.

These lopsided results are hardly surprising: the multi-faceted legacy of the GDR, the shock and aftermath of the transformation in the 1990s and specific patterns of outmigration have led to a situation where individual levels of populism, nativism and place resentment — the feeling that one’s locale does not get the recognition and resources it deserves — are substantively higher in the eastern states than in the west even decades after unification (Arzheimer and Bernemann 2024). It is, however, important to note that AfD has made considerable inroads in the west of Germany, particularly in regions and even neighbourhoods that could be described as ‘left behind.’

The AfD also drew more support from men (19%) than women (12%), a gender gap that has been stable since 2014, whereas gender differences for the Left and BSW were within the margin of error. For a decade, the AfD was a party of middle-aged voters that struggled to mobilize the very young and the elderly. The latter is still true, but for the first time, AfD support amongst the under-30s is now (just) above average. The Left remains somewhat more popular (6%) in this group than with older voters, while BSW support hardly varies with age.

In socio-structural terms, workers (25%) and voters with medium levels of education (23%) had the highest propensity to vote for the AfD. For the Left and the BSW, there are no clear patterns, but one must bear in mind that in national polls, relatively few of their voters are sampled. Exit polls also suggest that 29% of the BSW’s voters had previously voted for the SPD and another 24% for the Left, while less than 10% were former AfD voters (Palzer, 2024). However, such transition analyses are fraught with methodological problems.

Across all respondents, the AfD remains deeply unpopular, with an average rating of –2.9 on a scale running from –5 to +5. The average values for the Left and BSW are –1.7 and –1.2, respectively. For comparison, the Greens, which have a smaller voter base than the AfD and are the least popular government party, receive a rating of –0.9. This suggests a considerable level of polarization between populist (and particularly radical-right) voters on the one hand and the voters of non-populist parties on the other.

Discussion and perspectives

Both the AfD and the BSW are nationalist parties, and the BSW, in particular, saw the EP election chiefly as an opportunity to gain media attention and access to public funds in preparation for the upcoming state elections. The AfD is still not welcome in the renamed ID (now Patriots for Europe, PfE) group and was forced to team up with a motley crew of fringe MEPs to reach the requisite number for forming a ‘Europe of Sovereign Nations’ group that gives them access to proper funding. BSW has not managed even that, and their MEPs are now sitting as Non-attached (NA). Nonetheless, both the AfD and the BSW will likely vote against any policies related to the green transformation or support for Ukraine and will push for ‘negotiations’ with – and closer economic ties to – Russia.

At least in the short term, however, their most significant impact will be on German politics. If they end up as the strongest or second-strongest party in one or more of the eastern states that go to the polls in autumn, that will have dramatic consequences not just for the Länder in question but for Germany’s system of decentralized and consensual policymaking, which could leave the country in uncharted waters.

 

(*) Kai Arzheimer is Professor of German Politics and Political Sociology at the University of Mainz. He works in the field of political behaviour, broadly defined and is particularly interested in far-right parties and their voters.

 

References

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Arzheimer, Kai and Carl Berning (2019). ‘How the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Their Voters Veered to the Radical Right, 2013-2017’. Electoral Studies 60: online first. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.04.004

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Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are seen at the conclusion of a political meeting for the Rassemblement National party in Marseille on March 3, 2024. Photo: Obatala-photography.

A Tipping Point for Far-Right Populism in France

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Please cite as:
Ivaldi, Gilles. (2024). “A Tipping Point for Far-Right Populism in France.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0070

 

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Abstract

The 2024 French European election took place against the backdrop of an economic and cost-of-living crisis in a context marked by global uncertainty arising from the war in Ukraine, social unrest and deep political discontent with President Emmanuel Macron. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) emerged as the big winner with 31.4% of the vote, while Macron’s Renaissance list trailed far behind at 14.6%. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing populist La France Insoumise (LFI) won 9.9%, reflecting current internal dissent within the party and deep ideological divisions exposed by the Israel–Hamas war. National issues dominated the electoral agenda in June. Populist voting across both sides of the political spectrum was strongly fuelled by political discontent with Macron, making the 2024 European elections primarily a ‘second-order’ national election. A crucial test for Emmanuel Macron, the outcome of the European election led to the decision by the incumbent president to call a snap legislative election. The election confirmed the electoral strength of the RN; however, it showed the revitalization of the Republican Front against the far right, which blocked Le Pen’s party from winning an absolute majority, delivering instead a hung parliament split into three blocks.

Keywords: European elections; populism; France; Le Pen; Zemmour; Mélenchon

 

By Gilles Ivaldi* (Sciences Po Paris-CNRS (CEVIPOF))

Background

The 2024 French European election took place against the backdrop of the economic and cost-of-living crisis in a context marked by global uncertainty arising from the war in Ukraine, social unrest and deep political discontent with President Emmanuel Macron.

The European election showed substantial gains by populist parties, particularly on the right of the political axis, with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) emerging as the big winner at 31.4% of the vote. The outcome of the European election led to the decision by Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly. The snap election that immediately followed confirmed the electoral strength of the RN; however, it showed the revitalization of the traditional Republican Front (Front Républicain) against the far right by both parties and voters, which had been significantly weakened in the 2022 legislative election. This revival blocked Le Pen’s party from winning an absolute majority, delivering a hung parliament split into three blocks, which more generally reflected the shape and increasing polarization of the French party system since 2017.

This chapter examines the strategies and performances of populist parties and the array of economic, cultural and political factors behind the rise in support for populism in France, particularly on the right of the political spectrum. Based on survey data, the analysis suggests that the 2024 French European election was primarily a ‘second-order’ national election fought on domestic issues, in which voters on both sides of the populist spectrum essentially expressed their political dissatisfaction with the incumbent president.

A topography of populism in France

In Western Europe, populism is predominantly found in the radical left and radical right (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018). Reflecting such diversity, three main parties currently dominate the populist scene in France, namely Marine Le Pen’s RN and Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête on the right of the political spectrum, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) on the left.

The RN exemplifies the typical radical right-wing variant of populism, operating on its core defining features of nativism and authoritarianism (Mudde, 2007; Pirro, 2022). The 2024 European campaign led by its popular young leader Jordan Bardella emphasized typical RN nativist policies calling for a ‘stop to the immigration flood by controlling borders and expelling illegal immigrants’ and for ‘defence of the security and civilizational values of the French through zero tolerance and the deportation of foreign delinquents and Islamists.’

Under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, the RN has embraced ‘social populism’, namely, a mix of egalitarian social protection and economic nationalism (Ivaldi 2023a). In the 2022 presidential election, this move allowed her to exploit the Russia–Ukraine War-related issues of energy and rising prices among working- and lower-middle-class voters most hit by the crisis (Ivaldi 2023b). The cost of living was again a key issue in the RN’s communication strategy in the 2024 European election, where the party pledged to ‘lower electricity bills’ and ‘reject all European taxes on energy’. Meanwhile, the party continued its economic nationalist agenda, declaring it would ‘prioritize French companies in public procurement’. Riding the wave of discontent among French farmers, the RN also pledged to ‘put an end to punitive ecological policies and fight unfair competition’ to protect farmers’ interests.

Euroscepticism has been a central feature of the FN/RN in France since the mid-1990s (Hainsworth et al., 2004), tapping into a wide range of institutional, economic and cultural issues (Ivaldi, 2018a). Since 2017, the RN has moderated its positions and abandoned its previous policy of ‘Frexit’, adopting, however, a more ambiguous stance vis-à-vis the EU and de-emphasizing European issues to increase its appeal to moderate voters. The RN’s 2024 campaign reiterated the call for ‘a Europe of nations against Macron’s Europe’ while pledging to ‘put an end to European Union enlargement’ and preserve France’s ‘sovereignty and right of veto’ so that ‘no decisions could be made contrary to France’s vital interests.’

Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête shows a populist radical-right profile similar to the RN’s (Ivaldi, 2023a). A well-known political commentator, columnist and author, Zemmour entered national politics at the 2022 presidential election, making nativism and anti-Muslim rhetoric a centrepiece of his presidential bid. In 2024, the Reconquête campaign led by Marion Maréchal, a former member of the RN and Marine Le Pen’s niece, exhibited the central ideological tenets of nativism and authoritarianism alongside populism and Euroscepticism. The manifesto called for a halt to ‘the Islamization of Europe’ and pledged to erect a ‘naval blockade against immigration in the Mediterranean’ while explicitly endorsing the extreme right-wing idea of ‘remigration’ by promising to deport all illegal immigrants, criminals and ‘foreign Islamists.’ Reconquête’s 2024 campaign was significantly hampered, however, by growing disagreement between Zemmour and Maréchal over party strategy and a possible rapprochement with the RN.

On the other hand, Mélenchon’s populist radical left LFI presents a universalistic profile, embracing a more socially inclusive notion of the people, which is essentially pitted against economic and political elites (Ivaldi, 2018b). LFI shows strong anti-establishment features, and its discourse and ideology illustrate radical left populist mobilization, which seeks to offer an alternative to the neoliberal hegemony. In June 2024, the campaign led by the party’s young leader, Manon Aubry, strongly opposed austerity and advocated economic redistribution and public spending.

LFI’s economic policies included higher taxes on capital, the expansion of public services, nationalizing the banking sector to fight speculation, raising the minimum wage and abolishing the 2023 pension reform to return the retirement age to 60. Additionally, the 2024 platform emphasized environmental issues and ecological transition policies, attesting to the more general ‘greening’ of the populist radical left in France since 2017. Like the RN, LFI has toned down its Euroscepticism in recent years, moving away from its previous call to leave the EU and that France should ‘disobey’ the European treaties to ‘preserve the national sovereignty of the French people’ (Ivaldi, 2018b).

LFI took a more radical course in the months before the election, however, reflecting Mélenchon’s ‘revolutionary’ strategy and the controversial stances taken by the party’s leadership concerning the Israel–Hamas war. Following the October 2023 attacks, Mélenchon came under fierce criticism for what was perceived as his ambiguous reaction to the events in Israel, declining to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group and adopting aggressive pro-Palestinian positions. Mélenchon and members of LFI were later accused of antisemitism and of fuelling political anger at Macron and the government while also targeting some of their allies in the newly formed left-wing alliance (New Ecological and Social People’s Union, NUPES) in parliament. Mélenchon’s strategy of radicalization caused enormous turmoil inside the party as prominent leaders such as François Ruffin openly expressed their criticism.

All three populist parties have made significant gains in recent national elections. The April 2022 presidential election saw a surge in electoral support for populism across the political spectrum (Perrineau, 2022). Le Pen won 23.2% of the presidential vote, coming in second place behind incumbent centrist President Emmanuel Macron (at 27.9%), progressing into the run-off where she received a record high 41.5%. In the first round, Zemmour made a significant breakthrough at 7% of the total votes cast. Finally, Mélenchon came in third place with 22% of the vote, taking the lead on the left from the once-dominant Socialist Party (PS).

In the subsequent legislative election of June 2022, the RN received 18.7% of the vote and 89 seats, by far the best result ever achieved by the far right in France, making the RN the largest parliamentary opposition. Mélenchon’s LFI was the dominant player within NUPES, which won a total of 26% of the vote and 157 seats, 75 of which were taken by the LFI.

The context of the 2024 EP elections in France

The 2024 French European election took place against the backdrop of the economic crisis and the rising cost of living in a context marked by global uncertainty arising from the war in Ukraine, social unrest and deep political discontent with President Emmanuel Macron.

Politically, the European elections were located halfway through Macron’s second presidency since April 2022, which had been significantly weakened by the loss of its absolute majority in the 2022 legislative election. Between 2022 and 2024, minority governments led by Élisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal struggled to find agreements to pass legislation in an increasingly ideologically polarized parliament dominated by LFI and the RN. The Borne government was strongly criticized for repeatedly using the provisions of Article 49(3) of the Constitution, which allows bills to be passed without a vote. Political unrest culminated in March 2023 after the government used Article 49(3) to pass a highly unpopular law raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. Both LFI and the RN opposed the reform, which was overwhelmingly rejected by the French, resulting in mass demonstrations and strikes.

The new Attal government and Emmanuel Macron entered the 2024 election with low popularity ratings: in June, less than a quarter (24%) of the French said they ‘trusted the president to handle the country’s biggest problems’; the comparable figure for Prime Minister Attal was 29% (Elabe, 2024). The European election campaigns of both the RN and LFI tried and capitalized on such political discontent by making the election a referendum for or against Emmanuel Macron and the government, essentially emphasizing domestic concerns over European issues.

Economic fears clearly dominated the campaign, creating a propitious context for populist politics across the board. According to polls, no fewer than 54% of French voters said the cost of living and purchasing power would be important to their vote. Meanwhile, immigration emerged as a salient issue for another 44%, followed by law and order at 26% (CEVIPOF, 2024a). This salience reflected growing public concerns over Islamist terrorism and debates surrounding immigrant integration in France following the urban riots of summer 2023 throughout the country. In December 2023, a vote for a new restrictive immigration law marked a significant shift to the right by the government. The law was widely seen as emulating the nativist policies of the RN, some of which had been brought into the draft bill by the mainstream right, attesting to the radical right turn of the Républicains (LR) under the leadership of Éric Ciotti (Ivaldi, 2024).

Populist voting in the 2024 EP elections

The 2024 French European election saw a rise in electoral support for far-right populism. Turnout was 51.5%, representing a mere increase of about 1.4 points compared to five years earlier and very close to the European average (51.1%). Le Pen and Bardella’s RN emerged as the big winner at 31.4% of the vote (up 8 percentage points compared to 2019), taking 30 of France’s 81 seats in the European Parliament. Macron’s Renaissance list came in a distant second at 14.6%. Meanwhile, Mélenchon’s left-wing populist LFI won 9.9%, a gain of 3.6 percentage points on its previous result in the 2019 EP elections, which was, however, far lower than Mélenchon’s performance in the 2022 presidential election. To the left, LFI was outperformed by the socialist list led by MEP Raphaël Glucksmann in alliance with his Place Publique movement, which came third with 13.8%. Finally, the Reconquête list led by Maréchal received 5.5% of the vote and five seats, making its first entry into the European Parliament.

Polling data confirm that the mix of economic insecurity, immigration fears, and political discontent with Macron may have created a ‘perfect storm’ for far-right populism in the 2024 French European election. Economic grievances and issues have been important factors in the electoral revitalization of far-right populism in France since the early 2010s. Support for the FN has been fuelled by feelings of economic alienation mediated by cultural concerns over immigration and strong anti-elite sentiments (Ivaldi, 2022). In the 2024 EP election, support for the RN was primarily motivated by immigration (77%), the cost of living (67%), and law and order (40%). Similarly, immigration (89%) and security issues (58%) were paramount to Reconquête voters, reflecting the typical far-right agenda. In contrast, LFI voters said they were primarily concerned with the cost of living (61%), social inequalities (49%), and the environment (34%) (CEVIPOF, 2024a).

Polls indicate that the 2024 European election served as a referendum on Macron and the Attal government. Political protest and anti-incumbent sentiments were key to populist voting across the spectrum. While 39% of the French (36% in 2019) said they essentially voted to manifest their opposition to the president and the government, it was 53% among LFI voters, 54% in Reconquête, and no less than 68% among those who had turned to the RN (IPSOS, 2024a). Finally, polls showed a different trade-off between domestic and European issues across voters. Overall, 45% of the electorate said they voted based on domestic concerns, a proportion like the one observed in 2019 (43%). To the left, LFI voters were like the national average at 45%. On the other hand, national issues clearly dominated the electoral agenda of far-right populist voters, with 62% of Reconquête voters and nearly three-quarters (73%) of RN voters saying these issues had been decisive at the ballot box. In contrast, European concerns were paramount to over 80% of Renaissance, socialist, and ecologist voters (IPSOS, 2024a).

Such differences were reflected in attitudes towards Europe, which varied significantly across parties. Overall, only 22% of the French said they opposed European integration, with a majority (57%) saying they supported Europe but would like it to take a different course. Opposition to the EU was substantially stronger among Reconquête (42%) and RN (43%) voters. On the other hand, LFI voters showed more positive views of Europe, with only 16% expressing opposition to further integration (CEVIPOF 2024b).

With nearly a third of the vote, the RN list managed to attract voters across most socio-demographic groups. As in 2022, the RN closed the traditional radical-right gender gap (Durovic & Mayer, 2022), winning 32% and 30% of the vote among men and women, respectively. The Bardella list also did significantly better than the other parties among young voters under 25 years (25%). While consolidating its traditional working- and lower-middle-class constituencies – with no less than 54% of the vote among workers and 40% among white collars – the RN further widened its electoral base by making significant inroads in other occupational groups, winning 29% of the vote among technicians and associate professionals while also going neck-and-neck with the socialists among managers and professionals at 20% of the vote. Finally, the RN won no less than 29% of the vote among pensioners – up to 36% among those from a lower social strata background – thus making significant gains in a group traditionally more resilient to far-right populism in France (IPSOS, 2024b).

To the left, the LFI list led by Manon Aubry essentially overperformed among young voters, receiving a third of the vote (33%) among those aged 18–24 years and 20% among those aged 25–34 years. This result may reflect the strong position taken by LFI on the war in Gaza, which emerged as one of the main concerns in those age groups (IPSOS, 2024b). The salience of the Israel–Hamas conflict was also confirmed by the extremely high level of support (64%) for LFI among the small group of self-declared Muslims in polls (CEVIPOF, 2024a), in line with Mélenchon’s appeal to voters from an immigrant background. More generally, LFI voters showed higher average educational attainment than their RN counterparts, and Aubry’s list achieved a higher level of support amongst voters with a university degree (15%).

The snap legislative election

The outcome of the European election led to the unexpected decision by Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call a snap election within three weeks despite anticipations of an RN victory and forecasts of a far-right absolute majority. Macron’s political gamble was seen as a strategic move to make parties and voters both face up to their own responsibilities in the event of an RN majority in parliament while also exposing the RN’s unpreparedness for government. Macron called upon the ‘silent majority of voters’ against the ‘disorder’ caused by radical parties (AFP, 2024), hoping to form a new centrist majority by aggregating the centre-left and centre-right against the immediate and tangible threat of the far right gaining power.

Within the extremely short pre-election period, tactical alliances were built across both sides of the political spectrum. Most notably, despite diverging positions on Europe, Gaza and Ukraine, the major parties of the left agreed to form a broad coalition dubbed the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), bringing together LFI, the Communist Party, the Greens and the Socialists together with Glucksmann’s Place Publique. While they had all competed individually in the European elections, the NFP member parties agreed to select single candidates (i.e., avoid running against one another) in almost all of France’s 577 constituencies, and there were few dissident left-wing candidates. The breakdown of NFP candidates showed that LFI remained the dominant force (229 candidates), followed by the socialists (175) and the Greens (92).

At the centre, Macron’s Renaissance movement rallied its previous allies in the outgoing parliament inside his Ensemble coalition, i.e., François Bayrou’s centrist Mouvement démocrate (MoDem) and Édouard Philippe’s centre-right Horizons. Further to the right, the 2024 legislative election saw a notable reshuffling of the sub-party system. Éric Ciotti, head of the Republicans, struck an electoral pact with the RN, eventually running a total of 62 candidates with the far right under the new À Droite (To the Right) banner. Other LR leaders vehemently opposed such a decision, including Laurent Wauquiez, a close ally of Ciotti and hardliner within the party. This resulted in bitter infighting and the attempt by LR to expel Ciotti, which was overturned by a Paris court before the election. The Republicans entered the legislative election significantly divided and weakened, running candidates in 305 constituencies.

The results of the first round of the June legislative election showed a surge in voter turnout (to 66.7%), a substantial increase (about 19 percentage points) from the previous 2022 election, reflecting both voter desire for change after seven years of Macron’s presidency, and growing fears of the far right getting closer to power. On election night, the RN was again the big winner, receiving 29.3 % of the vote – its best performance ever in a legislative election – to which one must add the 4% received by Ciotti’s À Droite candidates, giving a total of about a third of the total vote cast for the far right. RN candidates topped the polls in 297 out of 577 constituencies, and they could progress to nearly all the second-round run-offs. This result confirmed the geographical spread of the RN vote across all regions of France, which had already been observed in the European election.

Further to the right, the results of the snap election showed the electoral marginalization of Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête, reflecting growing intra-party dissent and disagreement over party strategy between Zemmour and Maréchal. Ahead of the first round, Maréchal was expelled from the party together with two other vice presidents – Guillaume Peltier and Nicolas Bay – after she had initiated talks with the RN leadership and had publicly called for a union of the two far-right parties. Reconquête entered the election independently and fielded 330 candidates who collectively polled a mere 0.75 % of the vote in the first round, making Zemmour’s party politically irrelevant. To the left, the newly formed NFP came second at 28.5% and took the lead in 159 constituencies. Macron’s Ensemble coalition finished third with 21.8% of the vote cast, topping the polls in 70 constituencies, essentially in the western part of the country and the more bourgeois areas inside and around Paris.

Legislative run-offs were fought in the 501 constituencies where two or more candidates had surpassed the institutional threshold of 12.5% of registered voters to be allowed to progress into the second round. Between the two rounds, the traditional Republican Front – that is, the ad hoc alliances of parties and voters across the spectrum that coalesce whenever the RN is likely to win a decisive round – was revitalized, resulting in 217 candidates withdrawing from three-way races in their constituencies to reduce the chances of an RN victory.

The second round attested to the mobilization of voters against the far right. At 66.6%, voter participation rose to the highest level since the 1997 legislative elections (up from 53.8% in 2022). Between the two rounds, mass protests against the RN were a strong sign of growing public concern about the far right getting into power in France. The second round delivered a hung parliament divided into three blocks. The left-wing NFP secured the most seats after the second round, winning a total of 180, falling short, however, of the 289 seats needed for an overall majority. LFI lost its predominance inside the broad left-wing coalition, taking 72 seats, as opposed to 66 for the socialists and 38 for the Greens. Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance came third with 163 seats, down 87 seats from the already relative majority it had secured in the 2022 election.

The 2024 legislative election came as a disappointment for the RN after its historical first-round performance and the presence of its candidates in most second-round run-offs. With a total of 143 seats (including Ciotti’s À Droite MPs), Le Pen’s party fell well short of the absolute majority needed to form a government, although this represented a substantial increase in the total number of RN seats compared with 89 in the 2022 elections. Because of the Republican Front put forward by mainstream parties, the number of three-way run-offs featuring the RN and two other parties was reduced from 306 to 89, significantly impacting the outcome for the far right: the RN lost no fewer than 154 constituencies where it had taken the lead in the first round.

Other factors contributing to the RN’s electoral setback included the party’s poor credentials for government and the extreme right-wing profile of its candidates. The campaign exposed the RN’s unpreparedness for the government despite the Matignon Plan – essentially a list of candidates for all 577 constituencies in the National Assembly – put forward in haste by Bardella just before the first round. The election was punctuated with hesitations and U-turns on some of the party’s key economic and immigration policies, such as lowering the retirement age back to 60 and restricting access to public jobs for people with dual citizenship. Meanwhile, the media revealed that many of the RN candidates hastily brought to the campaign from the party rank-and-file had repeatedly posted racist, homophobic, pro-Putin, COVID-19 denial and anti-Semitic comments on social media, casting doubt about Le Pen’s claim that she had detoxified her party. Additionally, some RN candidates had links with violent ultra-nationalist organizations in France, and one of them was found to have a criminal record for armed robbery.

Discussion and perspectives

The 2024 legislative election has left France in a political deadlock, delivering a hung parliament split into three blocks. The outcome of the 2024 European and legislative elections have more generally reflected the shape and increasing polarization of French politics since 2017; that is, a weakened yet still resilient centrist block squeezed between two radical alternatives on the left (LFI) and right (RN) of the party system. While parties of the left have managed to somewhat overcome their ideological and policy divergences, electoral support for the left remains relatively low, casting doubt about the possibility of a credible left-wing alternative while also attesting to the shift to the right that has taken place in French politics, a trend seen in many other European countries.

With an ever more fragmented parliament and no stable government in sight, the outcome of the 2024 elections will undoubtedly prolong uncertainty and political instability in a context marked by social unrest, growing economic anxiety and public debt and deficit. Such uncertainty will likely fuel electoral support for populism across the political spectrum in the forthcoming months, as economic and cultural fears will continue to top the political agenda. Macron and his centrist party face the challenge of building ad hoc alliances across ideologically diverse parties to pass legislation to address such concerns. Meanwhile, both LFI and the RN will need to work on their policy credibility, organization and membership to try and establish themselves as viable alternatives in the 2027 presidential election.

 

(*) Gilles Ivaldi is researcher in politics at CEVIPOF and professor at Sciences Po Paris. His research interests include French politics, parties and elections, and the comparative study of populism and the radical right in Europe and the United States. Gilles Ivaldi is the author of De Le Pen à Trump: le défi populiste (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2019), The 2017 French Presidential Elections. A political Reformation? 2018, Palgrave MacMillan, with Jocelyn Evans. He has recently co-edited The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe, European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), 2023, with Emilia Zankina. His research has appeared in journals such as Electoral Studies, the International Journal of Forecasting, Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, French Politics, Revue Française de Science Politique or Political Research Quarterly.

 

References

AFP (2024) Macron defends surprise snap-election call as ‘most responsible solution’, 18 June, https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240618-macron-defends-surprise-snap-election-call-most-responsible-solution-france

CEVIPOF (2024a) Enquête électorale française Élections européennes – vague 6, Ipsos, Le Monde, Fondation Jean Jaurès et Institut Montaigne, June.

CEVIPOF (2024b) Enquête électorale française Élections européennes – vague 5, Ipsos, Le Monde, Fondation Jean Jaurès et Institut Montaigne, May.

Durovic, A. & Mayer, N. (2022) Wind of change? The reconfiguration of gender gaps in the 2022 French presidential election: The reconfiguration of gender gaps in the 2022 French presidential election. Revue française de science politique, 72, 463–484. https://doi.org/10.3917/rfsp.724.0463

ELABE (2024) Baromètre ELABE pour Les Échos, 13 June. https://elabe.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/20240613_les_echos_observatoire-politique.pdf

IPSOS (2024a) Comprendre le vote des Français, Enquête Ipsos pour France Télévisions, Radio France, France24/RFI, Public Sénat/LCP Assemblée Nationale, 6–7 June.

Ivaldi, G. (2018a) Contesting the EU in Times of Crisis: The Front National and Politics of Euroscepticism in France, Politics, 38(3): 278–294.

Ivaldi, G. (2018b) Populism in France, in Daniel Stockemer (ed.) Populism around the world: A Comparative Perspective, Cham: Springer, pp.27–48.

Ivaldi, G. (2022) Le vote Le Pen, in Perrineau, Pascal (dir.) Le Vote clivé. Les élections présidentielle et législatives d’avril et juin 2022, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble/UGA éditions, pp.153–164.

Ivaldi, G. (2023a) When far right parties compete: a case study of Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen in the 2022 French presidential election, French Politics, online first 13 July 2023.

Ivaldi, G. (2023b) The impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on right-wing populism in France, in Ivaldi, Gilles and Zankina, Emilia (Eds). (2023) The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). 8 March 2023. Brussels, p.141–154.

Ivaldi, G., Torner, A. (2023) From France to Italy, Hungary to Sweden, voting intentions track the far-right’s rise in Europe, The Conversation, 4 October, https://theconversation.com/from-france-to-italy-hungary-to-sweden-voting-intentions-track-the-far-rights-rise-in-europe-214702

Ivaldi, G. (2024) The Populist Radical Right Turn of the Mainstream Right in France, in The transformation of the mainstream right and its impact on (social) democracy, Policy Study, Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), April, pp.80–93.

Mudde, C. (2007) Populist Radical Right parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.

Mudde, C. and Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2018) Studying Populism in Comparative Perspective: Reflections on the Contemporary and Future Research Agenda. Comparative Political Studies, 51(13), 1667–1693.

Perrineau, P. (2022) Le Vote clivé: Les élections présidentielle et législatives d’avril et mai 2022. Presses Universitaires de Grenoble.

Pirro, A.L.P. (2022). Far right: The significance of an umbrella concept. Nations and Nationalism, 29(1), 101–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12860

 

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Flag of Finland and the European Union flag displayed in the European Council offices in Brussels, Belgium, on April 10, 2024. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.

The Loss of the Populist Radical Right in the 2024 European Parliament Elections in Finland

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Please cite as:

Herkman, Juha. (2024). “The Loss of the Populist Radical Right in the 2024 European Parliament Elections in Finland.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0069

 

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Abstract

In the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections, the populist radical-right Finns Party had a disappointing result; it came sixth nationally and lost 6.2% of the vote and one seat compared to the 2019 elections. The centre-right National Coalition (NC) party won the elections with 24.8% of the vote and four seats, but the real winner was the Left Alliance, which came second (17.3%) and gained three seats. The elections revealed voters’ deep distrust towards the government, in which the Finns Party supported significant austerity measures and cuts to public spending through its leader and finance minister, Riikka Purra. People’s fear of the rising far right in Europe was also a salient theme in campaign debates, which diminished the Finns Party’s support, alongside a low voter turnout.

Keywords: Election campaign; populist radical right; Finns Party; antagonism; government/opposition

 

By Juha Herkman* (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland)

Introduction

In Finland, one political party is commonly referred to as ‘populist’ – the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, which was initially called True Finns). However, depending on how populism is defined, other political parties and individual politicians may sometimes be described as being populist when they use provocative language, make unrealistic promises and encourage strong antagonisms (see Herkman, 2022). Therefore, the label ‘populist’ has occasionally been used to refer to liberal green or leftist actors and minor political parties with little or no representation in parliament. Here populism is understood as an affective process in which strong antagonisms are exploited to construct a united political group identity and movement mobilization as ‘the people’ (Laclau, 2005; Herkman, 2022). In this, no other parliamentary party than the Finns Party can be called ‘populist’ as such in Finland.

The Finns Party was established in 1995 as the successor of the Finnish Rural Party, an agrarian populist party created in 1959. The legacy of the Finnish Rural Party (SMP) has made the Finns Party a more normal political player compared to the populist parties of the Nordic countries (Herkman & Jungar, 2021). Under the leadership of Timo Soini (1997–2017), the Finns Party was a rather traditional populist party with an anti-elitist, nationalist and Eurosceptic agenda, as well as left-leaning economic policies. However, in the 2010s, Soini started flirting with actors opposed to immigration, and the party became very popular. Under the leadership of Jussi Halla-aho (2017–2021) and Riikka Purra (2021–present), the party has become a clear example of the European populist radical right, with a strong anti-immigration message and nativist ideology (Jungar & Jupskås, 2014; Norocel, 2016). Regarding economic policies, the party has also turned to the right. During the Soini’s period, the party followed the SMP legacy as a proponent of the disadvantaged groups as the ‘workers’ movement without socialism’, whereas the new leaders have promoted ‘welfare chauvinism’ and attacked the ‘exploiters of the welfare state as the enemy of the real hard-working people’ in the wake of immigration criticism (see Norocel, 2016).

The Finns Party has traditionally been the only openly Eurosceptic parliamentary party in Finland, although the Centre Party has also promoted Euroscepticism, especially in agricultural policies. However, compared to national elections, in which it has been the second or third largest party in Finland with 17.5–20.1% of the vote between 2011 and 2023, the Finns Party has had limited success in the EP elections (see Figure 1). In the 2019 EP election, the party obtained its best result to date, with 13.8% of the vote, coming in fourth among Finland’s parties. After these elections, the party joined the new Identity and Democracy group, but it moved to the more moderate European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in 2023 because they did not want to be identified with such political parties as France’s National Rally or Italy’s Lega, which were seen far too extreme in Finnish public discussions prior to the 2024 EP elections. In 2019–2024, the Finns Party had two members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Teuvo Hakkarainen and Laura Huhtasaari; as a country, Finland had 14 MEPs (as a result of Brexit, Finland now has 15 MEPs).

Because of geopolitics and its high dependence on European markets, Finland has been among the countries with the most favourable disposition towards the European Union (EU) in the twenty-first century. Based on the figure above, it seems that populist anti-immigration rhetoric and Euroscepticism do not take you as far in the EP elections as in national elections in Finland. In opinion polls, two-thirds of Finns have expressed positive thoughts about EU membership; however, only 22% of Finns Party supporters shared this attitude, and 58% of them were negatively disposed towards EU membership (YLE, 2023). In Finland, the voter turnout is much lower for the EP elections compared to national elections, which usually diminishes the share of the Finns Party’s vote because their voters channel the general disappointment and protest at politics and are therefore unsure of voting. In the 2019 EP elections, the turnout was 42.7% of the voter population living in Finland, whereas it was 72% in the 2023 parliamentary elections and 71.6% in the first round of the 2024 presidential elections.

The 2024 EP elections were very interesting in Finland because the Finns Party has been part of the right-wing government with the NC since 2023. Also, in April 2023, Finland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Since entering government, the Finns Party has diminished its populism and promoted very right-wing economic policies based on strong austerity measures and considerable cuts to public spending thanks to its leader, Riikka Purra, who is currently the finance minister. According to polls, support for the Finns Party has decreased remarkably after the parliamentary elections. In the spring of 2024, the relationship between the government and workers became very polarized, with numerous strikes taking place in response to the government’s actions.

The Finns Party has traditionally been the Eurosceptic party in Finnish EP elections, promoting an agenda opposed to the EU, immigration and climate change policies. However, concerning the war in Ukraine and NATO, the party has been in line with the position of the other major parties in Finland because the population strongly supports Ukraine and criticizes Putin’s Russia. On this point, the Finns Party differs from the European far right, which has often supported Putin’s regime and opposed NATO. Among the parties, the NC – which usually comes first in EP elections in Finland – has been the strongest supporter of the EU and NATO. The constellation of the NC and the Finns Party in government and the liberal Greens and the Left in opposition makes the analysis of the 2024 EP elections extremely interesting from the perspective of populism.

Populist antagonism in the election campaign

EP elections are often seen as second-order elections because, in many countries, national and local issues take precedence over European ones during campaigning (see Reif & Schmitt, 1980). This is not completely true in Finland: in the EP elections, European issues are highlighted, even though they are discussed from a national angle (Herkman et al., 2024).

In total, 232 candidates registered to campaign across all Finnish political parties before the deadline of 10 May 2024. The Finns Party fielded 20 candidates, as did the other major parties. In the campaign, the opinion polls ranked the Finns Party third with an estimated 16%–17% of the vote. The time available for campaigning was rather short – no more than three or four weeks. The parties launched their election manifestos about six weeks before the election.

The Finns Party’s manifesto, Päätetään itse (Let’s Make the Decisions Ourselves), was published on 24 April 2024. It was seen as milder compared to the past, as the party abandoned its long-term goal of withdrawing from the EU as ‘unrealistic’. The manifesto recognized the benefits of the EU for Ukraine and the Common Market, even though it saw the euro as damaging for Finland. However, the document contained several familiar themes, such as a strong anti-immigration agenda, according to which asylum seekers should be sent to third countries outside Europe. The manifesto also criticized what it saw as the EU’s unwise expansionism, failed income-transfer politics and eagerness to meddle in matters that are the preserve of the member states.

During the campaign, the Finns Party repeatedly criticized the recent regulation of plastic bottle tops as a striking example of ‘stupid’ EU policies, and it mocked the regulation in several comments, blog posts and YouTube videos. The previous leader and a key figure in the party, Jussi Halla-aho, argued in a campaign video that the EU makes decisions that do not consider national interests because European decision-makers are not interested in them. According to Halla-aho, a vote for the Finns Party would be a vote for the idea of Finland ‘making the decisions ourselves.’

The Finns Party’s status as a populist radical-right actor coloured the whole campaign of the 2024 EP elections in Finland, and an anti-populist struggle took place against them. The Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) campaign slogan and manifesto title was Jo riittää–pystymme parempaan (This Is Enough–We Can Make It Better) in reference to the challenges to European unity, equal rights, the rule of law and the fight against climate change posed by the far right. The Left Alliance and the Greens spoke of the same issues in their campaign manifestos, underscoring their anti-populist and anti-far-right credentials. Interestingly, the NC, the party of the prime minister and one of the companions of the Finns Party in government, chose security as the most important theme in their election manifesto, entitled Oikealla puolella Eurooppaa (On the Right Side of Europe), in addition to their traditional themes of the free market and innovation. In their program, security also meant strict border controls for asylum seekers that aligned with their long-standing Western orientation and support of NATO but also echoed the collaboration with the Finns Party in the governing cabinet.

Online candidate questionnaires have been popular in Finland for several decades, and all major media outlets publish them during an election campaign (Carlson & Strandberg, 2005). The most influential questionnaires are published by the public broadcaster YLE, the leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the oldest national commercial television channel MTV3, and national tabloid papers. The questions posed to candidates vary across the media outlets; however, their results are generally similar to the value map of YLE’s questionnaire (see Figure 2, YLE, 2024a). Even if there is some variation among the candidates in a party, the value map demonstrates the clear differences among the parties in terms of their economic (left–right axis) and value orientations (conservative–liberal axis).

The more a party is on the right of the map, the more it supports the free market, and vice versa. The higher a party is on the map, the more it holds conservative values, and vice versa. By looking at Figure 2, one can see that the Finns Party and the Christian Democrats are the most conservative actors in Finnish politics, as well as the strongest proponents of the free market. Only their companion in government, the NC, is more to the right economically, although this party is more moderate in terms of values, making it a traditional representative of the centre-right. In contrast, the Social Democrats and the Greens are very liberal and economically left-wing, together with the Left Alliance, which is even more to the left regarding the economy. The figure visually demonstrates how far apart the left–green camp and the Finns Party were in the 2024 EP election.

The same chasm was evident in the election debates aired by the major national television channels. Whereas the most important topic in the 2019 EP elections was climate change, which explains the success of the Greens at the time (Herkman et al., 2024: 103), in the 2024 elections, security was the key theme. This was due to the war in Ukraine and Russia’s influence on asylum seekers’ crossings on Finland’s eastern border. As mentioned above, the support for Ukraine in Finland has been almost unanimous among the country’s parties. Stricter border controls as a result of Russian operations have been supported even by the left–green parties, even though they have made some criticism concerning human rights. The focus on security made the Finns Party the agenda setter during the 2024 EP election campaign.

Despite this, the Finns Party was forced onto the defensive in other areas. Due to the predicted victory of the far right across the continent and its consequences for the EU, the media and the left–green parties constantly discussed these issues on the air. The Social Democrats based their campaign on attacking the far right for its damaging influence on European unity, the support for Ukraine, human rights, climate change policies and the principle of the rule of law. The Left Alliance and the Greens attacked the Finns Party on immigration and environmental issues, accusing it of representing the far right. The NC supported the government’s security policies, developed with the Finns Party, but it tried to keep out of the clash between the liberal opposition and the far right. In this situation, the Finns Party remained a ‘fringe populist movement’ (Herkman & Palonen, 2024: xxix).

The leader of the Finns Party, Riikka Purra, who is also the finance minister, had become a symbol of the government’s austerity policies, which created problems for the party during the campaign debates. Even though the party leaders tried to hold back in the debates, some party members had a more aggressive stance. For example, a well-known Finns Party MP, Sebastian Tynkkynen, used much more provocative rhetoric on immigration than Purra. This division of labour, according to which the leaders appear more moderate when there is a large audience while others are more aggressive in their communications with radical supporters, is typical of the populist radical right (Herkman, 2022: 77).

The populist radical right has often been seen as the political force that benefits the most from social media because these tools help them to use the double-speech strategy mentioned above, bypass journalistic scrutiny and appeal to hardcore far-right supporters (e.g., Krämer, 2017). The Finns Party has also been successful in its social media use, from Halla-aho’s and Soini’s blog posts to the more recent use of TikTok and Instagram by its MPs. Tynkkynen has a popular YouTube channel and successfully used Facebook in his campaigning. However, a study of Twitter use during the 2019 EP elections found that the most active tweeters were from the liberal, pro-EU camp and that Finns Party members mostly retweeted other people’s content and commented aggressively on it (Herkman et al., 2024). During the 2024 EP elections, Palonen and Jokinen (2024) systematically monitored social media campaigns. According to them, the Finns Party was not particularly active. Social media debates focused on attacking the government, of which the Finns Party is a member.

Surprising election results

In Finland, the 2024 EP elections were held on 9 June, but there was an advance voting period between 29 May and 4 June. The electoral district was the whole country for the 15 MEPs elected from Finland, who were chosen with the d’Hondt method. Some hoped the turnout would increase from the previous elections, and there was a significant increase in advance voting. However, in the end, the turnout was just below that of 2019, with 42.4% of those eligible in Finland casting their votes. The results surprised everyone because they differed radically from the polls, which are usually very reliable in Finland (see Figure 3).

As predicted, the NC took first place in the elections with 24.8% of the vote, gaining a couple of percentage points more than the polls had predicted and increasing its seats from three to four. The biggest surprise was the Left Alliance, which came in second with 17.3% of the vote and three seats (previously, they had only one). The Social Democrats were third (14.9%). The Finns Party was the most obvious loser, coming in sixth (7.6%), having taken 13.8% of the vote and fourth place in the 2019 elections.

Overall, it seems that the government/opposition divide remarkably affected the election results. Although the prime minister’s party (the NC) came first, the opposition was arguably much more successful. The Left Alliance, SDP, Centre Party and Greens gained nine seats combined, whereas the NC, Finns Party and Swedish Folk Party obtained only six. Therefore, the 2024 EP elections in Finland reflected the voters’ dissatisfaction with the government’s policies. This dissatisfaction was evident not only in the decline of the Finns Party but also in the success of the liberal left–green bloc.

The media made sense of these surprising results in several ways. The main explanation for the victory of the Left Alliance was the remarkable success of its leader, Li Andersson, a 37-year-old female politician who had already attracted positive attention during Finland’s presidential elections in early 2024. Andersson has been a popular figure beyond party lines. In the EP elections, she alone received an astonishing 13.5% of the vote, and she brought two other party members to the EP with their relatively modest percentages. The defeat of the Finns Party was explained by their participation in government, especially that of their leader, Purra, who has become a symbol of painful cuts to public spending. Also, the low voter turnout may harm the Finns Party, whose voters are unsure about voting and prefer voting in the parliamentary and local elections – an effect of the Euroscepticism promoted by the party.

The Finns Party did not have previous MEPs as candidates because Laura Huhtasaari moved from the European to the national parliament after the 2023 parliamentary elections. Also, the party did not accept its previous MEP, Teuvo Hakkarainen, as their candidate for 2024 because he had received significant negative attention for being very passive and incompetent. However, Hakkarainen campaigned as an unaffiliated candidate, and he received a significant number of votes, which also diminished the Finns Party’s share. Interestingly, the party’s most-voted candidate and only MEP for 2024–2029 was Sebastian Tynkkynen, who adopted a more provocative stance during the campaign compared to party leaders.

Finns Party voters’ social and demographic characteristics have changed over the years. Initially, the party was supported by blue-collar workers, the unemployed and the disadvantaged. Today, its voters are mostly middle-class individuals and small entrepreneurs. This change has been due to the party’s shift from the left to the right. In recent elections, its voters have come from average socioeconomic backgrounds, with a clear male preponderance (Isotalo et al., 2024). In the 2024 EP elections, the party received votes from all parts of Finland, but it lost its position as the most popular party in the northern and eastern parts of the country to the Centre Party. Traditionally, the latter dominated these provinces, but it lost them to the Finns Party in the 2023 parliamentary elections (YLE, 2024b).

Conclusion

The 2024 EP elections were surprising in Finland. Despite the predictions, there was no victory for the populist radical right. The Finns Party obtained about half of the votes they won in the 2019 EP elections and only a third of those they received in the 2023 parliamentary election. The real winner was the Left Alliance with its leader, Li Andersson. This result revealed the people’s dissatisfaction towards the government and the Finns Party’s leader and finance minister, Riikka Purra, who has become a symbol of strict austerity and cuts to public spending.

However, even though the populist radical right failed, the overall context of the election was populist due to the strong antagonism between the Finns Party and the liberal left–green bloc (Herkman & Palonen, 2024, p. xxx). The Finns Party was backed into a corner due to its role in government, which all the opposition parties challenged. The most successful Finns Party candidate, Sebastian Tynkkynen, represented the provocative and radical faction of the party. Therefore, it seems that populism lives on in the anti-hegemonic challenger, whose approach did not help the Finns Party in the 2024 EP elections. Tynkkynen will join the ECR group in EP and continue critical activity on his social media channels. He announced that he would recruit assistants for social media campaigns during his MEP career to make the Finns Party voters aware of what is going on in the EU (YLE, 2024c).

 

(*) Juha Herkman (PhD) is Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has studied, among other things, the relationship between populism and media, and he has published extensively on the topic in academic articles. Herkman is an author of the book A Cultural Approach to Populism (2022, Routledge) and editor of the book Populism, Twitter and the European Public Sphere: Social Media Communication in the EP Elections 2019 (2024, Palgrave) together with Emilia Palonen. E-mail: juha.herkman@helsinki.fi

 

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Herkman, J., & Palonen, E. (2024). Introduction: European public sphere, populism and Twitter. In J. Herkman & E. Palonen (eds.) Populism, Twitter and the European Public Sphere: Social media communication in the EP elections 2019(pp. xix–xliv). Palgrave. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-41737-5

Herkman, J., Sibinescu, L., & Palonen, E. (2024). Finland: Populist polarisation of the Finnish political communication. In J. Herkman & E. Palonen (eds.) Populism, Twitter and the European Public Sphere: Social media communication in the EP elections 2019 (pp. 85–113). Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41737-5_4

Herkman, J., & Jungar, A-C. (2021). Populism and media and communication studies in the Nordic countries. In E. Skogerbø, Ø. Ihlen, N. Nørgaard Kristensen & L. Nord (eds.) Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries (pp. 241–261). Nordicom. DOI: 10.48335/9789188855299-12

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump and vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance at a rally in Atlanta, GA, on August 3, 2024. Photo: Phil Mistry.

Anticipating the Trump Effect: Strengthening the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Amid Populist Pressures

by ArticlesECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeMigrationPolicy Papers

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Please cite as:
Bottura, Beatrice; O’Keeffe-Johnston, Paris; Gkampeta, Pinelopi; Malai, Ludmila; Lynch, Matt; Park, Joon & Gräf, Leon. (2024). “Anticipating the Trump Effect: Strengthening the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Amid Populist Pressures.” Policy Papers. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 24, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/pop0001

 

This policy paper analyzes the potential effects of the 2024 US presidential election on EU politics, particularly the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. A Trump victory may intensify Euroscepticism and lead to more restrictive migration policies among his European allies. Conversely, a Trump defeat could fuel distrust in electoral processes, potentially triggering events similar to the 2021 Capitol attack. The paper recommends regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) to develop tailored migration strategies, anticipating that either election outcome could increase fragmentation and populist influence within EU member states, though with varying degrees of impact.

Authored by Beatrice Bottura, Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston, Pinelopi Gkampeta, Ludmila Malai, Matt Lynch, Joon Park & Leon Gräf

Edited by Beatrice Bottura & Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston

Executive Summary

As the “Common Implementation Plan” for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum was adopted by the European Commission in June 2024 (European Commission, 2024a), the European and international political landscape was changing. The results of the EU 2024 parliamentary elections revealed a rise of Right-wing populist parties (RPP) on the European scene, a trend which mirrors recent national electoral results (Europe Elects, 2024; Europe Politique, 2024). This right-wing shift is causing a tightening of migration policy across EU countries and affecting the viability of the EU Pact on Migration, with almost half EU countries openly contesting its initiatives and some countries even considering an opt-out, following the Netherlands’ recent opt-out request (Carlson, 2024; Liboreiro, 2024). Simultaneously, former president Donald Trump is running for office once again. 

This policy paper examines how the results of the 2024 presidential election might affect EU politics, especially in regard to the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Though a horizon scanning methodology, the paper found that Trump’s previous presidency coincided with a period of increased Euroscepticism within member countries (Langlois, 2021; Löfflmann, 2019). Additionally, Trump has built strong connections with RPP leaders which, in the past, have become more vocal as Trump gained power (Fusiek & Marconi, 2021). Given Trump’s stance on political elites, supra-national organizations and migration, the paper predicts that:

– in the case of Trump’s victory: Eurosceptic sentiments and restrictive migration policies might increase across the EU, especially among Trump’s European supporters

– in the case of Trump’s loss: events similar to the 2021 Capitol attack might occur (Abramowitz, 2024) which could further distrust in electoral processes both in the US and the EU. This could be leveraged by populist actors, which, to a lesser extent compared to a Trump victory, could still increase fragmentation across EU member states

Finally, given these findings, the paper provides policy options for the European Commission to take into consideration for a successful implementation of the plan. Among these, the paper focuses on the introduction of regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) which are aimed at creating country-tailored implementation strategies for the Pact. In practice, by shedding light onto nation-specific issues when it comes to migration and asylum, these ICRs would allow national leaders to have more control over the actual implementation of the Pact. This should increase the willingness to cooperate of RPPs as it brings together both national sovereignties, an important value to these parties, and European policy.

 

1. Introduction

Migration is one of the most discussed political and security challenges today. Worsening conflicts, natural disasters, and the hopes of better economic opportunities bring people from across the world to migrate to other areas that are deemed more prosperous or can offer something their homeland cannot. The nature of migration is transboundary, often exacerbating geopolitical issues among countries that are expected to share the burden. This can be illustrated by Trump’s abandonment of the EU during the refugee crisis, leaving Europe alone in dealing with the issue (Koppa, 2017). 

As of 2022, there are 46.1 million migrants in the US (Geiger, 2024). Anti-migration and its link to nationalism are core aspects of Trump’s political campaigns and of his past presidency (Löfflmann, 2019). Indeed, during his past campaigns, Trump had made promises for stricter migration policies. Quotes such as “America First” and “Make America Great Again” were commonplace in his speeches and rallies (Lacatus, 2021; Löfflmann, 2022; Magcamit, 2017; Mirza et al., 2021). Unlike other populists, Trump succeeded in passing several anti-migration policies while in office (Table 1).

Europe has also faced difficulties controlling the increasing numbers of its migrant population. According to the International Organization for Migration (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024), there are approximately 87 million migrants living in Europe. In the context of migration crises, which often disproportionately impact EU member states, balancing European cohesion has fragmented the Union. Additionally, in recent years, Western politics has witnessed a trend of a right-wing shift (see Figure 1) and increased support for populist leaders, which exacerbates this fragmentation (Europe Elects, 2024; Europe Politique, 2024).

Trump’s US presidency coincided with a period of EU instability which saw the rise of right-wing populist parties (RPP) in Europe and the significant decision for Britain to leave the EU, with migration a core topic for the Leave campaign (Langlois, 2021; Löfflmann, 2019). Authors such as Fusiek & Marconi (2021) argue that the popularity of a nationalistic populist in the US gave confidence to populist political actors in Europe to become more vocal and gather support. In the face of EU fragmentation, the Union must be prepared for leniency with its Pact on Migration and Asylum if it wishes to maintain cohesion. 

Note: Data sourced from European parliament election 2024, by Europe Elects, 2024 (https://europeelects.eu/ep2024/). Data sourced from Parliament Européen (2019, 2014, 2009, 2004, 1999, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1979), by Europe Politique, 2024.(https://www.europe-politique.eu/parlement-europeen.htm).

This paper delivers policy suggestions for the successful implementation of the Pact, especially in the context of the 2024 US Presidential elections and of its possible repercussions. To do so, the paper briefly delves into the 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, focusing on its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it is perceived by EU member states. Following, the paper conducts a horizon scanning methodology to discuss the possible outcomes of the 2024 US elections and how they could affect international politics and the implementation of the Pact. Finally, the paper provides recommendations to the European Commission to ensure readiness and resilience in the implementation of the Pact in any scenario deriving from the result of the upcoming US elections.

2. The EU and Migration

The EU has faced difficulties in dealing with migration, especially as the issue disproportionately affects certain member states. In dealing with this issue, the EU has developed the EU Pact on Migration, for all EU member states to adhere to.

2.1 The Pact on Migration and Asylum

The 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum establishes a comprehensive and flexible framework that addresses border management, asylum processes, and migrant integration while introducing a mandatory yet adaptable solidarity mechanism (European Commission, 2024b). This framework, as shown in Figure 2, aims to distribute responsibilities more fairly among member states, allowing contributions through relocations, financial support, or alternative measures (Ibid.). However, the Pact faces significant challenges, including bureaucratic complexity, varying political will, and potential conflicts with member states resistant to migration, such as those of the Visegrád Group (V4: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary), which will be discussed in section 2.2 of the paper. 

Note: From Pact on Migration and Asylum, by European Commission, 2024b. (https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/pact-migration-and-asylum_en). Copyright 2024 by the European Union.

A SWOT analysis of the Pact (Figure 3) was made by the authors which found that the resource-intensive nature of the Pact may strain member states’ capacities, particularly amid shifting political priorities. Nonetheless, it offers opportunities for enhanced cooperation, stronger external partnerships, and economic benefits through managed migration. These potential gains are counterbalanced by threats such as geopolitical instability, rising anti-immigration sentiment, legal disputes within the EU, and the risk of migrants resorting to more dangerous routes due to increased border controls. The success of the pact will depend on its ability to navigate these complexities while ensuring the protection of human rights and fair distribution of responsibilities.

Note: Authors’ creation.

2.2 Backlash from Member States

The Pact has received severe backlash from a number of actors within the EU for very different reasons. On the one hand, due to its attempt at regulating and partially restricting immigration, many on the political left view the Pact as giving too many concessions to the far right, and failing to protect fundamental rights (Griera, 2024). For example, the German Left MEP Cornelia Ernst called the pact “a pact of shame and disgrace,” while other MEPs from Left and Green parties considered the Pact to be a model for a fortress of Europe and a victory for the far-right (Ibid.). Many NGOs also criticized the Pact, with Amnesty International attesting a “surge in suffering” for asylum seekers, if the Pact was to enter into effect (Nattrass, 2024). On the other hand, right-wing governments and parties across the EU also greatly criticized the Pact.

However, contrary to the above-mentioned examples, their main concern is that the Pact is not strict enough on immigration regulation and forces every EU member state to contribute and show solidarity, hence overruling national sovereignty (Nattrass, 2024). The Visegrád countries in particular – namely: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary – heavily criticized the Pact and its solidarity mechanisms, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk promising that Poland will “find ways so that even if the migration pact comes into force in a roughly unchanged form, we will protect Poland against the relocation mechanism” (Nattrass, 2024), while the Hungarian government also pledged to find ways to avoid taking in immigrants and called the Pact “another nail in the coffin of the European Union” (Nattrass, 2024). 

In addition to the Visegrád Group, an increasing number of member countries is expressing its discontent with the Pact, a trend tied to the rise of RPPs throughout Europe (Vinocur et al., 2024). In particular, this is manifesting through a push for tighter deportation and border control measures across Europe (Vinocur et al., 2024). 17 countries in the Schengen area – Austria and the Netherlands and endorsed by Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Sweden. Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein – have recently signed an appeal to the EU executive to toughen return policies when asylum applications are rejected as well as increasing European coordination when it comes to deportations (Carlson, 2024; Liboreiro, 2024). Additionally, numerous countries in the Schengen area – i.e. Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden (Dell’Anna, 2024) – are increasing border controls, which hinders the right to freedom of movement. In addition to these general trends, in countries where RPPs are gaining executive positions, the stance on migration policy is toughening even more (Carlson, 2024; Stekić, 2024; Vinocur et al., 2024). Recent examples of this trend – including the extreme example of the Netherlands’ request to opt-out of the Pact – are shown visually in Figure 4 and a full table is available in Appendix A.

Note: Authors’ creation.

This restrictive stance appears also at the European level where, as illustrated in section 1, right-leaning groups have gained more influence (Vinocur et al., 2024). In particular, members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and of the European People’s Party (EPP) support the toughening of deportation mechanisms, the increase of asylum-seeker reception centers outside of the EU, and the funding for extra EU border control (Ibid.). 

In sum, the Migration Pact, which is supposed to offer a compromise, is seen negatively by both sides of the political spectrum for respectively leaning too much into the opposite political spectrum, a trend that has led countries to push for a re-draft of the pact (Vinocur et al., 2024). In this context, the main challenge to the successful implementation of the Pact remains to satisfy parties and voters on the left-wing and pro-immigration side and on the right-wing anti-immigration side concurrently. This challenge will be addressed in section 5 of this policy paper, where policy options and recommendations are provided. 

3. Methodology

Horizon scanning is used by building on early warning signs and predictions based on current events, by analyzing political discourse. Geopolitical issues are increasingly complex and interconnected. With such challenges, the use of horizon scanning is crucial to prepare and inform policymakers and decision-makers about potential opportunities and threats (Amanatidou et al., 2012). There are two core aspects of horizon scanning: alerting and creating. Alerting includes the early identification of emerging issues, whereas the creative aspect refers to the reassembly of current issues into a prediction for what might develop into a policy problem. Current political discourse in Europe has centered around a migration debate and discontent towards failing solutions to handle the issue, simultaneously the US Presidential debate has Donald Trump potentially returning for a second term. 

4. Examinations of Findings: The US 2024 Presidential Elections

As a two-party system, there exists only two possible results of the US Presidential election – a Trump victory, or a Harris victory. Regardless, there shall be a possibility of outcomes in either scenario. Having conducted horizon scanning, there are two possible scenarios that may impact European politics on migration: whether Trump should achieve victory, or whether Trump reacts poorly and encourages disruption in the event of a loss.  

4.1 A Trump Victory

In the event that Trump achieves victory, there are two core aspects that will shape the political landscape around migration. Trump has demonstrated an ability to influence and encourage populists in the EU to be more vocal and gather support, as illustrated in Figure 5 (Fusiek & Marconi, 2021). In this regard, it can be expected that the political landscape in Europe will continue to favor populism during a revival of right-wing shift while Trump would have his second term. A second Trump presidential term would likely embolden European populist leaders such as Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Jarosław Kaczyński, and even populist parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) by validating their nationalist, anti-EU, and illiberal policies (Naughtie, 2024). During his first presidency, Trump openly praised some of these leaders, especially Viktor Orbán, Trump was quoted saying “Let me just say about world leaders, Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men, they call him a strong man” and undermined multilateral bodies, sending a clear signal that illiberal governance and nationalist policies are able to thrive without any significant repercussions from the US (Euractiv, 2024).

Note: Authors’ creation. Purple shows the Visegrád Group countries and yellow shows Western European states.
Politicians who have a direct link or friendship with Trump are highlighted in red.

Trump’s alignment with right-wing ideologies would also likely embolden these leaders to promote policies that further marginalize minority groups, restrict immigration, and consolidate political power by undermining judicial independence and press freedoms. In a second term, Trump’s open disdain for international organizations like NATO and the EU would likely reduce pressure on these populist leaders to adhere to democratic norms (Stekić, 2024). By downplaying concerns over democratic backsliding and encouraging isolationist policies, Trump would create an EU environment where these leaders and parties continue to push their nationalist agendas further, almost completely free from the fear of diplomatic or economic consequences. 

Further issues that may surface from a Trump victory is the implementation of Project 2025: a Republican policy mantra with strict consequences for migration (The Heritage Foundation, n.d.). Core proposals of the project include continued and increased funding of the ‘Border Wall’, the deportation of migrants, and the removal of visa categories for victims of crime and human trafficking (Wendling, 2024). The project calls for the dissemination of the Department of Homeland Security to be replaced with stronger immigration enforcement bodies for stricter border control (Ibid.). Legal migration would also face stricter measures, through increased fees for visa applications (Ibid.). Donald Trump, as a form of populism, has been linked to the Brexit debate and fueling the “politics of anger”, a concept which some believe has contributed to euroscepticism across the Union (Smorag, 2020; Wind, 2017). If Trump were to be re-elected, it could be expected such sentiments may become prevalent in European political discourse again.

Should Trump win and implement Project 2025, the EU could mirror a restrictive stance again. This prediction is increasingly plausible (Vinocur et al., 2024), especially given the latest trends highlighted in section 2b. Overall, Trump’s influence has the power to destabilize democracies through the use of disinformation which causes greater distrust. Trump may prompt RPP leaders and their parties to entrench their power through policies aimed at curbing media freedom, overhauling the judicial system and the rule of law both at the national and supranational level, and even denouncing opposition parties.

4.2 Reactions to A Trump Loss

On the contrary, should Harris be elected as the first woman President, implications will lead to different roads. It is possible that the post-election events of January 2021 – i.e. the Capitol attacks – could have a sequel (Abramowitz, 2024). Many EU leaders took to the media to condemn the attack on the Capitol, denouncing the use of violence in any form of democratic process. Most were outright with their criticism of Trump’s handling of the situation and the consequences of his words. Common responses from RPP leaders and members – i.e. Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, and Victor Orbán- were to include a condemning of violence, protecting democracy, whilst simultaneously illustrating Trump in a positive light, often as a ‘peacemaker’ for his limited calls to avoid violent attacks during the protest, whilst others excused Trump of any wrongdoing (Herszenhorn et al., 2021). Should a similar situation arise, where Trump would instigate a protest after losing the election, it is expected that the previously mentioned EU leaders would follow similar actions as before. In this scenario, European leaders are likely to hold a consensus view that democracy is the forefront of our political system, not to be undermined. Likewise, it is expected that Harris would share the same sentiments for democracy and condemn his final attempt at power.

Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, Europe is undeniably fragmented politically, which significantly impacts the practical implementation of the EU Migration Pact. In recent months, in Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been vocal about its opposition to migration. It further supports a “remigration” implementation (Hockenos, 2024) that has surged in federal elections. In Austria, the Freedom of Austria Party (FPÖ) won in the recent election. The FPÖ is expected to push a hardline stance on immigration and resist EU-level initiatives. The FPÖ will likely join forces with other mainstream populist parties (Cameron & and Goldstein, 2024). 

In addition to the success of far-right parties across Europe, the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to drive a wedge between nations more friendly and dependent on Russia to take a harder line on accepting Ukrainian refugees, let alone migrants from the Middle East or North Africa. Nations such as Greece and Italy continue to deal with the Mediterranean migration crisis, which is expected to continue for years. These existing crises continue to be a launch pad for far-right populist parties’ rhetoric. 

5. Policy Options 

At the time of writing, there was around one month remaining until the 2024 US Presidential election would be held. Three policy options were created for the European Commission to consider for a smooth and coherent implementation of the 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. 

  1. The European Commission must organize a commonly managed and coordinated European asylum system centered around the wellness of human beings: the EU should work on the defense of fundamental human rights, immigrants’ safety and dignity. It is also suggested that the Union ought to use the reservation of migrants as a last resort and try to create other effective solutions, like open reception centers, since prolonged detention results in devastating effects on migrants’ mental health (International Rescue Committee, 2023).
  2. The European Commission should strengthen the resettlement of refugees in the Union Resettlement Framework (URF): this includes timely and just handling of the reception and integration of refugees and immigrants from day one. More specifically, the Union must offer decent reception conditions throughout the EU, such as providing education and healthcare. Moreover, the Union ought to worry about the progress with an organized and transparent mechanism for monitoring the fundamental rights of asylum seekers. 
  3. The European Commission should fund and conduct regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) to track the impact of the Pact on Migration and Asylum at a national level and allow for country-tailored implementation strategies:similar reviews are already conducted by the Commission such as European Semester reports, the Environmental Implementation Review and economic IDRs annually. These reviews would provide a mechanism for member states to detail the impact of migration in areas that are core concerns for countries. Each country review should conclude with action points and priorities at the member state and EU-level. 

Though all three policy options are of equal importance to ensure the successful and coherent implementation of the plan, this paper proceeds to focus on the last policy option as a strong recommendation to the European Commission, in order to ensure preparedness for the ongoing implementation of the Pact in this time of political uncertainty. The reasons and specifics behind this recommendation follow in the next subsection. 

5.1 Recommendations

The recommendation of ICRs within the context of the implementation of the Pact acts as a preventative method which focuses on three areas and values that are important for European RPPs with the aim of ensuring their increased cooperation in the implementation of the Pact. First, the country-specific analyses yielded by the IDRs would allow national leaders to suggest implementation strategies tailored to each nation’s socio-economic needs and capabilities. These tailored solutions will preserve national sovereignty. Second, through these country-specific analyses and implementation strategies, it would be possible to put a specific attention on a proper cultural integration of migrants, ensuring their wellbeing within society whilst preserving national traditions. This possibility could strengthen social cohesion, hence appeasing any anti-immigration sentiments that are likely to be strengthened by Trump’s influence. Finally, IDRs would strengthen national agency and allow for national interests to be at the heart of policy implementation whilst EU’s core objectives and values are upheld.

In particular, to ensure their above-mentioned purpose, we envision ICRs to present key sections as follows. First, an Economic Contributions and Challenges of Migration section of the review would report statistics relating to the economy, workforce and their welfare states. This will allow member states to further detail shortages in the job market where migration of people with work experiences related to the field are required. For example, countries experiencing shortages of agricultural workers, healthcare, or otherwise may request that their migrant quota includes those able to contribute to those sectors. Migration is often talked about as a burden by RPPs, highlighting the skills and benefits migrants can bring to suffering industries should mitigate this issue.

Second, a section dedicated to reporting on Social Dynamics and Community Integration would allow states to report statistics related to socio-cultural data, such as attendance to language courses, educational attendance, and integration into society through work or social programmed. This would address the common concerns of RPP tied to the erasure of national identity and traditions due to immigration. It is hoped that providing member states an avenue to report on socio-cultural impacts of migration will demonstrate an effort to protect national identity whilst promoting integration  

Finally, a section for Impacts Not Otherwise Stated is proposed. This would allow member states to flag any additional issues they are facing in the implementation of the Pact to EU institutions. Such issues could include difficulties in processing of incoming migrants, including manpower, biometrics, and service availability. Overall, this should help with national governance for the Pact.

All ICRs ought to conclude with a plan for the future. Plans should enable co-working between the Commission and Member States to come up with priorities and action points for each stakeholder going forward with the Pact, as similar EU reports conclude with. With this recommendation, member states can agree with the EU on what is most important and applicable to the individual country, rather than having a “one size fits all” method applied to all EU members. 

Due to the politically sensitive nature of migration, the importance of impartiality was noted. It is recommended that the ICRs are conducted independently, with assistance from the Eurostat peer-review team. The EU has six funding pools that it may draw from that can achieve this recommendation feasibly: (1) Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, (2) Internal Security Fund, (3) European Social Fund Plus, (4) European Regional Development Fund, (5) Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, and (6) Emergency Assistance and Other Ad Hoc Funding.

6. Conclusion

At this stage, the result of the American elections is ambiguous. The scenario of Trump’s re-election to power will bring about unfavorable results both at the overall EU level and on the immigration issue, as a Trump presidency would entail significant disruptions in US-EU relations (Frangeul-Alves & Weber, 2024).  Trump’s troubled relations with the EU and his pursuit of isolationism, as well as his apparent apathy towards immigrants and refugees, mean that the former president will once again leave the Union alone on the issue that plagues it. Therefore, the developments in the field of immigration will differ greatly depending on the US election results.

In any case, the EU should not be complacent, regardless of the election result, as the migrant – refugee crisis plagues Brussels. Migration is one of the most important policy issues (Lovato, 2021) and it has turned into a geopolitical issue. Immigration is a labyrinthine for the EU and a complex problem, thus the solution will not be easy, especially given EU member states’ diverse opinions on the matter (Donceel, 2024). 

To conclude, this policy paper delved into the implementation of this Pact, focusing on how it is susceptible to the rise of populism both in Europe and abroad. In particular, after conducting a SWOT analysis of the Pact and providing an overview of how it is perceived across Europe, the paper focused on how the implementation of the Pact could be affected by the results of the upcoming US presidential elections. Based on previous cases, it is expected that in case of victory Trump will incentivize his EU “allies”, such as Hungary’s Orban, Italy’s Meloni, and Slovakia’s Fico (Naughtie, 2024), resist the Pact in the name of national sovereignty and anti-elitism. In the case of Trump’s loss however, the likely scenario is that the former president would encourage them to challenge the election outcomes and attempt to undermine democratic processes. This could deepen the public’s distrust in representative institutions across the US and the EU, ultimately furthering the disengagement from electoral processes (i.e. increasing voter absenteeism).   

The authors of this paper believe that the recommended introduction of periodic in-depth country reviews (ICRs) would serve as a preventative measure in anticipation of Trump influencing RPPs in Europe. Of course, whilst future outcomes are uncertain due to the vivacity of the electoral campaigns in the US as well as worsening international orders, we are confident that as the European Commission sustains the cooperative nature of the Pact across political spectrums – which we recommend doing by ensuring tailored implementation strategies across member states’ government – its implementation will be successful. 

 

(*) This policy paper is based on research conducted by Beatrice Bottura, Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston, Pinelopi Gkampeta, Ludmila Malai, Matt Lynch, Joon Park and Leon Gräf during the ECPS Case Competition “US Foreign Policy and Populism,” held as part of the ECPS Summer School from July 1-5, 2024. 

Authors’ Biographies

Beatrice Bottura is a Sciences Po master student in Public Policy, specializing in Social Policy and Social Innovation, and a Central European University (CEU) graduate in Philosophy Politics and Economics. Her research interests revolve around the crisis of democracy and how it relates to political attitudes and policymaking. She has explored this in her bachelor thesis “Ethnopopulists’ reaction to crises: the case of Fratelli D’Italia”, from which she derived an article for the Horizon Europe project “AuthLIB – Neo-Authoritarianisms in Europe and the Liberal Democratic Response”, which she is involved in as a research assistant. For this project she has worked with CEU’s Democracy institute and Sciences Po’s Centre d’Études Européennes (CEE). Particularly, she conducted discourse analyses for the working paper “Illiberalism and Social Policy: A Four-Country Comparison”, is authoring an upcoming publication on varieties of illiberalism across policy areas with CEU and has coded speech for the CEE’s work measuring “Ideological configurations”. 

Joon Park is a third-year student at George Washington University, pursuing a bachelor’s in international Affairs and Finance with a minor in Economics. Born to Korean immigrants and raised in Germany, her academic focus spans EU economics, German domestic and foreign politics, U.S. foreign policy, and East Asian geopolitical strategy. She is currently researching the rise of right-wing populism in Europe in collaboration with the Center for Faith, Identity, and Globalization in Washington, D.C. Joon’s passion lies in exploring how global political systems and economic dynamics intersect to shape international relations and policy. 

Matthew Lynch is a Master of Science candidate in Global Studies and International Relations at Northeastern University in Boston. He received a Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. With a background in international business, his current research focuses on how populism creates vulnerabilities in EU defense and security, particularly the potential for external actors to exploit these weaknesses. He also researches German foreign and defense policy.

Leon Gräf holds a BA in Political Science and Philosophy, University of Heidelberg, Germany and an MA in Political Science, University of Mannheim, Germany. He is currently working as Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, and as a Research Assistant at the Chair of Empirical Macrosociology at Heidelberg University. Additionally, is has been working as a researcher at the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK) since 2021. His MA thesis focused on mediator characteristics and their effect on ceasefire success across different regions. 

Pinelopi Gkampeta is a graduate student in the Advanced M.Sc. in “European Integration” in Brussels School of Governance (VUB) and she currently lives in Brussels. Furthermore, she has obtained a master’s degree in “International and European Governance and Politics” from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a bachelor’s degree in “Philosophy” from the same university. She has taken part in the Erasmus+ Program “Maritime Security Common Module “by European Security and Defence College and Hellenic Naval Academy. Moreover, she is a research intern in the Institute of International Relations (Athens, Greece) and also an editor and analyst at the Association of International and European Affairs. Pinelopi worked as a research assistant for the Identity and Conflict Lab (Yale University) for some months. Her areas of interest and research are EU as a Global Actor, EU External Relations, EU Security and Defense Policy, Maritime Security and Immigration Policy.

Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston holds an MA in International Relations, Conflict & Security from Northumbria University. Her research focuses primarily on societal security, with an emphasis on digital threats. Her dissertation explored how EU policy documents framed cybersecurity as an existential threat. Currently, her research interests have expanded to include the societal risks posed by AI. This includes how populists may use generative AI to either gather support or create the illusion of widespread backing, as well as to drive disinformation campaigns. By investigating this area, she aims to uncover how algorithms could be leveraged for early detection and mitigation of polarizing content ahead of elections. 

Ludmila Malai is an experienced EU Project Manager at the Intercultural Dialogue Platform, with a diverse academic background in Economics, Administration, Politics, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. She holds a Master’s in International Law and Security Studies from the Free University of Brussels and is fluent in English, French, Russian, Italian, and Romanian. Over the past six years, Ludmila has specialized in writing and coordinating European projects focused on CVE/PVE, radicalization, combating racism, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, the security of places of worship, women’s empowerment, and youth civic engagement.

 

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